I use PortableApps on my hard drive because I like the cleanliness and maintenance. Today the launcher offered to upgrade a few apps, including Notepad++Portable, and I let it do so. The next time I tried opening a file with N++ and it got stuck - I could see the program window and the file I tried to open (and a couple other files that had been open before), but on top of that was a never-ending splash screen. I forcefully closed it, tried running it again, and it said it needed to clean up and then I could open it again. Okay, fine, but when I opened it the next time, it got stuck again (this time with no files visible, nor even the menu bar - definitely not fully running).
Behind the splash screen will be a Windows 7 dialog saying that it is shutting down N++, and after about a minute its text changes to something like this (rough translation from Japanese Windows):
Operation of Notepad++... has been terminated.
Due to an error, the program did not run properly. The program will be closed, and if there is a solution method, you will be notified by Windows.
After several tries at opening it different ways (without the launcher, etc.), I renamed the directory and let PortableApps install N++ again from scratch. To my surprise, it still had the same problem! A Windows reboot didn't help, either.
Is the newest version of Notepad++Portable messed up in some way? Or did I do something that even a reinstall won't fix? If it was a non-portable installation I would suspect some sort of registry hiccup, but...
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on BlueSky
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on Twitter
With Notepad++ closed, try deleting the Notepad++Portable\Data directory (which will reset your settings entirely) and delete the Notepad++Portable\App\DefaultData\Config\plugins\Config\Hunspell directory. This should remove the spell check dictionary.
Notepad++ added a new spell checker in the most recent release. It may not play nicely with Japanese Windows.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I did what you said in two stages - first the Hunspell directory (and I also removed the two .ini files that seemed related to the spell checker), and then the Data directory (which was still the default anyway, since it is a fresh installation). The error still occurs.
I noticed that the behavior is slightly different between using the launcher and just double-clicking the .exe file. Without the launcher:
the splash screen only appears for a couple of seconds instead of staying on top of the error dialog, and (b) the time between the first message (shutting down...) and the second (shut down) is much quicker. I don't know if that is meaningful info or just trivia.
Could you try the Notepad++ zip file from the publisher directly, please? This sounds like a base app issue.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Okay, I'm not sure what "the publisher" and "a base app issue" mean exactly, but I did this:
I got the same behavior as when using the launcher on the first two installations - perpetual splash screen on top of the Windows error dialog.
On subsequent attempts, though, the splash screen went away on its own, whether starting it by double-clicking the .exe or by using the launcher. But I still can't avoid the error. I also tried removing the spell checker and data directory from the newest install, to no avail.
We don't make Notepad++, we repackage it for use in PA.c Format. Your issue sounds like an issue with the app itself, not our packaging of it, which would be outside of our control and should be reported to the publisher.
One way to check is to try the base app, aka without our packaging. You can download the standard Notepad++ 6.3.3 zip file and test that to determine where the issue lies.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks for the link to a plain vanilla N++. I didn't realize that I could just put the files somewhere - I assumed that the non-PA flavor would have to involve a "real" installation with the registry and such. Anyway, it had the same error (sans splash screen), so there is definitely a problem with the code, or compatibility with my PC. Hmph! Examining the URL of the file you linked, I dug around and found the previous version, 6.3.2 - it works fine.
So what should I do now? If I change settings in that "installation" (just files in a semi-random directory), I don't know where will those settings be stored - I'm accustomed to the structure of Portable Apps.
Or if you know where I can find the PA flavor of 6.3.2, I could install that in the PA structure and then just decline the launcher's offer to upgrade it until the problem is fixed. Then I could probably just use the settings folder I had before this all went south.
right here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Notepad%2B%2B%20Porta...
try this
http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Notepad%2B%2B%20Porta...
but make sure you report the bug to the notepad++ dev(s) so they can fix it.
Thanks to both of you for the link to the 6.3.2 file - it works great.
Do you know how I can report the bug? There is no Contact Us form or contact info on http://notepad-plus-plus.org, and their suggestion of how to report a bug takes me to SourceForge, where I can view tickets but can't create one (presumably more options would open up to me if I created a SourceForge developer account, but that seems excessive). How do common users report bugs on open source projects?
SourceForge accounts are for both users and developers. You can use Google, Yahoo, AOL, OpenID, WordPress, Blogger and other accounts to create one quickly. That will allow you to create a new ticket for Notepad++. Most projects don't allow anonymous submissions as you wind up getting tons of spam.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
In the case of Notepad++, you need to log in to SourceForge, which you can do with an openid account, a provider of which you may already have an account with: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/OpenID
[blushing with red face] When I started to register a SourceForge account, I discovered that I had already made one years ago (I probably only used it once). I have now reported the bug: http://sourceforge.net/p/notepad-plus/bugs/4315/
FYI: I tested it on other computers, and it only crashes on Japanese Windows 7 (I tested it on two such machines). It works on a visiting friend's English Windows 7 and on my old Japanese Windows XP computer.
Thanks, everyone, for your help!
FYI if you get someone else with this problem: It was indeed the spellchecker, but what needs to be removed is not the dictionary, but the DSpellCheck.dll file in the plugins directory. Deleting that file allowed 6.3.3 to run on my Japanese machine.
Could you check if crash is still happening with dll version I posted in sourceforge bug tracker? That's really important) Thanks in advance!
Yup, that DLL works. So if someone is reading this thread because you are having the same problem, the fix exists (or you can just delete the spellchecker DLL if you don't need it).
Is there a way to get an older version of the app? I looked around the PortableApps website but couldn't find anything. On Sourceforge I found source code, but not compiled.
link
Yes, I set the working directory!
Yup, I had already gotten it right after I wrote the comment you responded to (follow the longer sub-thread in the discussion and note the timestamps). I wanted to then delete the extra comment, but there isn't a way to delete comments in this forum - you can only edit them...