Sigil does not start

[Edwin49]

Hi,

I know there are similar entries, but all of them have a relation to some modification or to some Software on the same system.
I have installed 0.7.4 twice now, checked that nothing left behind after deinstallation and rebooted after installation. I also installed the portable versions of 0.7.4 and 0.7.2 on two different USB-sticks.
I also tried the 0.7.4 on my wifes notebook.

The result is allways the same: wether I click the Application in the Portable menu, click the executable on the stick, click the menu entry on the start menu or the executable in the windows folder, I get a busy-cursor for a second or two and that's it. No entry in the event logs, no logfile, no information. I even tried to run sigil from the command window but it just returns to the prompt without any output.

What I noticed is, that contrary to other postings, I have no C:\Users\Edwin\AppData\Local\sigil folder at all! Should this folder get created at installation time or on the first run?

But then, the portable versions should not rely on this entry.

Both notebooks are HP Probooks, one with a Intel core i5-2410M the other with a i5-3340M CPU, both running Win7 Professional. The only applications installed on both systems are LibreOffice 4.1 and Skype. My wifes Notebook anly has iTunes installed in addition to these two, so there is hardly anything there which could interact with sigil.

I'm really stuck.
Any hints are welcome.

Edwin

[mrmikel]

Have you searched for a sigil.ini file, which if found should be deleted?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Edwin49

What I noticed is, that contrary to other postings, I have no C:\Users\Edwin\AppData\Local\sigil folder at all! Should this folder get created at installation time or on the first run?

The location depends on the operating system. The easiest way to display it is to use the special Windows folder names and enter them in the Run dialog, which you display by pressing Windows+R:

Simply copy and paste the following folder names and press Enter:

Windows Vista or higher: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local
Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data

This should display the folder:

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local

which Sigil uses to create the sigil-ebook folder.

Sigil also writes to the temp folder, which can be displayed by entering %Temp% in the Run dialog. Try emptying it before uninstalling and reinstalling Sigil.

Note that Sigil might take a while to open, if you try to open large ePubs with it that contain a single .html file.

[GrannyGrump]

@Edwin49 --- If it is any help to you, I use the PortableApps.com version of Sigil 7.4.

The INI file is located in the following path:
DriveLetter:\Other\Folders\Here\SigilPortable\Data \SigilSettings\sigil
(You might have Sigil portable installed in some folder or subfolder, but look for Data\SigilSettings\sigil and you should find the ini file for this portable version.)

If you got your portable Sigil somewhere other than PortableApps.com, the settings might be different.

[Edwin49]

This is really strange:

1. There is no sigil.ini on the whole system disk
   
2. There is no such directory sigil-ebook in the indicated location nor in any other place on the system disk.
   
3. I installed sigil on a virtual PC running windows XP and - what a surprise - there it runs just as it should. I than copied the sigil-ebook tree to the Win7 directories an started sigil there:
   - running the installed version does just nothing
   - running the standalone version from a stick first creates a .ini file in the ...\sigil-ebook\sigil\ folder on the system disk and a second later deletes the whole tree and leaves a empty sigil-ebook folder.

Unfortunately the virtual PC is rather slow, so I continue trying to get sigil working nativly on Win7.

Next I removed sigil again and checked that there is not any one file on the system disk containing 'sigil' in the name, except for the downloaded kit file.
I scanned the registry and only found entries here:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Direct3D\Most RecentApplication
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.epub\OpenWithList

Then I checked the MD5 checksum against the file in http://code.google.com/p/sigil/downloads/list

Now I'm going to reboot the system and install sigil once more.

I'll be back soon
Edwin

[mrmikel]

If sigil doesn't find a sigil.ini it should create one, which would imply to me that your system is not allowing it be created. Permissions for Program Files do not usually just random writing to them, as a system protection measure. That is why they are written somewhere else. It seems it is not allowing the writing of it there either.

[Edwin49]

Could it be that it fails because I run a german version of windows?
The XP system in the virtual PC is the englisch one and there it works fine.

After all, I tried to run the installion and then sigil itself as an administrator. Also, the account I'm using has administrativ rights, so permission should not be a problem. But even with all this I could not get it to run.

As it seems, using the installation on XP is just slow for the startup, but working with it is no problem, so I guess I will stay with that unless someone has a good idea for some further investigation.

Edwin

[DiapDealer]

Check the Windows event logs. Check any antivirus and/or antispyware logs. There has to be more of a clue somewhere.

[Edwin49]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

There has to be more of a clue somewhere.

Well, that's what I have been looking for all the time. Having been a informatic troubleshooter (on large computers) for many years so I usualy get the information I need. I scanned everything available on the system. Unfortunately the only information I found is a entry in the application event log:

Fehlerbucket , Typ 0
Ereignisname: PCA2
Antwort: Nicht verfügbar
CAB-Datei-ID: 0

Problemsignatur:
P1: Sigil.exe
P2: 0.7.4.0
P3: Sigil is a multi-platform EPUB ebook editor
P4: Sigil
P5: Sigil Project
P6: 200
P7: -1
P8:
P9:
P10:

Angefügte Dateien:
C:\Users\Edwin\AppData\Local\Temp\{9b2db581-b5e6-4322-8207-102a1351f79d}\appcompat.txt
C:\Users\Edwin\AppData\Local\Temp\TabF9B9.tmp

Diese Dateien befinden sich möglicherweise hier:


Analysesymbol:
Es wird erneut nach einer Lösung gesucht: 0
Berichts-ID: e4765db0-8e98-11e3-8546-08007bb3f66b

The indicated folder in the temp directory exists but is empty and TabF9B9.tmp is also not there (and yes, I have turned off any suppression of hidden or protected files). Also, this entry occures only occasionally. When I tried several things today and run sigil for at least 20 times, I only got two entries.

When I scanned the registry I found
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Direct3D\Most RecentApplication Sigil.exe
which implies that Direct3D is beeing used. I checked with dxdiag and no problem was found.

I deinstalled sigil once more, deleted everything in the C:\Users\Edwin\AppData\Local\Temp folder (except a few files opened by some services) and reinstalled sigil. Unfortunately no improvement could be noticed.

All I noticed was that the folders and files (sigil_clips.ini sigil_index.ini sigil_searches.ini) in sigil-ebook/sigil, which I copied from the virtual XP system, do no longer get deleted.

I give up on this, use the XP installation for now and maybe look for for some other program.

Edwin

[DiapDealer]

Yeah, I don't know what's up. I only know it works normally for a lot of people on Windows 7.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Yeah, I don't know what's up. I only know it works normally for a lot of people on Windows 7.

but are any of them german / using german language windows 7 install - that seems to be the next question