Teenage Problem

[richmond62]

Well, not really; probably a universal one; anyway, here goes from one of my pupils:

"yesterday I was working on the game, but it suddenly crashed(for a first time using livecode 8,
so I'm pretty sure it's because I have written wrong code). The problem is that I can't even
open the stack now, so I guess I should start my 1-2 weeks work again"

ALL I have done so far (which is, frankly, feeble) is written this:

1. there is no code your wrote when you were using LC 9 that is not going to work in LC 8.

She's working on Windows 10 and was experiencing mysterious slowdowns and crashes with LC 9.6.3,
so I suggested that she tried LC 8.1.10. This does not seem to have done her much good.

Presumably (?) there is a file somewhere on her system called something like "~myCrunchedFile.livecode"
(where the tilde is the relevant thing), and I wonder of there is some way she can open that?

[jmburnod]

Hi Richmond,
Did you try this ?
launch livecode
set the lockmessages to true
open your stack.
Kind regards
Jean-Marc

[richmond62]

Hi Richmond,
Did you try this ?

I have my own problems, but not that one.

I have forwarded your suggestion through to this girl, who seems to be "off-piste" at present

(or possibly just "pissed off")

and we shall see what we shall see.

The bottom line is that she can haul her laptop over to my school on Tuesday and I can have a try.

[If I cannot open a tilded file on her Windows machine I'll copy it onto a flash-drive and see what I can do
on a Macintosh machine or something running Xubuntu.]

Thank you very much for the suggestion.

----------------------
I have had several 'grunts' from children about LiveCode on Windows
over the last year and my 'questions' stack up this way:

1. No wonder if your machine is stuffed to the gills with games your computer can hardly cope with.

2. Have you actually QUIT most of the programs you normally use or are they merely chuntering along in the background?

3. Why did you get your dad to bung a pirate version of Windows 10 on a 7 year old laptop?

After all those have been exhausted (and they seem to 'exhaust' most of the children), I then start
wondering about some sort of problem with LiveCode and Windows.

I do wonder why LiveCode seems to crash more often on those kids' computers than mine (which run
either Linux or Macintosh). The children whose parents have little money (meaning they bought an old computer
for $20 and I put either Xubuntu or Zorin OS on the thing) have not experienced crashes with LiveCode.

To make real sense of this: in the last 10 years

1. I have had 2 crashes on Linux (where, in both cases, the stack in Q has opened directly on relaunch).

2. I have NEVER had a crash on Macintosh (which is impressive).

[stam]

I have NEVER had a crash on Macintosh (which is impressive).

That's not been my experience sadly *. While not frequent, crashes do occur and i have lost work because of these. I now save on on every successful change and always regret it if i forget to do so. The same should probably apply to windows development...


* having said that, i've not yet had a crash on Monterey, but it's early days...

[richmond62]

My "only problem" (well re LiveCode) is that I am a sucker for repeat loops and end
up with loops that try to run forever because I forget to write a line that will mean
that the conditions to end the loop are satisfied: then the IDE Freezes.

BUT: that is NOT a crash.

AND, it is "all my own work."

It does mean I have a long-running love affair, both on Macintosh and Linux with
an app that has this icon:
-

SShot 2021-11-20 at 19.59.44.png (30.83 KiB) Viewed 6060 times

[stam]

To be clear, when i say crash i do not mean a freeze. I mean the whole app just shuts down with no warning and i get asked to send the crash data. As in a hard crash, with no option to save changes.
But, as mentioned, hasn't happened with latest IDE on Monterey so far...

[richmond62]

-
The teenage girl has reverted with this picture and the comment:

"The only thing I found was that it says that is internet shortcut

"I can neither rename it, nor open it"

-----------

I am NOT very good (that's a polite way of saying 'awful') with Windows.

BUT I am surprised files are showing up without an suffixes . . .

[richmond62]

"but it do has .livecode extension

in fact it's .livecode.URL extension

so I guess I have to find a way to remove the .URL part"

How or why did it end up like that?

[richmond62]

SShot 2021-11-21 at 12.18.51.png (16.72 KiB) Viewed 5921 times

-
this is very odd indeed, especially as the "Snail Sprites" stack that was sent by me to this pupil
was bigger than the version that has had .URL bunged on the end on her computer.
-

-
AND all those files are corrupted.

AND not a tilded "anything" in sight.
-

SShot 2021-11-21 at 12.25.19.png (13.41 KiB) Viewed 5921 times

-
Waiting and wondering.

[richmond62]

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could tell me, where, on Windows one is likely to
find a folder called either "RunRev" or "LiveCode", and if it is at all possible that a tilded
file might end up there.

[SparkOut]

It's not quite clear what's going on, but it looks like that image shows a list of shortcuts to the recently used file list, not actual files. Removing the "url" part isn't going to help. (Normally I would expect a ".lnk" extension but I am guessing it might be a localisation thing.)
The original files were stored in the OneDrive folder. ~ files might be there too, but otherwise in the AppData folder for the user account, in a subfolder of (probably) the Roaming folder in there.

[richmond62]

Unfortunately my pupil has "bottled out":

"At this point I'd prefer to start again instead of trying to find some non-existent folders
somewhere on my laptop First of all I have made it ones (or twice) so it would be easier,
second of all I still know where I have problems, so I'll try to do whatever I can until Tuesday so yeah..."

I hope that in due course I can lay my "sweaty paws" on her laptop and see if what you suggest is the fact.

What is 'funny' is that 'Recent Stacks' also found nothing.

Thank you very much for the suggestions and support.

[dunbarx]

@Stam.

I have the same experience on a Mac as you do, and the same regret that I did not save ten seconds earlier.

@Richard Gaskin (if you see this; you are not in this thread) You have always asserted that LC by its nature should never crash. Do you still maintain this? For me, HC never crashed at all. Well maybe five times, but that was over 34 years.

Craig

[richmond62]

My pupil DID try and fossick around:

"I have founded a roaming folder, but it was empty, too"

[richmond62]

You have always asserted that LC by its nature should never crash.

That is like saying "computers don't go wrong."

The odd thing about my pupil's situation is that there is no tilded file
lying around as far as she can see.