Just d/l'ed the latest Dev Build (4.0.237.0) from PortableApps.com, and I'm running it from a network drive (personal Docs folder on LAN only accessible to me) from within the PortableApps folder.
It works great except that every time I close and then reopen, I lose all themes, extensions, passwords, etc. It seems that no settings, including those from the Options dialog, are saved. Going to chrome://extensions/ says no extensions are installed, even though I did install two in a previous session, and they worked fine.
Reading through these forums, I see that this was a bug in the beta test builds, but they say this was fixed. Can this be fixed in the Dev build as well?
Thanks!
Edit 1: It appears that not all profile data is lost...bookmarks, history, and passwords seem to be intact. Just the themes, extensions, and installed userscripts are lost.
Edit 2: So I watched the profile folder (My Documents/PortableApps\GoogleChromePortableDev\Data\profile\Default) when closing GCP-Dev, and it turns out that all is well when GCP is closed. Upon reopening, GCP-Dev is overwriting the Extensions folder and the Preferences file in the above mentioned folder. I checked the contents of these folders before and after closing Chrome (even checked the contents of the Preferences file), and all was well--my settings and extensions were preserved. However, after I reopened GCP, the Preferences file and Extensions folder were reset to the default state. This is extrememly frustrating, but I guess that's what I get for using a Dev build.
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I think I know the problem. The theme-fixer I made expects there to be a drive letter in the current path. It's likely corrupting the Preferences file. From my own tests debugging my Preferences rewriter, this results in the loss of all Preferences and installed extensions, though other profile aspects such as bookmarks and history are intact.
I will fix it for the next build. Until then, you should be able to work around it by assigning a drive letter to the network share and running Google Chrome Portable from there. Let me know if this works around the problem.
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That fixed it, thanks!
I don't know how long it will last, because we have a fairly non-standard Windows network (gov't entity), and the drive mappings are subject to change, but for now it works!
Thanks a million!
For the record, my employer (again, gov't) has forbidden us from plugging ANY USB devices into our computers, so using a thumb drive is a non-issue. And since I don't always use the same computer, I've got my portable apps stored on a network share, accessible only to myself, of course.
Thanks again!
I believe that network drives will break many of the apps we do. They're not intended for use on drives without a drive letter.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Eh, I'll fix it anyway if I can. I was searching for
to find the beginning of the path but I can probably use the quote character around the path or something.
Hmm I wonder if Chrome properly supports running from a network share? I'll have to test that first. If it doesn't I can maybe have the launcher detect and block it.Eh probably does since it was working until my launcher nuked the Preferences file hehe. >_>Signature automatically removed for being too awesome.
To the best of my knowledge, none of our applications with drive letter changing in any form whatsoever will work with UNC paths. I intend to get it put into the PortableApps.com Universal Launcher that it will alert the user that it won't work for them and stop if they try.
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
I'm no networking guy, so I don't speak the language. But I did follow TheMazzter's advice of changing all references to a drive letter, vice the server path (which I'm assuming is what you mean when you say "UNC path"?), and all is well.
Basically, my "My Documents" folder (which is where I keep all of my portable apps, since I often work from different computers) is a network share available only to me. The complete path is: "\\<servername>\<rootfoldername>\<username>".
At login, this is automatically mapped to the Z:\ and named "My Documents", so clicking any reference to my documents automatically opens my <username> folder on the network as "My Documents." Now since it's mapped to the Z:\, I simply changed the file path reference in my Portable Apps Launcher shortcut, and all is well--I guess the Launcher passes the same reference to any apps opened from it? If, however, I open any portable app from a window with the long path, the original problem resurfaces. But if I open a window to my Z:\ manually, and then navigate to and open the GCP from there, all is well.
So the short version is, I just changed the path reference to the PAL to the drive letter version and all is well.
I may have misspoken above--I don't think that the mapping to my <username> folder changes, so this fix should work indefinitely. I hope. So I don't know if putting up a road block like you mention above is the best way to go about things, unless I'm misunderstanding what you want to do. Especially since, even when using a thumb drive (which I can't), drive letters often change.
Thanks again for the help!