Problems upgrading to 2.1.0

[Kevin Williams]

I tried to upgrade to 2.1.0 this week and ran into several problems. I was trying to upgrade from 2.0.20 under Windows 7.

1. During installation, the uninstall of 2.0.20 failed. I manually uninstalled 2.0.20 using the Windows Control Panel and tried again. This time the install was successful.
2. Rendering with LDGLite did not work well at all. LDGLite kept crashing and I ended up with many parts and assemblies not showing up. Rendering with LDView seemed to be working.
3. When configuring the rendering options, it told me the binary for POV-Ray 3.7 was invalid and wouldn't accept my selection.
4. LPub3D did not appear to be writing any log files that I could use to diagnose problems.

I restarted LPub3D several times and rebooted my system twice but could not get it working.

I was able to download and re-install 2.0.20 without incident, and it seems to be working like it did before the attempted upgrade.

[Knud Ahrnell Albrechtsen]

I tried upgrading this morning and this time it succeeded.
But it also started with emptying my c:\Users\Public\Documents\LDraw\ library.
including all my custom parts.

[Trevor Sandy]

The only scenarios I can think of where LPub3D would delete your data is if you actively uninstall the previous version (e.g. v2.0.20 or earlier) . In this case, only user data installed by LPub3D would be deleted because the uninstall script deletes on a file-basis and only deletes the user data folder(s) if they are empty.

Versions of LPub3D after v2.0.20 offers the option to delete user and registry data during uninstall. These options must be explicitly selected in the modules dialogue. If you check the user data option, all content in the user data folder will be deleted. Of course, it is not wise to put user data not generated by LPub3D in such a location. It is also not wise to select the option the delete your user data if you expect to reinstall the application. Notices as such are presented in the dialogues during un/install.

There are no scenarios where LPub3D would delete your LDraw folder if it is not located in the LPub3D-specific user data location - <drive>:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\LPub3D Software\LPub3D\</user></drive>

If this is not the case for you. It would be quite helpful if you could provide a list of steps to reproduce the behaviour where your LDraw folder is deleted. You can create an issue on GitHub following the guidance in the issue template https://github.com/trevorsandy/lpub3d/issues/new.

Cheers,

[Knud Ahrnell Albrechtsen]

Hi Trevor.
The only thing I usually change during one of these upgrades is about the shortcuts.
I dont want a desktop shortcut, and i make the installer put one in the start menu.
otherwise i don't change anything.
It looks as if it has installed LPUB3D in the c:\Users\Public\Documents\LDraw\ folder.
LPub3D22.exe is in the folder along with a lot of dll files and a couple of folders.

[Trevor Sandy]

Hi Knud,
Correct me if I'm wrong, from the install path you presented it looks like you were attempting to install a Windows Installer distribution of LPub3D to the location used by LDraw.org's All-In-One-Installer ?

If my assumption is correct, I would advise to not do that. I don't know the specific packaging rules of the AIOI and my NSIS Windows Installer does not follow any convention from that package. My effort to support the AIOI distribution is to provide my "portable" distributions (the LPub3D....zip packages for 32 and 64 bit platforms) which I understand is what is used by the LDraw.org team to populate the AIOI. Installing a "Windows Installer" distribution in the same folder location as the AIOI is not a tested, or even tried, scenario so you are basically on your own with such an approach.

What I can say is if you must place your distribution in the location used originally by the AIOI, then your best bet is to archive your original LPub3D contents and unpack a "protable" distribution to the specified location. If you are using any icons then you will be responsible for updating your icons to the appropriate LPub3D executable name as the file name changes with bumps to the minor version - for example v2.0.20's file name is LPub3D20.exe, v2.1.0 is LPub3D21.exe etc.

The Windows Installer version of LPub3D is designed to support either user or admin-level installations. The best practice is to install LPub3D in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local if installing only for a specific user or to C:\Program Files if installing for all users - the latter approach will obviously require admin-level privilages. Following this convention you maintain the flexibility to upgrade, install and or ininstall both AIOI and LPub3D independently.</user>

Cheers,

[Knud Ahrnell Albrechtsen]

Hi Trevor
Originally LPUB3D was installed with the AIOI but has been updated several times with LPUB3D's "updater" since. This is the first time I have had these problems. In I usually install in C:\Program Files as you suggest above.
I will try to uninstall LPUB3D and do a manual install instead.

Thanks