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Weird problem with PortableApps.com Installer?

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June 18, 2010 - 3:56pm
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computerfreaker
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Weird problem with PortableApps.com Installer?

The PortableApps.com Installer is doing something pretty weird: every time it gets to 90% or so, it hangs. Here's what I managed to find out:
* Both 2.0.2 and 2.0 hang
* PAI only hangs when building one specific package - Double Commander. I was able to successfully build both Iron Portable and ToDo List Portable, which eliminates a general problem with PAI.
* I'm partially inclined to suspect trouble with Unicode, since Double Commander's appinfo.ini contains a Unicode char; all of my other apps' appinfo.ini files are pure ANSI. However, when I deleted that Unicode char and re-saved appinfo.ini as ANSI, PAI still hung. (Besides, doesn't PAI have Unicode support built in since 2.0?)
* For most of my apps, PAI says "Building installer code..." then "Generating launcher for AppName Portable" a few moments later. For Double Commander, PAI just says "Building installer code..."
* I've tried just about everything to fix the problem. I tried deleting installer.ini, thinking it might be a langfile issue; no luck. I tried converting appinfo.ini back to ANSI; no luck. I tried deleting & re-installing PAI; no luck. Spaces in the path aren't an issue, since I was able to successfully build ToDo List Portable.

I've been monkeying with this for over an hour, and still no luck. I'm going to toss this up and hope somebody else has more luck; in the meantime, I'll keep probing.
My Double Commander package can be found at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3640070/Double%20Commander%20Portable.zip

Thanks!

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June 18, 2010 - 4:36pm
xuesheng
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An easy thing to fix

The problem is the string you are using for DisplayVersion in appinfo.ini:
DisplayVersion=0.4.5.1 (beta)

Remove the ( and ) characters and you should be able to build the installer.

I reported this problem almost a year ago:
https://portableapps.com/node/19414#comment-122226

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June 18, 2010 - 4:46pm
(Reply to #2)
John T. Haller
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Missed that

I missed that in the 2.0.2 build. I'll include it in 2.0.3 probably next weekish. In the future, please post a [Bug] post in the forum. Bug comments on news stories are nearly always missed and never fixed since we have no easy way to track them.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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June 18, 2010 - 7:38pm
(Reply to #3)
xuesheng
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Not a "news story" comment

I don't consider the referenced comment as a "news story" comment. It was posted in the "PortableApps.com Format and Installer 0.91 Comments" topic in the Portable App Development Forum.

The topic starts with the statement "I'm creating this topic to get comments from developers, moderators and others on the updated PortableApps.com Format 0.91 and PortableApps.com Installer 0.91.0. Any discussion and contributions can take place here."

I'll try to remember to use [Bug] in future when reporting what appears to be a bug.

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June 18, 2010 - 9:05pm
(Reply to #4)
John T. Haller
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Quite Right

Quite right, xueshenq. My apologies for stating otherwise. Looks like I just missed taking note of this. I'll have it fixed in 2.0.3.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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June 18, 2010 - 8:47pm
(Reply to #5)
vf2nsr
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Computer freaker

He has it figured CF I downloaded it removed the parenthesis and it created the install. Curious why (beta) instead of development test?

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr. Seuss

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June 19, 2010 - 12:05am
(Reply to #6)
computerfreaker
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beta *and* development test

(beta) because Double Commander itself is a beta, according to its download page. (I realize packaging betas is usually a bad idea, but the last few DC releases have been betas and I'm hesitant to package a much older, albeit "stable" version when the latest beta seems to be working OK.)
I'll be putting the usual Development Test 1 on my portable version.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

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June 19, 2010 - 12:03am
(Reply to #7)
computerfreaker
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Wonderful, thank you!

First, sorry I didn't reply sooner. I got hit by system downtime almost immediately after posting here, and things only got up and running again about 5 minutes ago.

Your solution is great! I just tested it & it works wonderfully. I'll post Double Commander in a few minutes, assuming my system keeps going.

John, I do have a question. Before my system went down, I found that changing the app's language from Multilingual to English would fix the problem, too. Any idea what's up with that?

Thanks for the help, xuesheng!

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

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June 19, 2010 - 12:07am
(Reply to #8)
John T. Haller
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Code

It's the code in the generator. It doesn't handle the replacement properly when multilingual but does when it is English. It doesn't come up much as parenthesis are almost never used in a Display Version.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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June 19, 2010 - 12:09am
(Reply to #9)
computerfreaker
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Oh, OK. That would explain

Oh, OK. That would explain why deleting installer.ini didn't have any effect on the generator's results; it wasn't really a langfile issue at all.

One other question: are there any similar issues we need to be careful of?

Thanks!

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

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June 19, 2010 - 7:10am
Chris Morgan
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Pinpointed, fixed

OK, I've got the cause. ${StrReplace} can't cope with an empty replacement string, as it tries to go on by StrLen replacement characters, which is wise, except for when that is 0, and so it gets in an infinite loop:

	${StrReplace} $INSTALLERFILENAME "(" "" $INSTALLERFILENAME
	${StrReplace} $INSTALLERFILENAME ")" "" $INSTALLERFILENAME

This proved to be only partially correct - it happened when the last character was deleted, see below.

I'll see about fixing this now. I think I'll see how WordFunc.nsh's WordReplace copes with it, if it's OK I'll switch them all over to using that (that way we can also throw away StrRep.nsh completely).

Edit: WordReplace works as expected. Parameter list is a bit different, "${WordReplace} in find replace + out" (literal + sign) rather than "${StrReplace} out find replace in", so I'll go through and replace them all now.

What I am finding really confusing is that it only seems to be triggering this infinite loop with StrRep for ); ( and space (as in AppID generation from full name) isn't dying... I think I'll play round a bit more before I go and update it all.

Another edit: I think I've worked it out, and it is a StrRep bug: deleting the last character of a string causes an infinite loop. Now that I've found what the cause was, I'm happy to switch to WordReplace Smile

Yet Another Edit (The Last One, This Time): OK, patch committed to repository (applied to both stable and development branches). This'll be in 2.0.3 when John releases it.

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

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