Bug when first time swithing to tab tools plugin

[Hakan]

What's described here happened when I was demonstrating OCPN for a cruising association volunteer in order to plan a public demonstration. He's used O for many years but did not use any plugins and none was showed in tools menu.
On Win 10 using O 4.6.1 and 4.8 (Today's download.)
(I also demonstrated our Forum and made a short note about this here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2482764 but afterwards created this thread instead.)

O was working good but when I should demonstrate plugins and opened tools-options-plugins the tab window is empty! and the tools panel freeze. I could still zoom charts in/out but not activate any tool nor shut down O with any method but had to force it down from the Win tool. This was repeatable on first O 4.6.1 and the same for 4.8.

The last print to the log file was:
15:34:10: PlugInManager searching for PlugIns in location C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenCPN\plugins
15:34:10: Varning: Caught MainLoopException, continuing...

Now at home I was trying to reproduce the bug on my machine.
- I deactivated all plugins and restarted O. -> No failure.
- I renamed the config file and restarted. -> No failure.

I assume the failure appeared somewhere in Pluginmanager row ~400
"// this gets called every time we switch to the plugins tab"
and then some method calls chart1.cpp row ~950 "OnExceptionInMainLoop"
But I can't figure out what's wrong. Anyone else please!
The actual machine is now out of reach for me but mail correspondence is possible.

Håkan

[Hakan]

Got a nice answer from Dan: (http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2482922)
"Yes, it happens when a plugin dll causes a runtime exception. So you have a plugin that isn't compatible in some way"

OK - Understandable but if so the method "CheckPluginCompatibility" would take care and message the user, not freeze?

Håkan

[transmitterdan]

The issue is that the underlying "loadlibrary" function through an exception. Since plugin manager does not catch the exception it ripples up to myapp. I have only seen this for plugins that were truly messed up such as compiled with debug info and a nondebug version of O tries to load it.

[transmitterdan]

I have never seen it freeze. It usually just silently puts a message in the log file.

Can you tell what dll is causing it?

[transmitterdan]

Longer explanation:

When O starts it does not load every plugin dll. Only those that are enabled.

When navigating to the options->plugins tab it then tries to load every dll it finds. First it checks the wx library compatibility and whether the dll is "blacklisted". Then if all that passes it asks wx to load the library. That is where I have seen a wx exception thrown which is only caught in myapp.

[Hakan]

Dan..
- I can't tell which .dll caused the failure but if I remember correct only the four inbound dll's was present in the \plugin folder.

"When O starts it does not load every plugin dll. Only those that are enabled."
None of the plugins was enabled.

Maybe I should ask my fellow to delete what's in the \Plugin folder and reinstall O?
But if possible O should handle this situation in a better, novice understandable, way?

Thanks
Håkan

[bdbcat]

Hakan...

Lets preserve the evidence, if we can.

Ask the user to list the Plugins that are currently in the Plugins folder. Also, capture the logfile, if possible.

As Dan says, this error is difficult to reproduce, and does not happen with a "correctly" configured system. So it is important to document carefully when we see it, to have some chance of fixing it.

Oh, and please thank the user for their patience with us....

Thanks
Dave

[Hakan]

Dave..
OK, dir contents as a shot, log and conf files attached. (Save and discard ".pdf")

As seen the only plugins dll are OCPN inbound. And from the ini file is only grib_pi enabled.

But - From the config file, S63_pi is also enabled but dll for this pi is not in the directory! There can be several reasons for this inconsistency but can apparently happen.
Can this be cause for the "MainLoopException"?

As seen from the last log entry O can survive as long as the user is not opening options - plugins.

To test this I added a fake plugin to my ini file:
[PlugIns/hakantest_pi.dll]
bEnabled=1
But this didn't caused any loop failure. So - it's something else??

Håkan

[transmitterdan]

Hakan,

What is in the S63 folder?

[Hakan]

dan..
I don't know, not my PC. Reason for asking? Important enough to take a turn with the user?
Thanks
Håkan

[transmitterdan]

Let me look into it a little more before you bother the user.

They can probably work around this by manually enabling the ini file for all desired plugins and features with a text editor. Change the enable values and other options for the plugins they want enabled. Then they never have to visit the plugins tab. Most plugins allow setting options directly within the plugin screens. Chart downloader is an exception to that rule.

Would be interesting to know if they enable the standard plugins does O start up ok. If not then enable each plug in one by one to see which is causing a problem.

[Hakan]

TDan..
Yes that would work but probably also uninstall, deletion of the OpenCPN folder and reinstall. But my interest here was more to find a cause in order to avoid such failures for a newbie wo much PC interest. Dave have got som log/ini files from the user. Let's see if he find something.
Håkan

[rgleason]

Must have been embarrassing. I have not ever had this problem "tools-options-plugins the tab window is empty!" - Sometimes slow to appear is all.Hope you find the problem.

O was working good but when I should demonstrate plugins and opened tools-options-plugins the tab window is empty! and the tools panel freeze. I could still zoom charts in/out but not activate any tool nor shut down O with any method but had to force it down from the Win tool. This was repeatable on first O 4.6.1 and the same for 4.8.