#243 Warning message box appears when WCM launches

[Gitoffthelawn]

I launched WCM 23.02 for the 3rd or 4th time, and received the following warning. I have never received a message like this before from WCM. What does it mean? What needs to be done?

I have not modified any files by hand, but do I need to in order to prevent data corruption?

[time]: file '[path]\WebChangeMonitorSettings.ini', line 149: key 'EncodingErrors' was first found at line 143.
[time]: entry 'EncodingErrors' appears more than once in group '/Log'

[Morten MacFly]

This should not happen. Just remove the duplicate line in that case. I don't know where this is coming from and I don't see any bug that could cause this.

[Gitoffthelawn]

I just have a few minutes, but I want to let you know that I've confirmed on several occasions that this happens. I don't have STR at this time, but it's happened at least 3 times in the last 2 months.

It may have something to do with the user opening the Configuration dialog box, changing some settings, and closing it.

If so, it may have to do with changing settings in the Identifiers tab of that dialog box. Another possibility is the Identify as field of the Connectivity tab. A final possibility regarding that dialog box is adding/removing items from the Ignores/Replace tab, especially those that include single and double-quote characters.

The only other likely possibility is when changing settings in the Log window.

[Gitoffthelawn]

BTW, please let me know if you read the above... I'm not sure if you see posts on closed items.

[Morten MacFly]

I read the above but still don't have a clue why that happens nor it happens to me. BUT: I've changed some portions of the related code recently as there was a bug with saving UI settings. Maybe this will become better with the next release. BTW: There is only a single line that is called only once that writes the particular parameter to the INI file. And this is only when exiting the configuration dialog. Additionally there are tons of other settings that are similar. So this is really spurious. Are you probably using the same INI file in two instances of WCM by accident...?!

[Gitoffthelawn]

Glad you got my message.

It happened again this past week:

Log message:

entry 'EncodingErrors' appears more than once in group '/Log'

I only run a single instance of WCM, so that's not the cause.

I'm hoping the new version fixes the issue. If not, perhaps I'll write a small script or program to check the settings file when WCM closes, and delete the duplicate line when it appears. Not ideal, but simple enough.

Perhaps re-open this issue until it is confirmed resolved?

[Gitoffthelawn]

I tried WCM 23.05, and it has the same issue.

I now make a habit of manually checking the WCM settings file each time after I run and then close WCM.

Here were my exact steps:

1. I backed up the WCM settings .ini file
2. I launched WCM 23.05
3. I pressed the keyboard shortcut to check all items
4. I waited for all items to be checked
5. I selected an item that WCM found to be updated
6. I pressed the keyboard shortcut to view the changes
7. I reviewed the changes, then closed the external comparison tool
8. I closed WCM

The duration from step 1 to step 8 was ~5 minutes.

No other applications except a file manager, a calculator, and a text editor were running.

No other copies of WCM were running.

I then compared the backup of the WCM settings .ini file with the settings file that was saved as part of Step 8.

The expected differences were present:

• an updated timestamp
• updated count for each ignore definition
• an updated CRC

In addition there was an unexpected difference:

• The line: EncodingErrors=0 was added as line 1 (above all other lines, and not in any section). That line was still also present in the [Log] section.

[Gitoffthelawn]

I experienced another similar issue with WCM 23.05:

Here were my exact steps:

1. I backed up the WCM settings .ini file
2. I launched WCM 23.05
3. I pressed the keyboard shortcut to check all items
4. I waited for all items to be checked
5. I selected an item that WCM found to be updated
6. I pressed the keyboard shortcut to view the changes
7. I reviewed the changes, then closed the external comparison tool
8. I repeated steps 6 & 7 for 3 other items.
9. I selected 13 sequential items
10. I pressed the keyboard shortcut to make the state of those 13 items default
11. I closed WCM

I then compared the backup of the WCM settings .ini file with the settings file that was saved as part of Step 11.

The expected differences were present:

• an updated timestamp
• updated count for each ignore definition
• an updated CRC

In addition there was an unexpected difference:
A section with an empty name was added just above the [CRC] section. The contents of the section is To169=. Thus, the end of the WCM settings file is now:

[]
To169=
[CRC]
CRC=xxxxx

(where xxxxx is the CRC)

I have a hypothesis that this could be due to an error in how WCM handles ignore items that contain quotation marks and/or other special characters.

[Gitoffthelawn]

This issue appears to be random and sporadic, and displays the qualities of a heisenbug.

Here is the latest example with WCM 23.05:

My exact steps:

1. I backed up the WCM settings .ini file
2. I launched WCM 23.05
3. I pressed the keyboard shortcut to check all items
4. I waited for all items to be checked
5. I closed WCM

I then compared the backup of the WCM settings .ini file with the settings file that was automatically saved as part of Step 5.

The expected differences were present:

• an updated timestamp
• updated count for each ignore definition
• an updated CRC

In addition there was an unexpected difference:

• a new EncodingErrors=0 line as the last item in the [Ignores] section

The EncodingErrors=0 in the [Log] section is still present.

As always, no other copies of WCM were running.

[Gitoffthelawn]

Can you update the milestone & status of this issue report? It's currently listed as "invalid" and "closed".

[Gitoffthelawn]

What do you think is the best way we can resolve this issue?

I've written a script that launches WCM and checks the WCM settings file afterwards for errors. If it finds errors, it launches a tool to highlight those errors.

After working with this setup for several months, it's definitely clear that the above WCM issue rears its ugly head sporadically. What's odd is that performing the exact same actions on my end will sometimes result in the error occurring, and sometimes not. I estimate that the error happens during about 15% of WCM sessions.

Does WCM perform some actions only occasionally, even when the user's actions are consistent?

The other primary variable would be the content returned to WCM from web servers.

Note that I use WCM for brief sessions. My typical way of using WCM is to launch it, check all items, compare any different items, and then terminate WCM. I don't keep WCM running all the time.

Note also that I have written many (over 200) ignore/replace filters. Some use literals, while others utilize regex. One thing I've noticed is that when the duplicate EncodingErrors=0 line gets added to the settings file in inappropriate sections, sometime the Type of an ignore/replace filter will somehow get changed to a value of -1. This happens even when I haven't changed any of the ignore/replace patterns during any recent sessions. Because of this, I've sometimes hypothesized that WCM may be getting tripped up on ignore/replace patterns that include single-quotes, double-quotes, or other special characters. But, if it did, I would expect the above WCM errors to happen 100% of the time.