#366 Opensong freezes

[Anonymous]

Hi guys, I've been using Opensong for quite some time now and found it fairly good. Two weeks ago it suddenly started freezing as soon as I wanted to change something in Set Mode. I haven't even had the opportunity to see if it freezes in SongMode as well.
I uninstalled everything, even cleared Opensong from the registry, rebooted the machine, reinstalled the software, but to no avail.
This is what I have:
Edition Windows 10 Pro
Version 22H2
Installed on ‎2022/‎1/‎6
OS Build 19045.6332
The specs are attached.

Please help, as I am currently up in arms.

Regards
Hein

[SvA]

So, what happens when you start OpenSong now?

• Does it partially or completely start and then freeze (i.e. it does not respond to keyboard input and mouse clicks).
• Does it display any messages?
• Did you configure it to start up in Set mode?
• Did you configure it to automatically load the last Set and / or Song?
• What does the main window show when OpenSong is frozen

I have not heard of any problem causing OpenSong to freeze. So I suppose you run some software on your system that misbehaves, or your system is broken. The latter is relatively unlikely because other programs would suffer in a similar way.

You may try to reset OpenSong by selecting 'Reset OpenSong Preferences' in the installer (that option is on a page after you have selected normal, full or custom installation). You do not need tu uninstall first. you can install over your current one.
This replaces a file in AppData, where OpenSong saves some settings and states. OpenSong does not use the registy, so I don't know, what you cleared from your registy.
You can create a backup of this file and remove it yourself, without the help of the installer. To do so

• open Windows Explorer
• enter shell:appdata\OpenSong in the address bar
• move or rename the file called preferences.plist (or preferences with Type PLIST-File if you have extensions hidden) while OpenSong is not running
• start OpenSong
• OpenSong will ask you for it's document folder. Unless you moved it, it is at {This PC}\{Documents}\OpenSong and OpenSong will likely suggest this folder i.e. open the dialog to this folder. If Windows interferes and opens the dialog to some other place, you may enter shell:personal\OpenSong into the Folder textbox or the address bar. Confirm with Select.
• OpenSong will now complain that it did not find Bible "" and then tell you which bible it loaded instead
• If this configuration store was at fault, OpenSong should now be up and running again.

If the above helped, please post the preferences.plist file which you moved or renamed here for me to analyze. This might help us to prevent the same from happening to others.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your suggestion. However, it didn't work. I renamed the file in question "preferences.plist-old" and restarted Opensong. It looke fine, but what I used to di, was take the previous week's playlist and update it with new songs and images, also changing the date. I do this by opening the set from the previous week. I have an item {date (custom} with specific information. As soon as I select that item, it freezes up and nothing works - not the keyboard, not the mouse, except killing the application via Taskmanager. Extremely frustrating.

[SvA]

Thanks for reporting back.
It looks like you narrowed the source of the problem down to that set, or even the set item.

It is probably easiest to use an older version of the set as a base for new edits.

You may try to find the part within the set, that causes the problem, but that is likely not that easy, especially when you are not used to edit xml files in a text editor.

From what I understand, you are able to load the set into OpenSong, but problems appear as soon as you make that particular set item the current one. This indicates that the structure of the file is in tact, but there is some problem with the slide text.

The file is an XML file, a text file with special "tags" giving the contents structure. We had problems in the past with characters our XML processor did not like and made an effort to check and avoid any of those characters making it into the file. Maybe in your case one made it through.

If you want to try to salvage this set, I suggest you first try am XML validator to see if the file is well formed XML. It is easiest to just search the internet for an xml validator and upload the file there for validation. If you get an error message, it might tell you exactly where within the file the problem is.

You can use a text editor to open the file. The text in the editor may be unwieldy, if the set contains embedded images (i.e. from a style set in a style set item, an image set item or a custom style set in any of the set items). These are ling stretches of character data which look like garbage. If this is the case, you might want to try to delete those items in OpenSong first.

The file is UTF-8 encoded. If your editor does not detect this automatically, you should instruct it to load and save it as UTF-8, preferably without BOM (byte order mark). Windows Editor (Notepad) works well for this.

Here is an sample from the Example set, that is installed with OpenSong.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<set>
  <slide_groups>
  <slide_group name="Announcements" type="custom" seconds="10" loop="true">
  <title>Announcements</title>
  <subtitle>For April 26th, 2004</subtitle>
  <notes/>
  <slides>
  <slide>
  <body>-= Monday =-
12-1 PM: Prayer Meeting</body></slide>
  <slide>
  <body>-= Wednesday =-
6-7:30 PM: Prayer Meeting</body></slide>
  <slide>
  <body>-= Thursday =-
6:30-8:30 PM: Youth Group</body></slide></slides></slide_group>
  <slide_group name="Colossians 1:11-14" type="scripture">

 ...

 </slide_group></slide_groups></set>

It is the start of the file including the complete "Amouncements (custom)" item, the beginning of the second set item ... and the very end.

There are elements with names in <element_name> angle brackets which are closed with a matching tag </element_name>. If the slash is after the name <element_name/>, the element is empty and there is no matching tag. These tags are nested hierarchically, meaning they may be nested, but never overlap. Moreover, in this type of XML file, elements do not appear embedded within non-whitespace text.

The first line is special. The <set>element starts on the second line and ends on the last.

Within that, there is the <slide_groups> element, and within that several <slide_group> elements.

These slide_group elements have what is called attributes after the element name, but before the >. In particular there is a name attribute and a type attribute, that lets you identify your {date (custom)} item (name="{date}" type="custom").

Within that group are several more elements. Inspect all the contents of that slide_group element and remove any suspicious characters, any < and > that is not part of an element start or end tag and any & that is not part of the string &, leaving elements in tact, or removing them entirely.

Save the file, validate it, and if everything is ok, try to load it in OpenSong (after a restart) to see if you fixed it.

If this sounds too intimidating to you, and you can share the set file, I will have a look at it. Attach it to a post, or send me your email address by a private message (click my name, SvA on top of this post, then click the button "Send Message"). I will then send an email to you to which you can reply.