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User tool won't update


TanjaRos

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Hi! I really need some help with using the Accordance User Tool. I'm very new to Accordance but have made a user tool for myself with notes from school. Unfortunately it has stopped updating! So now every time I make a change and try to update it, the pop-up window will come up and seem to update but as I exit the edit screen it will ask me: "Update the contents of "-" Edit?", I click on update but nonetheless no changes are made and everything I've changed is lost.

 

I really have no idea how to fix this - has anyone else been through this before?

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I've had it happen, but not for some time. Usually, restarting Accordance will fix the issue.

 

In the Tool in question, do you have any urls formatted as links? At one point, Accordance didn't like long, complex urls formatted as links, and that would cause this problem. The bug was fixed, but maybe it has cropped up again?

 

You might also locate the folder (in Finder) where your User Tools are found, and look to see if you have any files that start with "..." (without the quotes). Many years ago, Accordance would sometime forget to trash these temporary files, and if too many of them built up a User Tool wouldn't save. I haven't seen that error in a long time, though.

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I've had it happen, but not for some time. Usually, restarting Accordance will fix the issue.

 

In the Tool in question, do you have any urls formatted as links? At one point, Accordance didn't like long, complex urls formatted as links, and that would cause this problem. The bug was fixed, but maybe it has cropped up again?

 

You might also locate the folder (in Finder) where your User Tools are found, and look to see if you have any files that start with "..." (without the quotes). Many years ago, Accordance would sometime forget to trash these temporary files, and if too many of them built up a User Tool wouldn't save. I haven't seen that error in a long time, though.

 

Thanks for your reply! I've tried restarting the program but that hasn't helped. I do not have any links in this tool and I cannot find any files with the same name as my tool "Pentateuch". They would be in the Accordance folder right? I couldn't find any temporary files there at all.

 

I really cannot understand why this is happening. I've only had Accordance for 2 or 3 weeks now and have been able to save everything until yesterday. Now it won't save any change I make in the tool which is quite frustrating.

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Hi TanjaRos,

 

I've definitely seen a temp file issue with many updates being made between reboots of my machine for user bibles, and that is on 10.1.3. I updated to 10.1.5 recently but have not yet made enough updates to see if the problem is still present, and I've rebooted yesterday so it'll be a while given my use case. This is documented in gruesome detail in http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9501&hl=%2Buser+%2Bbible+%2Btemp+%2Bfile&do=findComment&comment=43425. Have a look and see if that gives you any pointers in this case.

 

Thx

D

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Hi TanjaRos,

 

I've definitely seen a temp file issue with many updates being made between reboots of my machine for user bibles, and that is on 10.1.3. I updated to 10.1.5 recently but have not yet made enough updates to see if the problem is still present, and I've rebooted yesterday so it'll be a while given my use case. This is documented in gruesome detail in http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9501&hl=%2Buser+%2Bbible+%2Btemp+%2Bfile&do=findComment&comment=43425. Have a look and see if that gives you any pointers in this case.

 

Thx

D

 

Thanks Daniel :) Unfortunately this didn't help and I still cannot update my User tool.

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Does a new User Tool work properly? If so, that should give you a work around until the official Accordance folks can get this sorted out for you.

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For what it may be worth I double checked a User Tool update and its using the same basic approach to temp files. But if you don't have a ton of temp files in the /private/var/folders/sc/<weird dir name which may vary>/T/Temporary Items/ and a reboot didn't help its probably something different.

 

If you enjoy using the developer tools like dtruss you could try the same technique and see if it reveals anything.

 

But what Lorinda suggests I think may be the fastest way to a workaround.

 

Thx

D

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Ther is a way to clear corruption in a User Tool. You can create a new blank tool, and then merge the previous tool into it.

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Ther is a way to clear corruption in a User Tool. You can create a new blank tool, and then merge the previous tool into it.

 

Wow thank you! Worked like a charm :)

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Ther is a way to clear corruption in a User Tool. You can create a new blank tool, and then merge the previous tool into it.

 

One more question concerning this, Helen - Am I doing something wrong which is causing this to happen? I merged my tool into a new tool and everything worked fine. But then it happened again so I've merged the tool once more. I'm just wondering whether I am doing something wrong making it corrupt?

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How big is this tool? Have you tried restting the block size in Preferences?

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How big is this tool? Have you tried restting the block size in Preferences?

 

I'm not quite sure how you would measure the size of the tool but it's not very big. It's mostly notes - maybe around 2-3 pages of text.

 

I haven't tried resetting the block size. How would this effect the tool?

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  • 1 month later...

I am having this problem consistently with one of my user tools. It does not allow me to update so I merge it to a new user tool and for a period of time it works then the same thing happens.

 

When I do try and merge I sometimes get a problem that causes Accordance to crash. On occasion when it tries to merge it says that the original file is null and that is when it causes a crash.

 

I somehow manage to get it to be non-null - I think by removing it from the library then re-adding it by double clicking on the file. It then allows me to merge it.

 

Any ideas as to what might be causing the corruption of the file? It is about 2.4Mb in size and happens after doing a number of updates.

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Hi Steve,

 

I would try to look for patterns in what you are doing when it fails.

I would also examine the differences between this tool and any other user tool you have. Is it the biggest, is it in some way unique ? Also, is this tool constantly growing or do you delete stuff from it ?

Basically you are looking to turn an intermittently reproducible bug into a 100% reproducible one. At that point its much easier to see what's going on. Of course I'm assuming its a bug and not something more mundane like intermittently running out of disk space or some such thing.

 

Earlier in this thread I made some comments concerning temporary file use. I don't know if those comments apply in your case. Take a look.

Finally when Accordance crashes do you get a crash report and stack trace anywhere ? That would be a big help.

 

When you say "after doing a number of updates" do have a feel for how many and whether its consistently the same number ?

 

It might be worth someone else importing the tool and seeing if they can repro. the problem. I'm not sure how much the file might compress oh and I don't know if it refers to lots of whizzy modules or not. I have comparatively few modules and almost no commentaries so I don't know if bad links would cause an issue. I could give it a try if you can get me the tool file. BTW, that makes me wonder something - are all the links in the file ok ?

 

Also what version of 10.x are you on ? I'm on 10.1.7.

 

Thx

D

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Hi Daniel,

 

It is a constantly growing tool, but a bit at a time. It is a series of topical notes so quotes from books etc. which are added wherever they fit best. There does not appear to be a consistent number of updates before it stops updating. There are links to external files and web pages in it but I've checked them they seem to be OK and it does link to itself, however it does not link to other Accordance modules.

 

I'm not sure about the temp space. I had a look at your other thread but there did not seem anything obvious that matched my case. Although It may be due to the fact that I have not rebooted for a while and therefore something around temporary storage. I will reboot and see if that makes any obvious difference.

 

If you want to have a go at reproducing it the would be very kind - don't spend too long on it. I will send you a personal message to arrange getting the file to you. I'm currently running 10.1.7 as well.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

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Hi Steve,

 

Thanx for the file. I can definitely make it stop updating using the approach listed in my other thread on the User Bibles. It stops at exactly the same point, it seems, in the permutations of temporary filenames. A new one appears to be produced for every time you click update. In this case with your particular module name it took 39 updates before it failed. I have not reproduced a crash though. I have tried pasting large chunks of text into it and at various places typing rubbish of various kinds. That all worked fine.

 

I don't know if I've repro'd your issue or not. The only way I could be sure is if you look in /private/var/folders/sc/r7jzvx_c8xj6gs001s71dfbr0000gn/T/TemporaryItems on your disk and see if there are temporary files with names which are prefixed with 1 or more . and then have fragments of Topical Notes in the name. I don't know for the sure but the r7jzvx_c8xj6gs001s71dfbr0000gn may well vary by machine or perhaps even by user. Also I have hidden files enabled in the Finder so I can see these things. You will need that for at least part of the tree.

 

Thx

D

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Hi Daniel,

 

Thanks for the help. I have tried the updates and also get 39 before it stops. Rebooting then allows me to start again.

 

I have found /private/var/folders but I do not have an /sc/ folder. I have either /qw/ or /zz/. The /qw/ only has one folder and the temporary items under that mostly seem to be for word.

 

/zz/ has many folders but all the all the /T/ folders have little no-entry signs against them. I have turned AppleShowAllFiles to yes in the Terminal.

 

It seems to be a consistent problem across both but I can't find the files that match what you have found.

 

Steve
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OK Interesting - the setup must be slightly different on your machine - I'm on a late 2009 27" iMac on OSX 10.8.3 - what's your setup ? I don't know the OS well enough to know why. The best way to find them would be a find command from the root of your hard disk issued from a Terminal window. On my box this command issued from the /private directory finds them : find ./ -name "*Topic*"

 

If they are not under /private try it from / but it might take a while depending upon how much stuff you have.

 

Oh one more thing. The files are deleted on reboot of the machine so you need to check for them before the reboot and after you've done some updates. I sort of assume you did that anyway but just mention it in case not

 

Thx

D

Edited by Daniel Semler
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Hi Daniel,

 

Using the find from the terminal found them under the /private folder. It was the /qw/ folder in my case. They did not show up in spotlight even when I search for invisible files.

 

Anyway we now know it is the same issue and at least a reboot fixes it.

 

Thanks a lot for your help

 

Regards

 

Steve

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Cool Steve - excellent. Personally I find Spotlight difficult to use predictably, and I often resort to the command line.

I found some interesting stuff on the web about the TemporaryItems folder - seems to be an OS 9 throw back of some kind. I suspect a reboot is not required but merely deleting the files in TemporaryItems would work. You'll notice TemporaryItems is empty after a reboot. I actually haven't tried this yet myself. And I had to reboot the box this morning so do not have the issue right now.

 

Anyhow yes it appears to the same temp file code in both places.

 

Anyone know how to move a thread to a different category ? Seems this should be in Bug Swatters.

 

Thx

D

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