Version 1.3

Please report bugs, suggestions and ask questions about Mars Notebook here.
alross
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:14 am
Location: Scotland

Unread post Mon May 15, 2006 3:32 am

Hello Marsianin,

I see that version 1.3 is now available. Well done. I'll save my old data and have a look at it later today.

Thanks,

Al
User avatar
Marsianin
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 1655
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:02 am
Location: Red Planet
Contact:

Unread post Mon May 15, 2006 8:04 am

Yeah.
You need to make 6 steps to get your old data available in this version:

1. Install new version, there is no need to uninstall previous one
2. Run dbConvert utility (be sure it installed in step 1)
3. Pick your old Noteboo.dat base and select to create new one with anyname.mnb, enter password if set
4. Click convert
5. Run Notebook 1.3 and open your new database with anyname.mnb (just press Ctrl+O)
6. Enjoy

P.S. Always have backup of your database file.
Is there any life on Mars ?
alross
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:14 am
Location: Scotland

Unread post Tue May 16, 2006 5:17 am

Thanks Marsianin

I did all that and my old notes data came up very nicely. Unfortunately, this morning I re-opened it and I am now getting a message "Error opening database. May be file is corrupted or opened in another copy of Mars Notebook".

I think it is the second of these. Here's what happened in detail.

1 - started Mars Notebook.
2 - started MS Outlook 2000 (I really must switch to Thunderbird!)
3 - started Mozilla Firefox
4 - Mars Notebook screen displayed with correct data on view
5 - MS Outlook screen started to display and built correctly
6 - Firefox screen overlayed Oulook - also correctly
7 - noticed that there was no icon on the TaskBar for Mars Notebook
8 - checked for any hidden icons with <Alt + tab> - found none
9 - started Mars Notebook again - and now the error message
10 - figured I could re-run the db-convert from my backup but I get one of those joyful MS error messages meant for the technically-smarter-than-me to the effect that Error Code 5: Access is Denied - Native Error 30361 which I suspect might mean that the destination file (that I tried to overwrite) is currently open to another program. And providing a different filename does in fact let me complete the file convert. And I can also now open that file in Mars Notebook.

Preliminary conclusion: for some reason the first instance of Mars Notebook exitted improperly without closing the current data file which Windows now thinks is still open to the application. So, next I closed down windows and restarted it to test this theory.

On restart I did the following:

1 - started Mars Notebook
2 - started Mozilla Firefox (to get to this bulletin board page)
3 - Mars Notebook screen displayed with correct data on view - from the alternate data file (which I had previously made a change to so as to distinguish it)
4 - used the About... screen to get the hyperlink to here
5 - Mozilla Firefox opened this website correctly and I navigated to the bulletin board form I am now filling in ...
6 - looked back to the TaskBar to find Mars Notebook had gone :(
7 - restarted Mars Notebook which now reported the same message as before
8 - tried to open the original file that had failed to open before and this time it opened fine and thus far has stayed open quite nicely.

So I think my preliminary conclusion is correct - that the error message is due to Mars Notebook having been terminated improperly and the file system thinks the file is still open.

What is not clear is why Mars Notebook terminated improperly. Later on I will try to activate it a longer time after system startup, as the problem occurs shortly after start up when, typically, all kinds of things are still loading and competing for memory.

I checked the application, security, and system logs using Event Viewer and did not find anything unusual that might correlate.

Checking in the Task Manager just now shows ONE instance of Mars Notebook listed under applications, but under Processes there are TWO instances of Notebook.exe running. Closing Mars Notebook terminates one instance of Notebook.exe. I then terminated the second instance of the process Notebook.exe. After that I could run Mars Notebook again and both data files can now be opened successfully at will.

Conclusion: shortly after startup the application Mars Notebook terminated improperly leaving the attached process Notebook.exe still running. Further activations of Mars Notebook run correctly. (At this moment I have two full instances running concurrently each with an open datafile.)

Hope all the above helps.

===

Besides all that, a really nice upgrade which I would like to thank you for.

All the best

Al
User avatar
Marsianin
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 1655
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:02 am
Location: Red Planet
Contact:

Unread post Tue May 16, 2006 6:30 am

Wow...a lot of reflections...

As this version can open any of yours datafile I made it possible to start more than one copy of Mars Notebook. But one datafile can not be opened twice so please check carefully if another copy of Mars Notebook is opened when you're getting "Error opening database. May be file is corrupted or opened in another copy of Mars Notebook".
In most cases it must sound like "Error opening database. May be file is opened in another copy of Mars Notebook.

But I want to know more about "...application Mars Notebook terminated improperly...". How you terminated it ? Never got this thing on 98, XP, XP x64 systems.
Is there any life on Mars ?
alross
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:14 am
Location: Scotland

Unread post Tue May 16, 2006 7:33 am

Yes, quite a lot in there.

I do not know how the first copy got terminated which is really the problem that I had. It just seemed to terminate itself while I was doing other things - or perhaps got terminated involuntarily owing to some other action by XP.

There was another copy of the process called notebook.exe running but it seems that the parent application called Mars Notebook was terminated for some reason I do not understand.

I have a suspicion that it is due to an interaction with other things starting up - my system has a lot in it and takes several minutes to complete startup. One reason I suspect this is that yesterday, when I downloaded, I was able to start and run Mars Notebook and it performed well and was very stable. That happened a long time after system startup.

I am not familiar with all that happens with system startup, but as I have some experience of programming for windows let me speculate for a moment ... I am wondering if there is a system wide message that is broadcast during [at the end of?] startup which is maybe not getting handled, or mistaken for a different message? As I say, just a speculation because my skills do not extend to all that happens in the guts of windows and nowhere near as sophisticated as your own programming skills.

For now I intend to let XP settle down after startup before I start Mars Notebook :-)

All the best

Al
alross
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:14 am
Location: Scotland

Unread post Tue May 16, 2006 4:41 pm

Well, from what I can see now the problem I had must be associated in some way with the startup processes in Win XP. Everything else seems great thus far. :-D
alross
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:14 am
Location: Scotland

Unread post Fri May 19, 2006 6:50 am

I have had another occurrence of the application terminating abnormally leaving the process called "notebook" still running. I attempted to use transparent mode and "stay on top" but it proved difficult in the context of what I was doing. When I clicked the icons to switch off transparent mode the application terminated - but not the underlying process.

So my theory about start-up seems to be wrong.

I have a feeling that this is a very small bug that will give you that "aha!" moment when you spot it. Meantime I am able to use the task manager to forcibly terminate the process. Happily data has been written and so far there appear to be no other consequences of forcing the process to terminate - despite Microsofts dire warnings about unstable results :D

I continue to be very impressed with your upgrade and have sent a recommendation to the UK Open University to have a look at it. I do not know if they will do anything with my recommendation but as a mature student with them I hope they might pay some attention.

All the best,

Alastair
User avatar
Marsianin
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 1655
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:02 am
Location: Red Planet
Contact:

Unread post Fri May 19, 2006 1:15 pm

Can you give me step-by-step instructions to reproduce this error ?
Is there any life on Mars ?
Guest

Unread post Fri May 19, 2006 1:41 pm

I'll try to produce them for you.

Al
alross
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:14 am
Location: Scotland

Unread post Sat May 20, 2006 5:54 am

Mystery solved! Entirely my fault too. :oops: Rather than giving you that "aha" moment it's me that has suddenly got it. Most embarrassing. :oops:

What I had not noticed is that Mars Notebook defaults to "minimise to the notification area". When minimised to the notification area the process called notebook.exe continues but the application Mars Notebook disappears from the task manager application list. I was still looking on the task bar not in the notification area - and I'll be setting that option myself.

If I had been noticing a little more carefully I would have seen that. A few minutes ago I thought "look it's done it again" and then noticed the little icon in the notification area. Clicking that brought it all back up :-D

So, humblest apologies for starting a worry. I'll try to look more carefully in future!

All the very best

Al :oops:
User avatar
Marsianin
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 1655
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:02 am
Location: Red Planet
Contact:

Unread post Sat May 20, 2006 2:24 pm

:thumbsup:
Is there any life on Mars ?
Locked