DigsbyUpdater crashes

Digsby is awesome but... I've had to install it several times because the Updater continues to crash and i can't connect at all.

I've seen other people with the same problem but no solutions for it except reinstall again and again.

This should not be a solution. Any help is appreciated.

nuno

what OS? what version of digsby?

Using Win XP Professional SP3.
Using Digsby build 15142.

thanks
nuno

there's been some changes to the autoupdater; you should try the 'test' release: http://forum.digsby.com/viewtopic.php?id=2116

It seems this problem of the auto updater hoses things much more broadly. The same Digsby account used on multiple system users (Windows XP Pro SP3) doesn't know when the application has been MANUALLY updated and thus after fixing this as an administrator user I then logged into a lesser user and started Digsby - which then tried to update and broke function for ALL users again. I'd also like to note that skins are not per system user, and because they are stored in the application directory instead of the user directory like they should they are lost when you have to manually reinstall and if not reinstalled you get a 'naked' UI. Now hopefully I can figure out a way to make ALL my system users know that Digsby is updated and to leave the thing alone and STOP breaking it for the other users. How about some proper user path support for some of this?

A side note - password management on the forums doesn't seem to work right either. Can't change mine after the signup system didn't work right and had to get a reissued password.

Yes, I'm annoyed - and the forum issue is not a good sign either.

Last edited by FrankenPaq (2008-09-19 20:29:08)

what's "manually updated" ?
where is digsby installed? is it installed in a system-wide location like program files? or is it installed separately for each user?

regarding skins: while we encourage users to create and test skins, this comes with no guarantee of functionality or ease of use, since it's in a half-finished state. i'm sorry it's causing issues but the feature isn't complete and problems will be encountered.

regarding the forum: i don't know what you mean by the signup system not working right, but i'll see if i can change my password and have someone take a look at it if i have issues.

Digsby is installed in the system wide Program Files folder. As I observed Digsby creates it's own folder in the user's Application Data folder in their home path. This folder contains a single dat file. I do hope the new updater checks the applications build number directly, as it doesn't check properly as it was. By "manually updated" I mean I downloaded the new build and installed it myself.

I received the failed update under a lesser user on the system, and went to the administrator user to see if it would complete the update. It did not. I proceeded to perform the manual update. The installer (as displayed when clicking 'show details') proceeds to delete everything in the application's folder, then installs the new version. This included a MS Visual C++ Redistributable, which may be part of the problem. After the first cycle of this under the administrator user I got Digsby to run again, did a few more tasks, and shut down. Upon starting the system up for more work a day later and logging into a lesser user, Digsby reported another update and proceeded to download the update and crash again. I didn't see any indication a new build had been released, so the updater apparently didn't know I had performed the manual update and didn't check the build version of the installed executable. I logged out of the lesser user and into the administrator user to check, and it would no longer start under that user either. After attempting the manual reinstall again, it still would not start immediately following the install. On a hunch I ran the installer, told it not to run Digsby after the install, and rebooted. This is where I think the VC++ update item mucks it up a bit - updated runtimes should require a reboot, right? After reboot, Digsby would start. It worked on several shutdowns of the application and restarts, connected and disconnected as normal. On a hunch, I copied the dat file from the admin user to the other lesser users. I then swapped into the lesser user I'd previously attempted to start Digsby from, and it worked.

The matter of the forum signup is that it never seemed to take my initial password from the signup page, and after getting the automatic password reset it won't let me as yet change the password via the link provided in the email nor the item under Account Tools found at the top of every forum page. I am currently on another system and will try again - same Firefox 3.0.1 browser though.

Downloaded new version of Digsby (r17745).

Digsby is at least now able to download updates but it still crashes after the update is downloaded.

With the previous version of Digsby it would crash even before the update started. Now it downloads the update and then crashes.

So, new release, same problem with the updater.

Is there a way to turn off the automatic updates? I haven't seen one in the config.

nuno

@FrankenPaq I see your problem you are having. The Account Tools to the upper right is only for your Digsby Account, which does not include the Forum.

I believe this is the link you are looking for:
http://forum.digsby.com/login.php?action=forget

The forum requires a separate registration and the password is initially generated.

As for the top right menu, we'll make some adjustments in the near future to make this more obvious and cause less confusion.

the VC++ redistributable doesn't require a restart, but it does require admin access to install. it only needs to be installed once, though we haven't yet figured out a way to check if it's installed (so it just gets installed every time). however, digsby shouldn't start if it wasn't installed correctly.

the .dat file is where saved digsby passwords and login settings are stored (so, whether digsby should auto-login with a certain user, which was used last, etc) so i'm not sure why copying it around to other user folders would help.

it may be worth trying out the test build, as it's more self-contained (no VC++ redist) and many bugs have been fixed (though the ones that remain are more severe, causing hard crashes).

I'm using the test build, and there's something wrong with the autoupdater. It doesn't crash, but it simply freezes when it is checking for updates. I have to download the installer again each time because my disgby will connect, authenticate, etc. but it will always stop at "checking for updates..."

elyts wrote:

I'm using the test build, and there's something wrong with the autoupdater. It doesn't crash, but it simply freezes when it is checking for updates. I have to download the installer again each time because my disgby will connect, authenticate, etc. but it will always stop at "checking for updates..."

I guess it is worth asking if you have a firewall enabled?

elyts, if you email bugs@digsby.com, steve will follow up and get all kinds of fun information from you (like program log, updater log, system specs, etc.) and probably find a solution for you.

guys i have the same problem. WinXP, installed Digsby to a different dir (E:/programy/) - both latest version and test version crashes while running Digsby PreUpdater.exe
First start after install always works, then no more
thanks

I downloaded the latest version and it seems a bit more stable than the beta but the PreUpdater still crashes.

Installs fine the first time but if I restart Digsby it always crashes the PreUpdater and doesn;t let me continue.

This is is pretty BIG bug which should've been taken care of before anything else since there's no option to stop the automatic updates when Digsby starts.

Dev guys, get to work and produce a work-around or a quick fix!!!

nuno

have you contacted bugs@digsby.com ? there's no way to 'get to work' unless we have enough information to figure out the cause...

I think there should be enough information in this thread to actually figure out what the problem is. I don't think this is something that only happens to me and the dev team IS aware of it. You're just giving your users the run-around and delaying.

The longer you take to resolve the problem the more people you'll get annoyed with this problem and that's how good applications disappear into oblivion.

Writing an email to bug would be useful if i hadn't already posted all the requested information in this thread.

Please read it.

nuno

The only way this is getting fixed is if we get enough client/updater logs to figure out what the cause is. As far as I know, we haven't gotten yours.

Yet again, Digsby updates and breaks. I wouldn't so much mind if there was a way to make Digsby not automatically update. I see nothing in my Event Viewer as yet to explain it. Is there some other log somewhere else I might find that could give clues as to why this is so thoroughly broken?

By the way, I don't get how on one hand you can be defaulting your Digsby promotion options to be on when you cry 'it's just beta' when forcing application breaking updates down the throats of users. These little 'Digsby is great' (or whatever it is precisely) notes aren't too believable when are delivering a product you then claim isn't ready for production use.

FrakenPaq- I don't know if you've sent your application + updater logs to bugs@digsby.com yet or not, but either way it wouldn't hurt to do it again. Edit: I just remembered something from quite a while ago related to Lenovo fingerprint-readers that causes unpredictable results. Would you happen to have one of those?

--
separate from your updating issue though, is that you're projecting your experience onto other users. the fact is that only a very small number of people experience problems with the updater. Most of them don't even notice, as the update fails silently and just logs into the client. An even smaller number are experiencing your issue. It's not "thoroughly broken" just because it doesn't work for one mystery configuration.

In general, from what I've been reading on the internet, our forums, and in emails... people do think Digsby is great, even though it is beta. In general, it works fine and simplifies people's communication needs.