User unable to start open-IHM after updating

[Wolf Ellis]

Hi all,

 

After updating his installation of open-IHM today, the partner staff member mentioned in the previous thread (‘Copying an open-IHM installation with its reference tables and databases to another computer’) is now unable to start open-IHM – the black code box apparently flashes up on his screen for a fraction of a second, before disappearing too quickly for him to capture a screenshot. He was in London last week so I installed open-IHM on the computer for him at our office; it was working fine then, and had since worked fine for him until he tried to update today. He’s retried the update, and apparently does get the “Software update was successful” notification box at the end of the process but then open-IHM itself still won’t start.

 

I’m posting this here rather than the issues list for now, as we’ve tested updating 4 computers in the office without any problems.

 

This problem of open-IHM not starting properly has definitely occurred in the past, but I don’t think I ever knew what caused it. I think we resolved it by just uninstalling everything, reinstalling and then re-updating, but particularly in this instance it would be great if we could avoid having to do that, as this user has already just had to re-add all reference table items and databases to a new installation!

 

Many thanks,

 

Wolf

 

 

[Sarah Mount]

Was the installer that the staff member used different from the installer that you used on the machines in your office?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "openihm-dev" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to openihm-dev...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Sarah Mount, Senior Lecturer, University of Wolverhampton
website:  http://www.snim2.org/
twitter: @snim2

[Wolf Ellis]

I’m not 100% sure, as it was from a memory stick that he’d used to take to Africa (rather than downloading it from the Google Code website) – but that would itself have been downloaded from the standard installer there that we always use, the installation did go 100% as usual, and open-IHM did seem to be working normally when he was here (and presumably when he later added reference table items and databases).

 

Wolf

[Sarah Mount]

The difficulty is that there are several "standard installers" and they all package a different set of libraries. So that would explain why you cannot recreate the error. Or, maybe there is something different about the machine your colleague used. It's difficult to say. It's also difficult to test. One way to do so would be to have one machine (or VM) per installer and update them all. 

Without knowing which versions of the installers you are all using and without being able to reproduce the error it is hard to see how to proceed. I think most times this has happened before (and not been easily reproducable) we have not had this sort of information.

Regards,

Sarah

[Wolf Ellis]

All I meant was that it’s not exactly the same copy of the file – it’s definitely (a copy of) the installer that can be downloaded from here: http://code.google.com/p/open-ihm/downloads/detail?name=OpenIHM-with-Requirements-1.5.1.exe&can=2&q=

 

and doesn’t seem to have changed since 9^th October 2012?

 

And in the meantime, do you know if there are any tricks that might help him to get his installation working again without having to uninstall and delete all associated files then reinstall?

 

Thanks,

[Sarah Mount]

Good news if the installers were the same. 

In terms of what might have caused the problem, nothing seems immediately obvious. Unfortunately it is very difficult to track down a bug like this without a lot more information or access to the machine :-(

If you want to go down the route of uninstalling and reinstalling, one thing to try would be to *not* uninstall MySql. With some luck this might leave the database intact and the user would not have to enter all his data again. No guarantees though. Is the user in the UK?

Regards,

Sarah

[Wolf Ellis]

Yes it is difficult without having the machine here! This user is based in Shrewsbury, but will be going to Zambia next week I think.

 

I’ll ask him to try uninstalling but leaving MySql intact, thanks.

[Sarah Mount]

OK, keep us posted!