All Settings Lost When Moving Installation Directory (While in Portable Mode), and Settings Import Seems Broken

[EnigmaSolved]

Hi again! As I mentioned in #497 I'm using 1.0.0 RC1 on Windows 11 Pro, in Portable Mode. I just moved the whole LogExpert folder to a new location and I lost all of my settings, sadly. I can still see them in the settings.json file (which I've made a copy of as a precaution), but they don't show up in LogExpert. And if I try to Import them it says they import, but nothing changes.

Is there someplace else I should look, or something else I can do to get my settings back? I had already made various customizations, highlight settings, etc. and am bummed to have to redo everything (and very confused as to why I lost everything in the first place when it is in portable mode).

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)

[EnigmaSolved]

Ah, it looks like this is related to at least #480, #485 and perhaps other items I'm not yet aware of. So this might be a duplicate....

I should also note that I have tried replacing the settings.json with my backup copy, both by replacing the one adjacent to LogExpert.exe and also the one in AppData\Roaming by in neither case does LogExpert "read" the file and load the settings. No matter what I try I cannot get the settings to show up.

I could manually re-do everything, but I am a bit wary of that given how difficult it seems to be to get them "stick." I don't want to do that work and have them disappear again, and be unable to bring them back again.

[Hirogen]

yeah this is currently a bug in version 1.20, that should be fixed with the next version, currently trying to hunt down a few smaller things with pluginregistry and overall settings loading, but the new version should be ready on the weekend

[EnigmaSolved]

Oh wow, thank you so much for your hard work on all this (and a bunch of other things, it sounds like) -- I really appreciate it! That is amazing timing, that you're already working on a fix! LogExpert looks like a really versatile piece of software -- I'm looking forward to delving further into it soon! 😊

[Hirogen]

Oh wow, thank you so much for your hard work on all this (and a bunch of other things, it sounds like) -- I really appreciate it! That is amazing timing, that you're already working on a fix! LogExpert looks like a really versatile piece of software -- I'm looking forward to delving further into it soon! 😊

trying my best, I use it daily at work, so its for my own benefit 😄

[EnigmaSolved]

trying my best, I use it daily at work, so its for my own benefit 😄

That makes me even happier to hear -- I think those are usually the best scenarios for being a software maintainer, when you are the primary recipient and enjoyer of the features, improvements, bug fixes, etc. 😊 And then such a kindness and bonus for the rest of us that we get to benefit too!

[AndisGrossteins]

May I chime in with a suggestion?

@EnigmaSolved, if you have some free time on your hands and are willing to help test pre-releases, you could download one of the snapshot builds from the latest successful actions runs in the Actions section. The debug build would be preferable to see source paths in the stack traces but they come with noticeable performance penalty.

Then, enabling NLog logging would be helpful to pin down exceptions in edge cases not covered by automated tests. You can enable logging by dropping this NLog.config file from repo in the directory next to LogExpert.exe.

Note of caution: Some features might not work as expected or as they did in 1.20, and previous settings and persistence files might be lost, so make a backup of those before running the snapshot build.

[EnigmaSolved]

I love this invitation, @AndisGrossteins, and would be happy to help test! I'm having trouble, though, understanding where on the Actions page I can find an actual binary (including a debug build). I've clicked into several items, wandered around a bit, but haven't landed on anything I can download and test. Pardon my ignorance!

And thanks for the additional instructions/guidance -- I'll make sure to keep backup copies!

Also, I will be offline much of today, so depending on when I hear back from you it might not be until this afternoon (or maybe even evening) before I'll have a chance to get online again and tinker with this. But very happy to contribute in this small way if I can! 😊

[AndisGrossteins]

I'm having trouble, though, understanding where on the Actions page I can find an actual binary (including a debug build). I've clicked into several items, wandered around a bit, but haven't landed on anything I can download and test. Pardon my ignorance!

Ah, sorry. The Actions UI is quite a bit confusing.

What you're looking for is successful action runs with green checkmark (✅) from the .Net Core Build workflow.

Currently, the latest successful run is resources and housekeeping.
The "Artifacts" section is at the very bottom of that page.

Go to that last link or navigate to the latest run in the list and hit End, where you should see the Artifacts. The download buttons for both builds are on the right hand side.

I hope my explanation isn't more confusing than the UI.

[Hirogen]

plan is to fix the one instance workflow and then create a release, so saturday / sunday is going to be the release day, depending how the one instance fix will get along

[EnigmaSolved]

Thanks much, @AndisGrossteins -- that all made sense! I grabbed the debug from this one. When I tried importing my prior settings it gave the following error:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.\n\n
NullReferenceException
   at LogExpert.Configuration.ConfigManager.Import(Settings currentSettings, FileInfo fileInfo, ExportImportFlags flags) in D:\a\LogExpert\LogExpert\src\LogExpert.Configuration\ConfigManager.cs:line 848
   at LogExpert.Configuration.ConfigManager.Import(FileInfo fileInfo, ExportImportFlags importFlags) in D:\a\LogExpert\LogExpert\src\LogExpert.Configuration\ConfigManager.cs:line 232
   at LogExpert.Dialogs.SettingsDialog.OnBtnImportClick(Object sender, EventArgs e) in D:\a\LogExpert\LogExpert\src\LogExpert.UI\Dialogs\SettingsDialog.cs:line 1151
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(HWND hWnd, UInt32 msg, WPARAM wparam, LPARAM lparam)

But it does appear that closing LogExpert and manually copying my settings does seem to load correctly.

I've been offline all day (and am about to sign off for the evening), so I've honestly only spent a few minutes with this, but hopefully the above is some useful data for you all. Appreciate the work you're both doing! 😊

[Hirogen]

need to take a look, probably some object not initialised

[Hirogen]

Thanks much, @AndisGrossteins -- that all made sense! I grabbed the debug from this one. When I tried importing my prior settings it gave the following error:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.\n\n
NullReferenceException
   at LogExpert.Configuration.ConfigManager.Import(Settings currentSettings, FileInfo fileInfo, ExportImportFlags flags) in D:\a\LogExpert\LogExpert\src\LogExpert.Configuration\ConfigManager.cs:line 848
   at LogExpert.Configuration.ConfigManager.Import(FileInfo fileInfo, ExportImportFlags importFlags) in D:\a\LogExpert\LogExpert\src\LogExpert.Configuration\ConfigManager.cs:line 232
   at LogExpert.Dialogs.SettingsDialog.OnBtnImportClick(Object sender, EventArgs e) in D:\a\LogExpert\LogExpert\src\LogExpert.UI\Dialogs\SettingsDialog.cs:line 1151
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(HWND hWnd, UInt32 msg, WPARAM wparam, LPARAM lparam)

But it does appear that closing LogExpert and manually copying my settings does seem to load correctly.

I've been offline all day (and am about to sign off for the evening), so I've honestly only spent a few minutes with this, but hopefully the above is some useful data for you all. Appreciate the work you're both doing! 😊

can you provide the settings file you imported, it seems there is a preference that is not correctly imported, when manually importing.

[EnigmaSolved]

can you provide the settings file you imported, it seems there is a preference that is not correctly imported, when manually importing.

Sorry for the delayed reply -- have been offline until now. I'll email it to you in a moment.