V2 Feedback

Really stuffed me up. Downloaded the latest and installed. Looked at one of my Rexx programs - no colourisation. It's there in v11 ok. Ran uninstall - no SPFLite2 and no v11 either. All the stuff under Documents\SPFLite still there. Reran setup and selected the redo migrate option. Nothing. No indication that anything was happening. No icon on task bar. Tried restarting SPFLite2 - cfg file error message. Then the original came back saying migration complete. Stopped and restarted and got this crash report:
SPFLite V(2.0.19350)
SPFLite has encountered an execution exception (C0000005)

Last Interactions were:
Module Back Trace:
01 | PCRE_REGEX_COMPILE
00 | REALPBMAIN

but started OK and colourisation was back.

I may now be a happy bunny.

1) I tried to uninstal with the unistall.exe from SPFLite2 hoping it would clean up just SPFLite2 - it didn't - it cleaned up everything in the Program Files (x86) folder i.e. it deleted the folder. No big deal as I probably would not have gone back to v11. But, probably it should uninstall only SPFLite2 (which would mean a separate uninstaller for v11 and before).
2) Yes I did participate in beta testing. I reckon that all I really had to do was delete the .cfg and, just to be sure to be sure, spflite2.exe.
3) I am getting that PCRE error 9+ times out of 10. I can still use spflite as long as I leave the message window open. I don't think I have anything 'special' about my setup - I am using an hp laptop, Windows 10, textpad open (usually), Open Office open (usually) and a Sticky Note open (always). For further testing I have closed TextPad and restarted SPFLite - same thing. Reinstalled SPFLite2 (by only rerunning the setup.exe) and same thing again. Only one thing to try - cold reboot. Nope - still errors.

nicc: As you seem to get the PCRE error fairly regularly, I could use a favor from you to resolve this as I just can't seem to make it happen.

Can you download SPFLite.Com/Files/SPFLite2Test.zip from the SPFLite website. It contains an SPFLite2Test.EXE program.

Simply copy this EXE to the \Program Files (x86)\SPFLite folder. Make no other changes at all, this will not affect your installed version.

Try this version out - just execute it from Explorer, or create a new desktop shortcut, your preference. Let me know the results. I've reviewed the whole initialization sequence, didn't see an obvious cause, but made some changes based on what you've been seeing. I'm hopeful.

George

Hi George,


Recap: I was attracted to v2 because I was looking to place the SPFLite folder on a NAS and share the content across multiple clients, so all would have access to the latest copies of Macros, Auto colourisation files, Profile INI files, etc.



My experience from v11 to v2 beta to v2.0.19350

• Initial v2 beta installation over v11 and building of the CFG file went well. But the v2 install effectively "lost" the v11 shortcut from my desktop because both use the "SPFLite Editor" filename.

• I upgraded to the second beta version. I don't quite remember if it was here or on a subsequent install, but my previous CFG file was replaced by the standard/empty one. Maybe I picked the wrong install option. I rebuilt the CFG again from the v11 data still in the SPPFLite folder. Call me stupid, but it took several attempts to get this to work. As part of this, I UNINSTALLed v2 and found that v11 died with it - I echo member nicc's experience. 

• I copied the client's SPFLITE folder to a shared drive on my NAS and installed v2 on a second client previously on v11.
  

• I changed both clients via the OPTIONS dialog, specifying the shared SPFLite folder on both the "General" and "Config tabs".  I tested both clients, first one at time, then with both simultaneously in sessions, editing different files, etc and everything seemed(!) to be working fine.

• I upgraded both clients to the "non-beta" v2.0.19350 (taking extra care over the CFG file this time!). All seemed to be fine, but then the ABENDs began. 

C00005 Access Violation

• I saw many apparently random C000005 ABENDs. Sometimes v2 would restart after a failure, but mostly the CFG was corrupted and a restart just failed with C00005 immediately.
• The crash-file trace usually placed the "in-flight" failure in RESETFUNC. The fail on restart was always in INITLOCALTABLES.
• I tried many scenarios but failed to find a common cause, UNTIL a Eureka! moment occurred to me.

After the initial testing period for "v2 in a shared location", I had ticked "Always available offline" in the properties of the SPFLITE folder on the NAS drive. The idea was to have the SPFLITE folder available when I'm away from home with my laptop. Windows Sync Centre will maintain a local copy of the SPFLite folder on each client. However, the synchronisation is driven by time schedule and I believe the periodic complete replacement of the NAS-based CFG file with a copy from a different client lead to a corrupt CFG file. Since removing the "offline sync" property, both clients appear(!) to behave themselves again.


Observations / Suggestions

• Installation procedure should give a different name to the v2 desktop shortcut to allow co-existence with the v11 shortcut. 
  
  

• Preceded by the advice in the version change dialog on initial v2 install, the descriptions for the options to build the initial CFG file seem OK'ish. On v2 re-install, the descriptions could be clearer to state which option keeps the existing CFG, which option rebuilds the CFG from the v11 files and which option gives me an "empty" CFG. 

• I think(!) that if the v2 installer finds a CFG file in the C:\users\<name>\Documents\SPFLite folder, it obtains the path for the new CFG file from it, BEFORE it presents the options dialog. So when I requested a rebuild of the CFG file from v11 data, it did not rebuild the CFG file within C:\users\<name>\Documents\SPFLite, but the one in the shared folder where the original CFG file pointed. This is undesirable when my choice implied that I was unhappy with the existing CFG file.  

• I echo member nicc's point that an UNINSTALL for either v11 or v2 will delete both products from "Program Files". What if somebody has successfully upgraded to v2 and UNINSTALLs v11 from Control Panel - Programs and Features? Either v2 should have its own "Program Files" subfolder, or you could consider releasing one last v11 version which is unchanged except for the uninstall file so that it leaves v2 untouched and update the v2 uninstall file so it leaves v11 in tact.
  

Stefan: OK, first decision made. Hindsight says I should have gone this route from the start.

SPFLite2 will install completely separate from the old V11- versions. This will create separate Icons etc. and a new \Program Files (x86)\SPFLite2 folder.

I'm torn on whether the Data folder can remain \Documents\SPFLite or whether I should copy the old to a new \Documents\SPFLite2 folder. V2 allows you to move/rename it anyway, so my preference is for the install to just 'leave it alone'.

Comments?

George

Stefan: I've never used the Windows Sync Center (never had a need) so did some browsing. Found it quite confusing, everything is geared to the "How to setup Sync'ing" and nothing about actual use.

How does it work offline? Does it simulate your network drive? i.e. if online it's drive X: does it still appear as drive X: when offline?

And Sync'ing? I assume there must be some conflict resolution if several client systems update a file offline and then later go back online. This kind of thing gives me the 'willies', it seems to introduce way too many points of conflict/failure.

Regardless of all that, the CFG file is just a standard SQLite DB, with almost nil referencing between tables. I'm hard pressed to see how Sync'ing could corrupt it. But then I'm not exactly 'up' on how SQLite maintains integrity in shared usage.

But your results show a serious problem. When I Google SQLite and offline Sync, there seems to be a lot of items mentioning additional tools to support this. Obviously there's more to this than first appearances.

George

Stefan:
This point:

• I think(!) that if the v2 installer finds a CFG file in the C:\users\<name>\Documents\SPFLite folder, it obtains the path for the new CFG file from it, BEFORE it presents the options dialog. So when I requested a rebuild of the CFG file from v11 data, it did not rebuild the CFG file within C:\users\<name>\Documents\SPFLite, but the one in the shared folder where the original CFG file pointed. This is undesirable when my choice implied that I was unhappy with the existing CFG file.

is confusing me.  The option to start new / re-migrate / bail out is only provided if a CFG file cannot be located.  Your point starts out saying it gets the folder location from the CFG file before the option is presented.  But the CFG file does not exist.

Help me out here.

George