Moderator Note: This topic is outdated. The PortableApps.com Platform gained the ability to automatically close apps in 2014. Details on how to enable this feature, how to avoid the error message, and how it will be addressed further in the future are included on this support page: https://portableapps.com/support/portable_app#didnotcloseproperly
..will now clean up. Please then start [...] again manually."
This is the message I get after restarting my PC and opening some apps. I know the problem is that I let Windows (Windows 7 btw) close the apps when I shut down my computer and it doesn't occur if I close the apps manually before the shutdown. But this isn't very cool because I often have 4 or 5 apps open.
I used the search function; couldn't find any suitable thread for my problem.
Do you know any solving for this or some workaround? Maybe some software that closes everything properly before the shutdown of windows.
I can't see the point in starting it again manually after the cleanup. I want to write some script later that autostarts my apps on windowsstartup, but this message would really be a trouble for the script.
Thanks a lot and kind regards
rinolt
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Currently no way to stop this happening, but John has stated that a release some time in the near future will detect Windows shutdown and close apps appropriately.
Regarding the autostart on Windows startup, if you are running the platform from a local install, you can have the platform start with Windows, and within the platform, if you right click an app, you can set it to run automatically on platform startup, giving you the effect you are after.
We're going to have the platform detect a windows shutdown and close itself properly. We're also going to enable the platform to properly close its own apps. But if you have multiple apps running and tell windows to shutdown, whether local or portable, it will essentially crash all the apps that are not shutdown aware.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Ok, thanks for the reply.
Is there any workaround? Maybe some software like the DShutdown Portable with the ability to close all programms properly?
Kind regards
rino
Like I said, the platform will be able to shutdown all portable apps. You just have to close it first once we add this feature. Apps themselves either properly respond to requests to close and do or sit there and windows itself kills them. For apps that don't have the ability to be closed externally, no additional utility can fix that.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Any news on this? Its really annoying always having to twice start a portable App because at first time it gives this error message. (speaking of Opera Portable)
Until the functionality is baked in, close your apps. If you don't, you're crashing some of them and likely losing data. You should do the same with local Windows apps as well as many apps don't close properly on Windows shutdown (most browsers, for instance) though they won't let you know about this on next start.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Instead of notifying the user that the app must be restarted, can PAM do the restart and then notify the user that it was done?
It amazes me that on the internet you can be anything you want, and yet so many people still choose to be idiots.
We need to let the user know they did a bad thing. And the point is that you should never do it again after seeing that message. We don't want to make it easier for a user to do bad things and lose data.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
The point of computing isn't to tell users what they cannot do.
You will find that the vast majority of computer users will shut down their computer without closing every application they have open, especially ones that are only shown in the task bar (do you sign out of Skype before shutting down your computer for instance?)
Forcing the user to do things in your specific fashion is not good usability.
As you have stated, you should catch the shutdown event and the launchers should do their clearing up then. However, a very, very simple alternative to this is to not show the error message "[...] did not close properly ..." and to just do the clearing up and then start the application as per usual. Maybe you explain to the user that this is not the optimal way to run their computer but that is up to them; it is their choice and you shouldn't stop them from doing things their way.
I hope you get around to putting a "fix" in for this, even if it is just a toggle button somewhere that says "Warn me when the application is not closed properly".
Unfortunately you sometimes have to look from the negative point of view as a software designer.
Users would be much more put off if they were to run the app and shutdown without properly closing it, and lose data in doing so without being warned. Instead of "I'm annoyed you are telling me I am doing something wrong" you would get "I'm absolutely furious I lost data by doing something I didn't know was wrong when you should have warned me".
Which is why I suggested a option that says "Warn me when the application is not closed properly". It allows the user to choose what they want instead of forcing them one way or the other.
This is partially because we are doing a PAL update to switch it from an INI file to a mutex. Developer speak for runtime only non-persistent. The bad thing is, we'll then have no way to warn users. Of course, as those users gradually lose data, have apps that suddenly won't start and corrupt their drives, they'll likely figure it out for themselves.
We'll likely add a warning that you can't turn off to the platform warning of an unsafe eject on previous run and why you should never, ever unsafe eject. Possibly follow it with a scan for errors.
We will at some point add in code to automatically shutdown apps and the platform on Windows shutdown, but it is not complete yet. Unless you are volunteering to assist with that and know Delphi.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
mutex != "runtime only non-persistent"
mutex is mutual exclusion and means something else entirely.
Also (and VERY important) is that you just claimed that if a user doesn't use the application the way you want them to, it will start "corrupting their drives" and you won't even warn them!!! Most viruses do less damage than that.
I haven't programmed in Delphi before but it shouldn't be too hard to learn. It is obvious that this project needs some love and attention, but I will have to consider whether I can fit it in with my other current projects.
Unsafely ejecting a drive, the most common reason for an app to yield the 'not closed correctly' message can corrupt any drive and is just about the worst thing you can do if you use portable software. Unsafely ejecting a drive while apps are running will corrupt data in those apps.
Windows shutdown doesn't even close local apps correctly and many apps will lose some data if you don't close them first. I've had this happen even with local apps like Firefox. And any apps Windows can't close (apps that don't hook into the OS to monitor for a Windows shutdown), Windows just full-on crashes so you lose data. You should close your apps first.
As already explained, an upcoming version of the platform will support automatically shutting down apps in PA.c Format and attempting to shut down others without force-closing them and losing data.
The mutex I am referring to is a system-wide mutex that operates in memory within Windows. It is runtime only and non-persistent. That's how the next version of the launcher tracks to ensure multiple copies are running, rather than the INI runtime file.
Now please stop with the irrational indignation and insults. I'm not sure where you are even getting assumptions about our software corrupting drives or it not being customizable (especially when customization isn't even a part of this discussion). You've been a member here for 11 hours. Relax.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I did not assume your software corrupts drives. You stated:
And it is not an assumption to state that the software lacks user customisation.
However, I can see that un-safe ejection of a drive is large problem and the user must be made aware of this. My complaint is that you obviously have a clean-up procedure (the error message says as much) yet you make a user start the application up twice in order to invoke it and there is no way to disable the error message.
I apologise that my tone has not been very gentle and for such a small piece of functionality as this it really seems not worth it. I just like software to be completly polished clean, especially in regards to user interaction. You guys are doing a great job, keep it up.
The user loses data due to unsafe ejections and apps crashing. And corrupts their drive due to unsafe ejects (which also corrupts app data). It's nothing to do with the software.
We have no actual cleanup procedure, just a detection that things went very wrong the last time you ran it and the app was crashed. This was due to either pulling the drive without closing software, letting Windows go to sleep (which is much the same thing), shutting down Windows without closing apps, or using a 3rd party eject utility that force-closes apps (akin to purposely crashing them and a horrible idea).
The user message can't be disabled because it shouldn't be. It's telling you that you did something you should never ever do in the hopes that you don't do it again. A responsible software engineer should never make it easy for a user to intentionally damage their own data.
The PortableApps.com Launcher is quite polished and clean, provided you use apps responsibly. Just the mutex change requires a bit of work as it's nearly 7,000 lines of code to create this launcher that can portablize hundreds of apps without the need to write code. The PortableApps.com Platform will shortly have the ability to detect a Windows shutdown and attempt to get all portable apps from different vendors to either close safely or let you know which ones you need to manually close (and there will be some due to unsaved files or just base apps that don't understand Windows shutdown or being asked to close by an external file). Sure, we could just hide all of this and let the user think things are ok so they aren't annoyed with messages, but that's not the way we work. A user's data, privacy and safety come first.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I believe that users "should" have an option to disable those messages.
I have 1-2 misbehaving apps, namely uTorrent and 2X Client, those can't seem to handle proper termination. I use those almost daily and when I'm turning off the PC, I have to manually turn off uTorrent at least 20seconds before shutdown. With 2X Client its even worse.
These apps don't have anything sensitive inside. Right now, as my morning routine, I'm closing two warning dialog boxes these apps create on start, and starting them after that again...
No one is "Forcing" the user to do anything. If a user doesn't like how PortableApps work they are FREE to use something else. If a user doesn't like how WIndows works they are FREE to use Linux. If a user doesn't like how pcs work they are FREE to use a MAC. Or a user may decide that reading a book is a better choice.
Ed
Congratulations on a successful application of reductio ad absurdum.
My point was only to bring up the fact that this launcher and platform allows for little customisation. So if we want to use this platform we have to stick the decisions the developers made for us.
From the perspective of an ordinary user.... Nothing is keeping you here. If you feel that strongly about the project, then either help or use the door. Anything else detracts from the actual work being performed.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Good grief!! If the error msg is really annoying why don't you manually close the apps before shutting down? Any time you save not doing it is lost when you restart. Clicking on 4 or 5 Xs isn't that big a deal IMO.
Ed
I always close all my apps before shutting down Windows. But I get this error message every time I boot up the computer and open Opera. If I close Opera without shutting down the computer, and then open Opera again, I don't get the message. It's only after a Windows shut down, but I DO always close the program before I shut down Windows.
I'm using Windows 7 on an HP Thin Client configured by an overworked, understaffed IT department that is still struggling to figure these computer substitutes out. I run it from a network server on which we all have private storage, rather than a flash drive.
If the error isn't actually indicating a problem, and is just symptomatic of this weird setup, I can live with it (believe me, "I can live with it" is our motto ever since we switched to the clients). But if it's going to corrupt the program over time or anything, I'd appreciate suggestions for how to work around it or whatever.
Thanks!
Some apps take a while (up to a few minutes) to clean up after you have closed them. So I would suggest try closing Opera a couple of minutes before you shut the computer down.
You're right that it's taking time to close, but I waited a couple of minutes for it today, and it wouldn't disappear from Task Manager. I finally killed the process before closing down the computer.
What's odd is that it doesn't take long to clean up when I shut it down midday - I can open it back up within seconds. Something is happening differently at the end of the day, and I just don't know what that might be.
Is there disk or CPU activity from Opera while it's happening?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
stuff that you don't access or use until the day moves on clogging up the ram?
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
I don't use installable apps at all. I have three computer that I use during the week, and they all have the same folder with portable apps, which I manually synce between them from time to time.
This concept of running portable apps from HDD without installing them really speeds up clean Windows installs and save a ot of time to transferring settings dutring upgrades as well as backups.
I also was using uTOrrent portable starting with one of my machines, which is a displayless server I rarely login to. After I found out that uTorrent was not transferring anything for a month, I logged onto the machine to see the "clean up and close" window. I switched to qBittorent portable with the same result.
For now, I have to use uTorrent non-portable, which is a pain.
Could we have a fix or that, or why can't it just restart the app itself without user interaction? Or at least have an option to disable that check.
I second this opinion, I have a very similar setup, some expert .ini setting, which will bypass a need to confirm "not closed properly" warning for this or that misbehaving app would be great.
The error is there because the app was crashed the last time you used it. The easy fix is not to crash it. Close it before your shutdown Windows or logoff.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
What if the machine looses power while the app is running? Would that count as the app not closed when the machine reboots?
Ed
That also crashes every app you're running.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Well, here's hoping there's not many unmanned servers running PortableApps on the East coast because they are apparently all going to require manual efforts to get back up once the power comes back on.
Ed
I really don't see any purpose to start again manually the application each time
If someone wants to see(know) if last time the portable app has closed properly (which is important to know), developers can make a solution like:
- PortableApp will start automatically the application (which has not closed properly)
-and it will show a message-box which writes "bla bla... has not closed properly... bla bla.."
-this message-box will close automatically after 4-5 seconds
-this meesage-box should have an "OK" button to close it quickly by mouse
-this meesage-box should be enabled to close with ESC button to close it quickly from keyboard.
Also additional(if you want) you can make a very simple log system, which saves this warning on the portableapp directory or somewhere...
This is not important for portableapps user who use from USB drive, but it is too much important for user who use portableapps on local computer(like me).
The solution is simple. Just stop crashing your apps. Close them properly. Then you'll never see the message again. You only see the message when you crash them, which is VERY bad and you should NEVER, EVER do. So, it should be an inconvenience to the end user and it should interrupt their workflow to let them know that something very bad happened and they should avoid ever doing it again.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I try it now... I kill the task from task manager for many portablesapss. and I open them again, they did not show me any message? What is happening?! I remember that always I see that meesage, if the app did not close properly... Did you change something? Or am I missing something?
Are you saying I shouldn't use portableapps at all if I don't want my workflow inconvenienced?
Read the entire thread, I think you missed a point. This doesn't pertain only to Portable Apps.
What's been said is you shouldn't use a USB stick if you don't know how to Safely Remove it. And based on comments posted on many forums many don't.
lol
Ed
Ed_P, this is concerning closing applications before force shutting off the computer, probably with the power button(which is bad itself).
Please read all messages... You misundertand a point..
I have put a shourcut of portable-Ditto on my startup applications. It start when I log on. Ditto is always running. But when I close the system, It is really funny to close manually Ditto. Because Ditto is a background app and it is (developed to be) ready to close by killing it. No one in the earth does not close it manually before shut down the system
I think that you write, is not valid for all applications (but the most).
in such case I am not sure what is the aim of that.
Portable Apps do provide a program which can be run from some external media with minimum changes to the local system as possible.
Such portable programs do write temporary things in some places and need to clear them at the end and there for they need to be closed.
If someone does not want all the changes to the system made by a portable app to be cleared at the end or does not care if this and that was written to the local system and will now remain there, then why not install the normal desktop version of that program?
Sorry, but to use portable program but wanting to leave all it did write temporary to the local drive in place is somehow funny for me.
Why do you not install the normal version then?
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
I have a number of portable apps that I run from the local drive. In these cases I don't use the "portable" aspect of the software. But I benefit from having the app installed to one folder with all it's settings. This way I can easily and quickly replicate my environment on a clean install. And in the event that I do want to make one of the apps truly portable by using them on a USB key. Then I only need to copy the relevant apps to the key and I am done.
It amazes me that on the internet you can be anything you want, and yet so many people still choose to be idiots.
> But I benefit from having the app installed to one folder with all it's settings. This way I can easily and quickly replicate my environment on a clean install.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
There are many users who use locally the PortableApps Platform (not just me).
We all know how much better is to use an app portable (if it is possible).
I can not understand why you (and some others) still think that portableapps is not recommended to use locally.
Theoretically I benefit from having the apps installed on my computer but practically it is better for me. You know why... But I will write anyway:
1- Windows slow down for each apps I have installed on the machine. I use 60-70 app portable now. I can not imagine if I have installed all of them.
2- windows is less secure for each app that have installed on the machine.
3- It is very easy to remove and look what is going on on the profile files of each app (I am talking about "/Data" folder) . It is very easy to reset all settings of each app we want easily.
4- Windows (can) lost it's stability after each app installed on system. Everybody knows how bad windows works
5- Some apps does not update themselves automatically. But each app on the portable app update itself.
6- After format windows, I do not need to install all my 60-70 apps by downloading from their official site one by one. I am using all of them directly after format the Windows. As you write: we don't format every day our computers. But you can not know when you will need to format it. Sometimes you need format because of viruses or ... Sometimes we are busy to installing all these apps..
I can write many many other reasons...
Except those I write above, actually I don't benefit anything even theoretically even practically. Why? Because we are free to install or use the app portable any app. So each of us can decide if he needs a program to be installed or not. So If I need the GoogleChrome's "make my default browser" function, I will install GoogleChrome on my system. But if don't need this function, I can use it portable version until I need this function. It is too simple
For now, for all my 60-70 apps I don't need any function like that.
I have put my portable apps on a different part of my computer (D:\). Windows is installed on C:\ and I have my personal data files on F:\. I am using JUST portable apps (except an antivirus, adobe flash, MS office) on my 3 machine at house with 3 end users. With same way, also on my 2 office machines (except my company's apps) and 3 other of my friend on their house. Since (about) 1 and half year. We don't have any problem.
Please don't write me something like: why you use locally portable apps...
One example, out of hundreds: Synchronization across computers, you only have one computer and that's fine, but you know how annoying it is to replicate the changes in one computer to another 3? With portableapps i put the folder in C:\ or inside the skydrive folder and i can have the same apps with the same settings in all three computers by only changing one.
Another example, easier to backup, all the setting files are contained in one folder, whereas installed applications like to spread their crap around in appdata/local, or roaming, and in programdata, and in the windows registry. Thats three places to look for when backing up an application that has no portability. Not everybody conforms to one standard, thus it makes it a pain to backup a group of applications. And if trying to replicate changes in other computers, this is just an incredible waste of time. Here is where its ok to blame the OS for using such an archaic system and no standards to store applications.
This problem of cleanup also concerns applications that are set to start with windows, the portable executable remains in the background (which it must) until the application is closed and then does the cleanup (depends on the app, RBTray does not keep its portable exe running). But as stated many times, the portable created exe (AppnamePortable) has no way of knowing when windows is shutting down, which it should, however, it's pretty lame and unprofessional to blame the user, or the OS. Obviously, this project was created to only be used on USB drives, since everybody always mention that the apps have to deal with letter changes, and to never run applications that require cleanup at startup, alienating these apps as much as possible from the system. The users don't know that such is the true purpose of this project, they are operating it fine and the OS is perfectly fine. Its portableapps that does not fit that usage and users do not know it, thus they complain, and its astonishing how poorly they are managed and instead of properly explaining, defendants resort to blaming and telling users to stop using it if they don't like it.
I would say, let John T Haller handle his project, the others without experience in dealing with people should stop posting, instead of damaging the image of portableapps with "we are a group of grumpy nerds with no people skills".
Hopefully, the upcoming hook to the windows shutdown event (which does exist) is placed on the portable executable and not the "portableapps" platform. Not everybody has the platform always open, only opening it to update all the apps. Unless, its a separate smaller thread that is allowed to run on startup (set under options of the platform for example).
Picpick and FDM are two example of applications that can't be set to start with windows. FDM shows the pop up window after restart, apparently because windows kills the portable exe during shutdown since it does not close by itself, but settings remain intact. Picpick is worse because it resets all the settings to default, or at least it did when i tried, i just ended getting the picpick original installer (non portableapps) and extracting all the files, i got a nice portable application that does not reset during shutdown and stores settings in its own folder.
Good speaking. Except one point.
In addition to John's inventiveness and guidance this project has always lived from its community. And the forum is where its different oppinions have their place. I obviously do disagree with some of them as does almost anybody else more or less. But the forums have always been a place for fruitful discussions and controverse opinions. If you don't agree to someone - argue (like you did very successful).
Oh - and btw., commonly forums are a place where among others you will find "some grumpy nerds with no people skills". I think I ran across some at least once this week, but they didn't manage to scare me away...
I've just installed utorrent portable, and arrived at this thread because I'm getting the same error. 18 months after the original post you're still telling people that shutting windows down normally is bad practice?
I've got utorrent running at windows startup so that I can be seeding whenever I'm logged on. At the end of the day I shut down windows normally, and it shuts down all the programs that are open at that time, including utorrent-portable .
The next time I log on I get the error message. How is closing down the PC normally 'Crashing my apps'? Every single other windows app closes down gracefuly on a system shoutdown. Why is this one different?
I'm not moaning and I do appreciate the work of both the utorrent and portable apps developers - but I really would like to understand why this program combination cannot meet the shutdown standards that all other developers work to.
Starting portable apps with Windows is ok if you start the Laucnher (uTorrentPortable.exe) and not the actual utorrent.exe.
Shutting down the PC without properly ending the portable apps IS crashing them due to the way windows works. It doesnt matter if you run local ot portable apps, you crash them once you shut Windows down without ending them first properly.
Local apps might not display an error message due to the way they are coded, but portable apps have to be able to clean up after themselves so they need some more time to do this.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
"Shutting down the PC without properly ending the portable apps IS crashing them due to the way windows works. It doesnt matter if you run local ot portable apps, you crash them once you shut Windows down without ending them first properly."
Sorry, but IMO that is some serious misinformation. Windows does not crash apps. In a proper shutdown windows sends a shutdown message to all open applications. Windows will only kill an app if the app doesn't respond in a timely manner.
I think it more accurate to say a windows shutdown results in an abnormal shutdown of portable apps. The launcher isn't given a chance to clean up after the associated app - probably because the launchers themselves are responding properly to the shutdown message - a shutdown message that is incompatible with the launcher's intended responsibility to do cleanup. I doubt there is anything that can be done about it. Users just have to accept that they need to shut down portable apps manually before shutting down windows.
In Windows Vista and up, applications have 1 second to respond to WM_QUERYENDSESSION from Windows. If they fail to respond, they are forcibly killed (aka crashed). Applications without visible Windows, like processes monitoring other processes like portable launchers, are given 5 seconds to respond to a WM_ENDSESSION and then forcibly killed (aka crashed). I think these windows were shortened further in Windows 7 and 8 as well to speed shutdown time. This is why even local apps like Firefox, if they are running at the time you tell Windows 7/8 to shutdown, will sometimes be force closed and show the improper shutdown warning when you next launch them.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
allow for more time for applications to respond to WM_QUERYENDSESSION and WM_ENDSESSION......
....but it would be a last resort and i would never recommend a windows user to use it without proper research and guidance
i have made a few registry tweaks to my system and always make a back-up of the registry in case of an error or a problem
A word of advice always do plenty of research before attempting a registry tweak because one wrong change and it could kill the system
i'm not wierd, i'm just different
In order to run uTorrent "locally" and shut down your PC any way you wish:
Put all the settings files in the same folder as utorrent.exe and uTorrent will simply load those and not look for settings elsewhere. Works on USB also. No portable app necessary. Problem solved.
I did not understand anything. I think you have not understand the problem exactly.
If you have the utorrent.exe in a folder together with its settings files (settings.dat, resume.dat etc.) and if you then run uTorrent from there, it will use these settings files and not create any in the user appdata folder. So, it will run with that configuration no matter where it's located on your computer. You could run it from a USB stick like that on another computer, without needing uTorrentPortable.
Isn't that what you mean by "running locally"?
The uTorrent Portable launcher already does that for you, it also updates directories within those files, and ensures the settings files are saved in the standard location we save data files to, rather than in the same directory as utorrent.exe, as well as deals with registry keys for you.
While you suggestion may allow you to shut down your pc however you wish, it does not comply with the PortableApps.com Format. If a user wishes to follow your directions, there's no point in downloading uTorrent Portable whatsoever, as doing so completely negates the benefits of the portable launcher.
This issue for some user may be very annoying. How about a compromise, those who like to be notified, would keep seeing it, while others may click [ ] do not show option.
I see that dialog almost 20 times a month and I will not change anything about my use of PC as a result of this dialog. In fact, I view it as dialog that does no "help me" at all.
I think principles of good UI always tell that user should decide that to see.
Seeing this message for the 489th time is really not necessary. Please let the user decide.
If you don't want to see the dialog, the solution is very simple: stop crashing the app. You're seeing it because something occurred that should never occur.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I run also into this situation.
I don't use portable apps on a usb stick or on dropbox, they're just my "main apps" (since i discovered portable apps i got rid of almost all my regular "installation" software).
So i have like 6 portable apps that autostart with windos. The weird thing is that, upon raw reboot (i.e not closing manually each portable app running) i get the error message only with DittoPortable and TyperTaskPortable. PNotes portable, for instance, just runs flawlessly.
Why would there be apps that don't complain while others do ?
P.S: thanks John anyway for all of this: the portable apps, the website, all the work that's been done.
PNotes uses an old custom launcher instead of the PortableApps.com Launcher. So, apps like that are still crashing and not cleaning up after themselves if they need to, but they aren't showing you a message to that effect as we didn't use to track it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
It is ok that the apps (have to) clean up after a crash.
It is ok that the user gets notified about this.
It is not ok to force the user to click this annoying button to close the notification. This way autostarting apps after a crash is not possible.
I agree that the user needs to know that they did a bad thing, but it disturbs usability that you force the user to see the notification, click "OK" and then let them open the app AGAIN!
At least the app should start after clicking the "Ok"-button. Even better would be a five seconds automatic close.
Your "the user did a bad thing and have to know it"-answer is pretty stubborn. It is always possible to find a compromise.
Making it automatically continue would require rewriting a significant chunk of the PA.c Launcher, IIRC. This seems unnecessary when the workaround is easy and straightforward (close your apps). The PortableApps.com Platform will gain the ability to intelligently shut down your portable software on exit shortly, as well as exit Windows if you like, all with a single click (two if you want a confirmation). Once this is done, it renders this issue moot.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Hello John and thank you for all your work.
I am long time Portable Apps user and truly love it. I came here because I can not stand anymore closing my taskbar apps manually. I sincerely am bored with all those extra clicks for either closing the apps or clicking twice on next boot in order to relaunch them. When I see the app, I usually close it manually, but don't want to think about apps I don't see, it is causing me the unnecessary burden now. Because of this, when I shut the computer and the second later I realize I didn't close my apps properly, it bothers me and I now it will also bother me next time I start the computer. This is becoming a real psychological problem for me to the point I'm thinking about switching back to normal apps that do not force their workflow on me. It is that bad.
With all due respect, I don't care if they didn't close properly and if they have to clean up or do the laundry. I don't want to click on them to start or stop them. I want the startup to be automatic whether they are crashed or not. I want to be responsible for the data loss. I want to concentrate on my work, not on something that should be transparent to me. It is getting in my way.
You are talking for many months now about the ability to intelligently shut down apps, it must be difficult to implement, you can keep the actual behavior if that please you, just gave us the checkbox that we can untick meanwhile and forget this issue.
Pretty Please.
That message box is not there only to inform you that you crashed the app. It's there because we just restored the computer's state (good luck if you're in another computer) and we can't restart the app by ourselves (the Platform could, in theory). It's a technical issue.
Previously known as kAlug.
I really don't understand the issue but I trust you completely and I know that you are skilled developers.
A simple "we know it's painful usability issue, but we don't know how to fix it" instead of "it is meant to work this way, you are the culprit, you need to adapt or the punishment is two clicks each time" would be great for starters.
I hope you get the message, and good luck with coding
First, please refrain from the "we don't know how to fix it" insinuations as they are counterproductive. It's not a matter of not knowing how. It's a matter of it requiring a significant re-code of the launcher which would mean development time away from other things. It's a lower priority as it doesn't affect most users and, for those it does affect, the workaround is simple and effective: close your apps. As such, pulling limited development time (volunteer, unpaid, spare time, etc) from more critical issues doesn't make sense for us as a project.
For those who are affected, we understand that this is an annoyance for you, and we are working on the ability for the platform to close your apps for you with the click of a button as part of the exit/eject process. This will be done in an upcoming release, but no date has been set as we are juggling a lot of features and functionality plus the large task of keeping apps flowing.
Please let's refrain from further unproductive back and forth and get back to working together to keep the good stuff being coded/packaged.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I didn't meant to be harsh to you, I really think you are skilled and will eventually find a solution. Meanwhile, please understand that it is also counterproductive to ask users to adapt to flawed workflows, at least as much as telling a developer he doesn't know how to fix a problem
I am sorry if it sounds bad and apologize for that, I didn't meant to be mean, just wanted to highlight the usability problem in an a wrong manner.
Peace, and good luck!
At least make optional this feature
Already answered in detail here:
https://portableapps.com/node/28953#comment-205727
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
"For those who are affected, we understand that this is an annoyance for you, and we are working on the ability for the platform to close your apps for you with the ***click of a button*** as part of the exit/eject process."
Is it possible to provide this new ability from command line, or through a shortcut on the platform folder? Then users with a local install could include a call to this ability in a logoff script and avoid the crashes.
I understand that the better way to avoid this problem is closing all apps before the shutdown, but is very easy to forget closing some applications that runs in background, as AutoHotkey, specially when they are open automatically during startup.
The functionality is built into the platform and will be advertised to the platform via the appinfo.ini for apps that require non-standard shutdowns. The actual functionality to remotely close is not included in the PortableApps.com Launcher. Whether the app itself responds to a shutdown command is up to how each individual app itself (some apps have a command line, some can accept a Windows Message, some simply can't be shutdown externally and will crash).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I won't accept rules like "we will teach you to close programs properly by spamming you with useless errors and making you do extra [needless] efforts to run the program again".
F--k that, tomorrow I'm going to write an AHK script that will detect such windows, click OK and re-run the program.
Keep in mind, that every app that is crashed will likely leave things behind on the local PC and may lose data, which is the whole point of displaying the error. Losing data and leaving personal data behind seem like a good reason to let a user know about it. Just because you don't care about your data, doesn't mean other users don't either.
As already discussed (to death) we would like to have a simple OK you click that relaunches but that would require significantly re-writing PAL and simply isn't on the plate time-wise for our volunteer developers. Especially as the platform will introduce safe/proper closing of apps in an upcoming version.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
If a crash already happened - there's nothing one can do with that. So showing error is useless. You may show a warning (that disappears by timer) in the parallel to automatic cleaning and re-executing the app, if you'd like to teach users so bad.
Oh, seems like I've missed your final decision, since clicking OK to relaunch the app seem fine to me.
If the user shut down the PC without closing their apps and crashed them, they very well may not know that they did crash them, hence the error. It will also happen if a user unsafe ejects (sometimes without realizing it) or is using a flaky PC that has USB ports with a short. Generally, it's almost always users who don't know that it happened. The only situation where it's a user who already knows is when it's a user who closes Windows without closing their apps and doesn't care that they may lose data, which is a small percentage of the people who see the error.
And, if you look through this long topic, we've stated multiple times that we'd like to be able to show the error, click OK, and then launch, but that causes issues with the way PAL is currently written and the way environment variables are passed and state is kept track of (and is even more complicated with admin apps). It will thus require a significant rewrite of PAL to handle which will require a decent amount of time to complete, time which they do not currently have. And, since this error is both easily preventable by closing apps properly and shutting down all your apps properly within the platform is on the plate for a future release, it's unnecessary. All of this has been discussed multiple times in this topic.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
What about EjectScript? This works well for me.
Michael D. Shook
Unfortunately, it is AutoIT-based, so many corporate and university antivirus scanners will delete it when you try to run it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
As there are no useful suggestions being added at this point other than random people posting multiple comments at a time rehashing old points using disposable email accounts (reminder: disposable email accounts aren't permitted here), I am closing this thread for comments. In closing, let me reiterate these points again:
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!