| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| sinecure_bob |
Posted - Aug 07 2009 : 09:51:58
I own DVD Pix but sort of rely on Outposted too. Lately it is not working. It seems to check but does not send the email to me now. I have reinstalled and the latest log reads as follows and you can see some sort of parsing error. Any advice- thanks:
8/7/2008 9:39 AM OutPosted Started
8/7/2008 9:39 AM Allens software unchanged (0), Skipping
8/7/2008 9:39 AM District of Sechelt unchanged (20), Skipping
8/7/2008 9:39 AM The Washington Post has changed (138), Delivering
8/7/2008 9:40 AM HTML parsing error: Parsing failure
8/7/2008 9:40 AM Error processing The Washington Post: HTML Parsing Error
8/7/2008 9:40 AM Xequte Software unchanged (0), Skipping
Sinecure_Bob |
| 3 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| xequte |
Posted - Aug 18 2009 : 01:23:51
Hi Minorgeek
1. Yes, i don't believe it will automatically check while you are in editing mode. You need to run it - either silently (using /start or with windows start up) or manually and then click the check button.
2. Only "/Start"
3. Will look into that
4. I will need to investigate why its failing to correctly write that registry key under vista
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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| minorgeek |
Posted - Aug 16 2009 : 16:01:09
hi, nigel,
to answer your question, the washington post (along with several other sites) comes pre-configured in the release downloaded installer, (settings.dat and sites.dat) and it is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
though i don't have his problem my problems are different. #4 below is the big one! :) i'm on vista sp1, no other problems that i see (except too many tabs crash iexplorer, but what did you expect? :) ). i login to an admin account (not *the* hidden special Administrator account which has no uac) so i run with user privileges and when i need admin privileges, it prompts me to click confirm. and i'll comment that almost all the errors i've ripped out my hair over turned out to be security problems, and this might be, too.
1. this is documentation suggestion: outposted seemed to work sometimes and not other times and i had no clue. but i figured out one piece of it. it seems that when the outposted window is open on the screen it does not work; i.e., it doesn't do scheduled checks.
then that creates another problem. however i (auto) start it, its window will be open, and it won't work. :( but then i discovered that if i check the option to auto-start with windows, it starts it with /start parameter, which seems to mean don't show window.
oposted.exe /start
so, either document this behavior (N.B. while window is open, scheduled checks will NOT be performed) or, better, fix it so it works whether window is open or not. (i understand there may be issues there if its changing the data structures while the automatic scheduled check is running, race conditions, no transactions, but...)
this may sound small, but this is not obvious, is not stated, and to me made it look like the program was randomly working or not, no observable difference. then i started noticing that when i watched, it didn't work. [reminiscent of quantum physics!] then, i realized that when i watch, the window is open and that led to understanding. if i hadn't seen that, i would have thrown outposted away and looked for another solution. it seemed to randomly not work.
2. are there any other hidden command line parameters? it doesn't say when run with /? like other command line programs. an option that would be great would be: start, check and do your thing, exit. 'cause that's what i want it to do. i think the author assumed that we keep it running all the time, and that's fine for some, but if i did that for every little program, i'd have a ga-zillion processes eating up my resources and slowing me down. no problem. windows has a task scheduler. i can just set up a scheduled task. start it with, perhaps,
oposted.exe /auto
which would start, check, send if appropriate, exit. even just to check would be good. so this is a request for /auto or similar.
[a little pet peeve of mine: every vendor writes his own task scheduler and i end up with a dozen of 'em running...use the system, luke]
3. log saved to a file would be very helpful. a log that vanishes each time program exits is close to useless. :( (not a "must")
4. here's the big one: i install oposted.exe. it runs automatically at end of install. everything seems to work fine. then i exit oposted. then i restart oposted and now, every time i click ok to close the oposted window, it displays two modal dialogues, each announcing error saving settings, only one button, ok.
[read below...i may have fixed this...needs more testing]
now it's interesting to note that it does in fact save the settings correctly despite the message. also, i ran sysinternals.com utility procmon, watched its registry and file system calls. lots of fsys calls, no errors, except it seems to keep trying to do fast_io whatever that is, but each time the system replies no, it re-invokes with a normal call and the read/write/open succeeds. no file errors. and no registry errors 'cause almost no registry activity! the only thing it does with the registry, it seems, is to write in an auto-start run key. so, the error might be bogus.
if i uninstall and reinstall, the above repeats; i.e., it works right after installation, and fails anytime i start it after ("fail" means it displays the two error boxes). in other words, re-installing it "fixes" it, but only for the first run after install.
note: if i run it (under vista) "run as administrator," the above two errors (failed saving settings) do NOT appear. so, like most vista problems, it's security related somehow. but i checked permissions on my appdata area where it saves its settings. no problems. and the files are in fact saved/updated with correct data and modified timestamp. i would have checked privileges on the keys it changes in the registry, but it doesn't. seems to keep its config data in settings.dat and sites.dat, which are really text .ini files, looks like, rather than binary .dat.
oh: maybe breakthrough. i realized it does sometimes change one thing in the registry: the run key to autostart itself. and it seems (not sure) that it writes this key even if the option hasn't changed (which is correct, just non optimal). so i went to that run key (hklm) and set permissions adding myself with full control. that might have fixed the save settings error. i haven't seen it yet. need more testing. if it proves wrong, i'll post and let you know, you millions of readers out there. :P it is consistent. when the installer launches oposted.exe, it's probably spawned with same privileges of installer, which are very high (admin) privileges. it shouldn't, but that's probably common. so that run can change the run key in the registry. but if i launch it, it has only user privileges (even though i'm an admin...that's called vista), and error probably means it failed to write the run key.
thanks!
minorgeek
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minorgeek |
| xequte |
Posted - Aug 07 2009 : 14:43:07
Hi Bob
OutPosted uses IE to parse HTML messages and a parsing error is a generic failure in that processing. I'd have to test the site to be more specific. If you advise the link I'll test it for the next update.
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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