Just lost a whole day's work with a Sigil crash - Page 3

Hitch · 06-06-2017, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Hitch. So your way overwrites what's there in the xml stuff? I can do that. But what if the xml stuff in the old epub is old? Maybe the epub check will tell me?

Now you're worrying me again. I mean...if you don't have current XML stuff, in what you're copying FROM, why would you be deleting the NEW head material in the NEW file, in the first place? (Am I confused, guys?)

Quote:

I'll do it your way from now on.

I'm not saying, "my way or the highway." I just mean that you need to develop more careful processes, for yourself. Ya know?

Quote:

But your way overwrites the xml coding at the top. Again, what if the xml coding in the new .epub doc is different than what was in the old epub? I'd be overwriting old code into the new .epub.

See above. If that's the case, then, hopefully, this current scenario won't happen, because you wouldn't be deleting the head material, would you? Would you??? No, right?

Quote:

Is that the same as "Add Existing Files" when you right click on a file? (I couldn't find "insert existing file.")

Yes, yes, so sorry. I should have looked to make sure that I'd said it correctly. But yup, do that. It's excellent practice, too.

Quote:

Thanks Hitch. I usually do good backing up. This was just kind of a perfect storm sort of thing.

I can do the unzip thing, but really your first suggestion (your way of copying and pasting) will save time as I can see what's in the files. As long as that works I think I'll do it that way.

I really appreciate the help.

It's an interesting kerfuffle. I wish we could recreate it so we could see it. Seriously, it would be valuable in troubleshooting.

Hitch

KevinH · 06-06-2017, 11:29 AM

FWIW, I do not think the lack of xml header was the cause of the issue or even related. That message in Preview about ill-formed xhtml is nothing but a placeholder for something that can not be parsed by Qt's Webkit widget. I see this placeholder appear and disappear almost constantly as I work in CodeView doing any type of extensive editing. Any missing header would be auto-fixed by gumbo long before it ended up hurting anything.

That said ... nothing a user types in should ever cause Sigil to crash. So I would like to be able to recreate the crash or at least narrow its causes down somewhat. This is on Linux right? Whose build is it? What version is it? What version of Qt is installed on the system? Is there more than one version of Qt installed? What version of Python is installed?

Gregg Bell · 06-06-2017, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

Now you're worrying me again. I mean...if you don't have current XML stuff, in what you're copying FROM, why would you be deleting the NEW head material in the NEW file, in the first place? (Am I confused, guys?)

Thanks Hitch. I just copy from the most recent epubs. Usually less than a year old. I just did a text comparison from a 2013 epub to the one I did just yesterday and the xml stuff is identical. Here's the xml from 2013:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</body>
</html>

So the quickest way has been to open a new blank html file in sigil. Ctrl-a its contents, then delete. Go to the 'old' file and ctrl-a then ctrl-c and come back to the blank html file and ctrl-v.

I do realize I'm not do delete any head material anymore.

I suppose I could leave the original xml stuff and delete what's under the <title></title> (screenshot) and then copy and paste what's under the <title></title> in the old .epub but then yeah, that brings the deleting into play. And it leads to the chance of not copying and pasting correctly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'm not saying, "my way or the highway." I just mean that you need to develop more careful processes, for yourself. Ya know?

Agreed. I'm here looking for the best way of doing it. I'm not committed to any particular way. Of course I look for speed and convenience (as long as it's accurate).

Assuming the xml stuff hasn't/won't change the 'unzipping method' sounds the safest at this point. But it's also slow. Your first way, 'selecting all' of the "empty-ish" new file and copying the old and pasting over the new would be much more convenient and to my liking. I think it would be okay if I did that, don't you?

(Which leads to a separate questions: do I need to be concerned about how current the xml head stuff is? How will I know when it changes?)

Thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

See above. If that's the case, then, hopefully, this current scenario won't happen, because you wouldn't be deleting the head material, would you? Would you??? No, right?

Scouts honor: I will never delete head material ever again.

[/QUOTE]

Gregg Bell · 06-06-2017, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

FWIW, I do not think the lack of xml header was the cause of the issue or even related. That message in Preview about ill-formed xhtml is nothing but a placeholder for something that can not be parsed by Qt's Webkit widget. I see this placeholder appear and disappear almost constantly as I work in CodeView doing any type of extensive editing. Any missing header would be auto-fixed by gumbo long before it ended up hurting anything.

That said ... nothing a user types in should ever cause Sigil to crash. So I would like to be able to recreate the crash or at least narrow its causes down somewhat. This is on Linux right? Whose build is it? What version is it? What version of Qt is installed on the system? Is there more than one version of Qt installed? What version of Python is installed?

Hi Kevin.

Yes, Linux. Xubuntu 16.04LTS is the distro. I couldn't figure out how to see if there was more than one version of QT installed. Here's the rest.

Code:

gregory@gregory-GA-A55M-DS2:~/Desktop$ qmake --version
QMake version 2.01a
Using Qt version 4.8.7 in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
gregory@gregory-GA-A55M-DS2:~/Desktop$ uname -r
4.4.0-78-generic
gregory@gregory-GA-A55M-DS2:~/Desktop$ python -V
Python 2.7.12
gregory@gregory-GA-A55M-DS2:~/Desktop$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release:	16.04
Codename:	xenial
gregory@gregory-GA-A55M-DS2:~/Desktop$

KevinH · 06-06-2017, 01:39 PM

Wow, that version of Qt is way old. You must also have a Python 3 version someplace. What does the Sigil "About" window say about Sigil version and Qt version?

DiapDealer · 06-06-2017, 02:52 PM

With 16.04, I'm sure he's got Qt5/Python3 available. He probably needs to use qmake5 and python3 commands to get their exact versions, though. The real question is probably how he's installed Sigil: from the standard repos, compiled himself, or my experimental standalone package?

Gregg Bell · 06-06-2017, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

Wow, that version of Qt is way old. You must also have a Python 3 version someplace. What does the Sigil "About" window say about Sigil version and Qt version?

Here's the About

Gregg Bell · 06-06-2017, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

With 16.04, I'm sure he's got Qt5/Python3 available. He probably needs to use qmake5 and python3 commands to get their exact versions, though. The real question is probably how he's installed Sigil: from the standard repos, compiled himself, or my experimental standalone package?

I'm pretty sure I installed it through a link you gave me (and I assume that was your 'experimental standalone package') and it installed super easy.

Hitch · 06-06-2017, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

FWIW, I do not think the lack of xml header was the cause of the issue or even related. That message in Preview about ill-formed xhtml is nothing but a placeholder for something that can not be parsed by Qt's Webkit widget. I see this placeholder appear and disappear almost constantly as I work in CodeView doing any type of extensive editing. Any missing header would be auto-fixed by gumbo long before it ended up hurting anything.

Kevin:

I didn't THINK so, but in the past, I've been bitten (granted, it was...a bajillion years ago, in Sigil-years) by the PSOD. I thought that PERHAPS he tried to view it, or...IDK. Something, without the head coding, and Sigil went "unh-unh-uh, bro!," and things went downhill from there. Freely admit it was a reach.

Quote:

That said ... nothing a user types in should ever cause Sigil to crash.

Oh, I dunno, I seem to have Crashy-Superpowers, on that front, but it's true that it hasn't happened in a while.

(It would be useful if anyone here COULD recreate it.)

Hitch

stumped · 06-06-2017, 11:53 PM

slightly off topic but I can crash sigil almost at will with by running remove unused styles ( while the style sheet is being displayed and after editing some values or removing some front matter pages, thus making some styles redundant followed by save
it's usually the save operation that triggers sigil has encountered a problem and needs to close
I have learnt the hard way not to save which the stylesheet is the active displayed page

JSWolf · 06-07-2017, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Here's the About

You are using an old version of Sigil. The current version is 0.9.8. So maybe whatever went wrong is fixed in 0.9.8.

KevinH · 06-07-2017, 11:54 AM

I will try to recreate this. If need be I can force any style sheet in the front tab to temporarily close and only reopen after any stylesheet changes have been made.

Please report the exact version of Sigil used (as this code was touched recently) and the version of Qt being used (see the Sigil "About" window) and of coursewhich OS and version you are using.

Thanks!

Kevin

Quote:

Originally Posted by stumped

slightly off topic but I can crash sigil almost at will with by running remove unused styles ( while the style sheet is being displayed and after editing some values or removing some front matter pages, thus making some styles redundant followed by save
it's usually the save operation that triggers sigil has encountered a problem and needs to close
I have learnt the hard way not to save which the stylesheet is the active displayed page

Gregg Bell · 06-07-2017, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You are using an old version of Sigil. The current version is 0.9.8. So maybe whatever went wrong is fixed in 0.9.8.

Thanks Jon. I will get 0.9.8 for my next book. Although 9.5 has been great (except for this latest). Do all the plugins (like the Language Tool) need to be re-installed in the new version?

Doitsu · 06-07-2017, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Do all the plugins (like the Language Tool) need to be re-installed in the new version?

No, all previously installed plugins will continue to work.

stumped · 06-07-2017, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

I will try to recreate this. If need be I can force any style sheet in the front tab to temporarily close and only reopen after any stylesheet changes have been made.

Please report the exact version of Sigil used (as this code was touched recently) and the version of Qt being used (see the Sigil "About" window) and of coursewhich OS and version you are using.

Thanks!

Kevin

0.9.6. and loaded QT 5.4.2 win 10 64 bit fully updated

may not be the absolute latest, I only update when nagged. this crash has been around since version 6 or thereabouts.
i suspect that something is trying to save the stylesheet while something else is busy tidying it.. so I just proceed very cautiously- change a few styles, delete a few also by and dedications, save, continue.... all I am doing is prepping to read the way I like it, nothing but the main story pages and with my preferred font sizes, margins etc.

one other issue if i may - only in the more recent versions , if I delete a single stylesheet line - say an unwanted line height or font family, the displayed page then jumps a little, or the page stays still & the cursor jumps? Either way it no longer points at the now blank line. Does that make sense

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06-06-2017, 11:29 AM	#32
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,633 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	FWIW, I do not think the lack of xml header was the cause of the issue or even related. That message in Preview about ill-formed xhtml is nothing but a placeholder for something that can not be parsed by Qt's Webkit widget. I see this placeholder appear and disappear almost constantly as I work in CodeView doing any type of extensive editing. Any missing header would be auto-fixed by gumbo long before it ended up hurting anything. That said ... nothing a user types in should ever cause Sigil to crash. So I would like to be able to recreate the crash or at least narrow its causes down somewhat. This is on Linux right? Whose build is it? What version is it? What version of Qt is installed on the system? Is there more than one version of Qt installed? What version of Python is installed?

06-06-2017, 01:39 PM	#35
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,633 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Wow, that version of Qt is way old. You must also have a Python 3 version someplace. What does the Sigil "About" window say about Sigil version and Qt version?

06-06-2017, 02:52 PM	#36
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,546 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	With 16.04, I'm sure he's got Qt5/Python3 available. He probably needs to use qmake5 and python3 commands to get their exact versions, though. The real question is probably how he's installed Sigil: from the standard repos, compiled himself, or my experimental standalone package?

06-06-2017, 11:53 PM	#40
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	slightly off topic but I can crash sigil almost at will with by running remove unused styles ( while the style sheet is being displayed and after editing some values or removing some front matter pages, thus making some styles redundant followed by save it's usually the save operation that triggers sigil has encountered a problem and needs to close I have learnt the hard way not to save which the stylesheet is the active displayed page