[APBeta] Backup Error

[Paul Rodman]

On Jan 1, 2011, at 6:57 PM, Hans Kostense wrote:

> Not sure if I have missed an earlier message on this subject, but lately I have discovered a problem with the Backup function of AP. On 4-Dec-10 I was still able to create an AP backup archive (zip) with preferences, observations, catalogs, plans, etc. I believe this was with AP 2.0b97.
> 
> Trying to do the same in AP 2.0b98 has resulted in attached error message. This message is displayed for every file in the backup list. In the end an AP backup archive is generated, but the only content is a 0KB copy of the (empty) User Dictionary. Nevertheless, the backup date and time are registered in AP as if it were a successful backup.

Sorry about that. The problem is fixed for the next release.

> Export of Observations (creating an .obs file) is still possible though. Latter can then also successfully be imported in AP on another computer.

Yes. Only the backup/restore feature uses the ZIP feature, which I unintentionally broke when I updated to the latest version.

> Combining these two items leads me to the following questions:
> 1. Would it be possible to backup AP prefs and other items from one computer and restore on another? I suppose it would be OK, but am not entirely sure on (Windows) folder / path dependencies.

Exactly correct. However, when you restart the app after restoring prefs, if any paths are not found you will get a warning and the opportunity to fix those paths. You might get problems if you backup on Windows and restore to a Mac, or vice versa.

> 2. Which part of preferences and other settings are included in a plan when you save it? How would that work out when using a downloaded User-Contributed plan if you want to use that with your own preferences and settings?

Any settings which are plan-specific, e.g. FoV/Sky settings, user-defined fields, etc. User-contributed plans do not include any settings other than user-defined fields. The other settings would be defaulted, or if you have defined a plan template (Preferences->General) then the settings will be inherited from the template plan (I think).

> 3. (Only indirectly related) It seems there are no differences between catalogs for AP v1 and v2, is that correct?

Correct. Well, actually there are some features in some recent catalogues which are only visible in V2. V1 can use those catalogues, but will ignore those items.

> Please let me know if I need to provide more details on the Backup error. Just to rule out some obvious issues: there is sufficient disk space and access rights are also OK, saving to the same or another disk partition is indifferent.

No, it's fixed. For the technically curious: I forgot to set a flag to tell the ZIP software to use an internal plugin I use. Hence it was trying to use the built-in zlib library. This exists on Mac OS X, but does not exist on Windows (by default). I have now added some code to warn me if I forget to set that flag in the future.

Paul R.

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