Some frustration: webmapper-2.4.8 controls no longer drawing properly

[d.andrew STEWART]

Hello,

If anyone can help, please, I'd be much appreciated. I'm  in the middle of a project and for some reason: webmapper-2.4.8 controls no longer drawing properly (see attached). I mentioned this issue awhile ago, and thought I had it resolved by the start-up process I was following:

(1) Disconnect all internet (ethernet and wi-fi)
(2) Run webmapper-2.4.8 from source

webmapper-2.4.8 has been working fine for the last 3 months (!!), and even two days ago. But, suddenly, today, the controls no longer drawing properly in Google Chrome.

I'm really at a loss here!!  Today, one thing I did not do is turn off wi-fi before running webmapper-2.4.8 from source.

I realise that these things might not be connected (i.e., current state of my network settings and launching webmapper-2.4.8 from source), but I can not find any work-around, and I do not have the programming background to de-bug what is happening.


Please help (urgent) – my instrument is essentially useless (unless , of course, I build my own mapping system)


Thanks
DAndrew

[Joseph Malloch]

Hi Andrew – this seems to be an issue with Chrome which is now resolved. Can you try updating Chrome to the most recent version and try again?

[d.andrew STEWART]

Thanks for message. I thought about the Google Chrome update and that's the 1st thing I did, yesterday, but will look to see if I retrieved the corrent/latest version. Is Chromium an option?.. Testing.........

[d.andrew STEWART]

No luck with Chrome update. Very odd. Chrome reports this version for Mac: Version 131.0.6778.140 (Official Build) (arm64).  Maybe I need to regress the application??

Thoughts?

[d.andrew STEWART]

Hello. I seem to have found a solution. I went to my Time Machine.app back-ups and retrieved/restored Chrome componts from last week:

(1) Browser version 131.0.6778.86

(2) Chrome preference files in /Library/Application Support

So, it appears webmapper-2.4.8 requires an older version of Chrome. This version presents mapperGUI correctly: Chrome version 131.0.6778.86. Now, I have to figure out how to tell Chrome not to auto-update.

Could you look into this incompatibility issue with the latest version of Chrome, pease?  Again, is using Chomium an option / a better option?

[d.andrew STEWART]

So, on a Mac, the current way to update Google Chome is to go to: Chrome > About Google Chrome and sadly, the updating process is automaticaly triggered !!  So, don't do that!!  I just had to, for the second time, regress back to version 131.0.6778.86. 

Question:  Can I change `webmapper.py` to launch a specific version of Chrome?  This way, I can keep two versions of Chrome on the computer. This would help, especially if I am forced to update Chrome due to my other uses of this software.  I need this software to access the McMaster server <https://estuary.mcmaster.ca/>; however, I think Estury should work find on older versions of Chrome, for the time being.

Thoughts?

[Joseph Malloch]

Very strange – it works fine for me on Chrome Version 131.0.6778.140 (Official Build) (arm64)…

You can certainly adjust the browser that is opened by webmapper to point to an alternative version of chrome on your system: just edit line 62 of webmapper.py.

Cheers,

Joe

On Dec 12, 2024, at 8:18 PM, d.andrew STEWART <dandrew...@gmail.com> wrote:

So, on a Mac, the current way to update Google Chome is to go to: Chrome > About Google Chrome and sadly, the updating process is automaticalytriggered !!  So, don't do that!!  I just had to, for the second time, regress back to version 131.0.6778.86. 

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[d.andrew STEWART]

Argh....how claimed computers are labour-saving devcies!  So, I found line 62 of the Python script. How do you specify version. Would this work:

Current line 62

`apps = ['open -n -a "Google Chrome" --args --app=%s']`

Modificed line 62 to specify version

`apps = ['open -n -a "Google Chrome==131.0.6778.140" --args --app=%s']`

[d.andrew STEWART]

No luck, here.  I don't have the programming background to know how to set version number with Python. Please help.  

What's worse, each time I launch Google Chrome with an active internet connection, the damn software updates , leading to incorrect drawing in mapperGUI. So , now I'm going down the rabbit hole to activitate auto updating of Chrome.  If only I didn't need Chrome for other music applications - then, I'd only launch Chrome with an inactive internet connection.

Seeing how you reported no incompatibility issues with the latest version of Chomre (v 131.0.6778.140), do you have any other debugging tricks I can use to find out why mapperGUI is not compatible with this version on my system

Thanks

[d.andrew STEWART]

Well. Been working on this for a couple of hours. Still no luck.  I think I've done everything I can, with my limited knowledge. 

Completely removed  an re-installed Google Chrome (with AppCleaner.app). Upgraded to webmapper-2.4.12 (the latest BUILD on Git). Looked at Google's "Login Items" and removed them. Tried to build a com.google.Keystone.plist, following on-line instructions in order to disable Chrome auto-update (but can't get this to work. No matter what , damn  Chrome updates.

The only thing that works is for me for me to manually drag/drop (replace) both Google Chrome.app and its Application Support files et viola, mapperGUI appears!!  Driving me nuts. I'm replacing the newest version of Chrome with older versions.  Is there something in the Application Support files that I can change?

I'm still wiling to alter webmapper.py to point at a specific version, but need help with the Python code

For now, I will avoid using Google Chrome for anything else.

Please, any tips would brighten my path

Thx.

[d.andrew STEWART]

Issue resolved! Thank you. 

I confirm that I am running webmapper-2.4.12 from source code with the most recent version of Google Chrome. With Joe's assistance, two steps were needed:  (1) an up-to-date version of libmapper Max objects and (2) tweaking one of mapperGUI's CSS from with in Google Chrome.

With respect to the 1st step, perahps we could get a new `release` of Max objects posted to Git?

<https://github.com/libmapper/libmapper-max >

The 2nd step is required because Chrome doesn't draw all of its header buttons and fields correctly upon launch of mapperGUI. The bricolage solution is the following; I'm sure this unusual behaviour will be worked out eventually.

1.  Launch mapperGUI from source code
2.  Go to View > Developer > Developer Tools > Sources tab ( Cmd Opt I )
3.  Select css > theme > style_dark.css
4.  Edit something and then undo (e.g., delete a character and then, undo)

Currently, I'm using mapperGUI every day. I have had a couple of Max application crashes, while editing [mpr...] objects in Max, but nothing consistent, yet. I'll report back, if I find a particular issue that always leads to a crash.

Here you go (example).  This is extremely preliminary.....just some base sound design and then, very simple mapping to control sound activation and silence. This will be archived, for a short duration, on Twitch.

<https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2336810972>

[d.andrew STEWART]

mapperGUI still working very well!  

ALWAYS a great pleasure to have this software, great pleasure to use and great that it facilitates a lot of experimentation. I still need to do the quick change to style_dark.css (see message, above); however, I wanted to report that when I take this action, Terminal.app spits out a lot of `GET` messages:

127.0.0.1 - - [23/Jan/2025 09:32:59] "GET /images/console_icon_white.png HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Jan/2025 09:32:59] "GET /images/parallel_icon_white.png HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Jan/2025 09:32:59] "GET /images/console_icon_white.png HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Jan/2025 09:32:59] "GET /images/parallel_icon_white.png HTTP/1.1" 200 -

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