FreeLists / arachne / [arachne] Re: I found it!!! (was Re: Missing configuration options)

["Glenn McCorkle" <glennmcc@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:37:14 +0000, Udo Kuhnt wrote:

> Hi Glenn, and all others!

> I finally managed to find the reason for the aborted installation of
> Arachne 1.90! During the installation, I noticed something red flying
> by, too fast on my 3.06 GHz machine to identify it, so I used every
> trick I know to slow the machine down so that I could pause it and read
> the error message "file create error".

> As it turned out, the offending file was a read-only file named
> "formfeed" in the main Arachne dir that is dated March the 21th 1999.
> Some version of Arachne that was released in late 2004 must have set
> this file to read-only, thereby preventing the installer from
> overwriting it and causing it to abort. It still reported "installed
> successfully", so I did not notice this before.

> With the file set to read/write, Arachne 1.90 completes the
> installation!

> So it *is* a bug in the installer - it cannot cope with the read-only
> file that the older version left and it also fails to report that it has
> aborted the installation.

> I think it is worth fixing; who knows which other bugs this might be
> hiding? At least the installer should be enhanced to handle read-only
> files that Arachne has created.

Thank you very much for you tenacity in tracking-down this bug.

I will see if I can fix it.

The very simplest of fixes will be on my site later this evening
by uploading a new a190gpll.exe that does not contain the offending file.

This of-course is nothing more than a stop-gap measure for that one
specific file.

To fix it properly I must modify the installer so that it does not abort
when it encounters a read-only file.

Hmmmm.....

BRB
________

Wow... that was easy. ;-)

First,
we remove the attributes from the files that might cause us any trouble.

 system("attrib -r -s -h *.*");//prevent aborted install due to files that can't
be over-written

While I was at it... the installer will now also save backup copies of
sign.txt along with all .ACF and .ASF files.

 if(!findfirst("sign.txt",&ffblk,0)) system("copy sign.txt backup\\*.*");
 if(!findfirst("*.acf",&ffblk,0)) system("copy *.acf backup\\*.*");
 if(!findfirst("*.asf",&ffblk,0)) system("copy *.asf backup\\*.*");

Thanks again Udo, for finding the cause of this problem.
You have saved anyone else from encountering these same difficulties.

A brand-New a190gpll.zip is now uploaded and ready to go.

-- 
 Glenn
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 http://www.cisnet.com/glennmcc/
 http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.table.html
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