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Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 19 Jan 2014, 00:30
by jimwg
Greetings!

I attempted to clone one Porteus flash install to another flash, folder by folder, and everything runs and works great in the copy except that when I click on Archive Manager the control window shows but it pops out if I try to create "New". The "Open" item does drop a menu but the others ("Other Actions", Extract and Add Files, Location and Back) are non-operational. Am I missing a vital element from the transplant that I can replace?

Thanks!

Jim in NYC
Porteus 3.0 rc1 32bit XFCE 4.10

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 19 Jan 2014, 05:50
by francois
Did you copy the changes folder also? If you are on linux filesystem, maybe you can try to remove the changes folder on your second copy of the usb.

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 19 Jan 2014, 20:36
by jimwg
francois wrote:Did you copy the changes folder also? If you are on linux filesystem, maybe you can try to remove the changes folder on your second copy of the usb.
Was completely transplanted, changes and all. Sometimes copying files pauses, stating that this or that can't be copied, do you want to proceed?. so I just went on. The fact that the Archive Manager manager panel pops up must mean the app is there, right? How can I find out whether there's a component missing or something else running is blocking it from fully executing? When I deleted the changes folder the second flash and all in it went "blank" and I could only restore from a dupe of the Changers folder on another drive, but Archiver still no go. Maybe I can replace the "bad" Archive Manager with another from the repositories if I knew where it was.

ADD:

The trick is, clicking on an existing 7z file will open it and you can test integrity and add files to it like normal, but you can't create a new separate one whether by using its menu or one via main Accessories menu. It just pops out if try to use it.

Jim in NYC

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 21 Jan 2014, 15:57
by Ahau
Is this with Porteus XFCE 2.1 or 3.0rc1? There's a known bug with file-roller (aka archive manager) in 3.0rc1 which I have sorted out but this sounds a little different. Does it occur if you boot up without saved changes active?

Also, are you saving changes to a .dat file on a Windows filesystem (FAT or NTFS) or are you copying saved changes from one POSIX compatible (e.g. ext2,3 or 4) partition to another? If you are doing the latter, there's a chance you messed up permissions on your guest's home folder when you copied all the files (which would have been done as root). check:

ls -la /home/guest

and make sure everything is owned by guest:guest (except '../', which is the parent folder /home, which is owned by root:root).

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 21 Jan 2014, 17:33
by jimwg
Ahau wrote:Is this with Porteus XFCE 2.1 or 3.0rc1? There's a known bug with file-roller (aka archive manager) in 3.0rc1 which I have sorted out but this sounds a little different. Does it occur if you boot up without saved changes active?

Also, are you saving changes to a .dat file on a Windows filesystem (FAT or NTFS) or are you copying saved changes from one POSIX compatible (e.g. ext2,3 or 4) partition to another? If you are doing the latter, there's a chance you messed up permissions on your guest's home folder when you copied all the files (which would have been done as root). check:

ls -la /home/guest

and make sure everything is owned by guest:guest (except '../', which is the parent folder /home, which is owned by root:root).
Thanks for reply!
Here's my ls stats. My flash drive is formatted in ext4 and the external HD is FAT32. A suggestion by a Puppy maven to use Task Manager shows that if I click for Archive Manager via the Acessory menu that while its control panel comes up normal but will pop out again if you click New or others, it also kicks the CPU high with Xfdesktop constantly leaping high to 30% or more even when nothing's running. You have to reboot to kick the CPU back down again. Another item shows up high there too -- "x:0 vt07-nolistentcp" if that means anything. Can't Archive Manager be replaced like other modules?

root@porteus:~# ls -la /home/guest
total 134
drwxr-xr-x 32 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 ./
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 ../
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 966 Jan 18 23:26 .ICEauthority*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 44 Jan 20 19:49 .Xauthority*
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .adobe/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 274 Oct 30 03:27 .bash_history*
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest guest 79 Aug 8 2011 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest guest 445 Feb 13 2012 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .cache/
drwxr-xr-x 29 root root 4096 Jan 20 19:40 .config/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .copy/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .dbus/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .fontconfig/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .gconf/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .gftp/
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .gimp-2.8/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .gnome2/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 248 Oct 16 21:32 .gtk-bookmarks*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 576 Oct 10 12:47 .gtkrc-2.0*
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .icons/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .kde4/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .lastpass/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .local/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .macromedia/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .mozilla/
drwxr-xr-x 2 guest guest 29 Oct 10 2011 .mplayer/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 49 Oct 20 12:35 .mtpaint*
drwxr-xr-x 2 guest guest 27 May 29 2013 .qt/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 17 23:25 .serverauth.2359*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 17 23:27 .serverauth.2371*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 17 22:25 .serverauth.5205*
-rw-r--r-- 1 guest guest 5 Oct 17 03:17 .slock_no_warn
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .soma/
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .stellarium/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 .thumbnails/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7646 Oct 10 15:38 .xscreensaver*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Oct 10 15:27 .xscreensaver-getimage.cache*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 59 Jan 20 19:49 .xsession-errors*
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 Desktop/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 19 06:59 Downloads/

Jim in NYC
Porteus 3.0rc1 32bit XFCE 4.10

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 21 Jan 2014, 19:57
by tome
Ahau has right, your permissions are wrong - root instead of guest. Archives can't save owner, only permissions are the same but for current user (here you have used root account to unpack). Change permissions in your file manager.

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 22 Jan 2014, 06:18
by Ahau
yup. you can do this from the command line too, I find it a bit easier but may be in the minority there...

Code: Select all

su
#enter root password
chown -R guest:guest /home/guest
chown= "change ownership"
-R= recursively (apply to all files and folders within the listed folder)
guest:guest= the new user and group that will own the files

After that, everything should work as it does on the other stick. Let us know if it continues to give you problems. My guess is that file-roller (aka archive manager) cannot write it's config file due to permissions. Frankly I'm surprised there aren't a lot of other things going haywire, there always are when I bork my guest perms.

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 22 Jan 2014, 11:15
by jimwg
Thanks for your efforts!

Sadly, no go. Archive Manager continues to just pop out after you click "ADD" or anything else in its control window, whether in my normal root or in guest mode. If there were specific Archive Manager files I could transplant from the original flash I might plug the missing or corrupted hole that's hanging things up, but I just don't know what and where those files are.

Jim in NYC

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 22 Jan 2014, 14:40
by brokenman
Perhaps the problem lies in the transplant method. Generally the worst way to clone something is to copy piece by piece. In the porteus folder on the install media you will find a script to export your current Porteus as an ISO which you can then move to another media.

My choice would be a byte for byte replica using dd.

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY

X is the USB device you want to clone and Y is the target USB you are clonging to. Make sure both are UNMOUNTED.
You may also make an image of the USB onto your hard drive.

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/path/to/backup-image.img

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 22 Jan 2014, 14:47
by jimwg
brokenman wrote:Perhaps the problem lies in the transplant method. Generally the worst way to clone something is to copy piece by piece. In the porteus folder on the install media you will find a script to export your current Porteus as an ISO which you can then move to another media.

My choice would be a byte for byte replica using dd.

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY

X is the USB device you want to clone and Y is the target USB you are clonging to. Make sure both are UNMOUNTED.
You may also make an image of the USB onto your hard drive.

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/path/to/backup-image.img
That's an idea! Is it possible for me to use my Porteus 3.0 CD to reinstall Porteus itself on my flash without affecting other files or configurations or settings, just replace or/and install solely pure Porteus files?

Jim in NYC

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 22 Jan 2014, 15:32
by Ahau
Yes, you can do this, technically speaking. All you'd need to do is mount your iso and copy the files from it into your existing porteus installation, e.g. :

Code: Select all

mloop Porteus-3.0.iso
cp -ar /mnt/loop/* /mnt/sdb2/
Of course, that would assume you have /porteus and /base inside the root of /mnt/sdb2, if you had them installed in a subfolder (this is how mine is so I can have several porteus installs on the same drive) you would specify the subfolder.

That being said, if you directly overwrite the modules in this way from one version of Porteus to the next, you may break modules in your /porteus/modules directory, as library versions (and presence) may vary from one release to the next, especially with major point upgrades (e.g. 2.1 to 3.0 where we moved from Slackware 14.0 to 14.1). You might also have some conflicts in your saved changes (config files that don't apply to the new versions or old configuration files overwriting modifications that were implemented in the newer version) but my guess is that, by and large, it would work.

My preference, though is to install to a subdirectory so that I have multiple working installations and I can jump between them. On my flash drive, for example, I have different versions of porteus installed inside all of these directories:
2.1-32/ 2.1-64/ IMG32/ 2.1-kiosk/ IMG64/ 3.0-32/ porteus-32/ 3.0-64/ P20/ 3.0-kiosk/ P32/ 64/

Now, that's an awful mess but serves to illustrate the idea. I don't use saved changes most of the time (only when I'm testing an issue someone else is reporting), but when I do and I want to copy them to a new location, I use 'cp -ar'. The -ar means 'archive' mode and 'recursively'. Using archive mode preserves ownerships, permissions, timestamps, etc.

Before wiping out this installation and starting over again, you can also try booting without saved changes to see if you can isolate your problem there. Another tip would be to copy your saved changes into your rootcopy, boot without 'changes=', then start moving files out/back in to rootcopy to narrow down to the exact file that is causing the problem. Of course, if booting without saved changes in the first place doesn't solve your issue, something else is to blame (maybe a conflicting module or a really odd bug... )

As always, I hope that helps. My apologies for rambling, I have yet to finish my coffee...

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 22 Jan 2014, 23:52
by jimwg
Ahau wrote:Yes, you can do this, technically speaking. All you'd need to do is mount your iso and copy the files from it into your existing porteus installation, e.g. :

Code: Select all

mloop Porteus-3.0.iso
cp -ar /mnt/loop/* /mnt/sdb2/
Of course, that would assume you have /porteus and /base inside the root of /mnt/sdb2, if you had them installed in a subfolder (this is how mine is so I can have several porteus installs on the same drive) you would specify the subfolder.

That being said, if you directly overwrite the modules in this way from one version of Porteus to the next, you may break modules in your /porteus/modules directory, as library versions (and presence) may vary from one release to the next, especially with major point upgrades (e.g. 2.1 to 3.0 where we moved from Slackware 14.0 to 14.1). You might also have some conflicts in your saved changes (config files that don't apply to the new versions or old configuration files overwriting modifications that were implemented in the newer version) but my guess is that, by and large, it would work.

My preference, though is to install to a subdirectory so that I have multiple working installations and I can jump between them. On my flash drive, for example, I have different versions of porteus installed inside all of these directories:
2.1-32/ 2.1-64/ IMG32/ 2.1-kiosk/ IMG64/ 3.0-32/ porteus-32/ 3.0-64/ P20/ 3.0-kiosk/ P32/ 64/

Now, that's an awful mess but serves to illustrate the idea. I don't use saved changes most of the time (only when I'm testing an issue someone else is reporting), but when I do and I want to copy them to a new location, I use 'cp -ar'. The -ar means 'archive' mode and 'recursively'. Using archive mode preserves ownerships, permissions, timestamps, etc.

Before wiping out this installation and starting over again, you can also try booting without saved changes to see if you can isolate your problem there. Another tip would be to copy your saved changes into your rootcopy, boot without 'changes=', then start moving files out/back in to rootcopy to narrow down to the exact file that is causing the problem. Of course, if booting without saved changes in the first place doesn't solve your issue, something else is to blame (maybe a conflicting module or a really odd bug... )

As always, I hope that helps. My apologies for rambling, I have yet to finish my coffee...
Thanks for advice! I booted up my Porteus 3.0 CD and in root mode opened a terminal and tried mloop Porteus-3.0.iso but it can't locate the file. I did things like mloop Porteus and mloop Porteus.iso and mloop sr0: to get it to see the CD but no go. The name of the CD is "Porteus" which I can't alter. Are there any tricks?

Jim in NYC

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 23 Jan 2014, 06:41
by Ahau
"Porteus-3.0.iso" was just used as an example. You would specify the path to an .iso file that you either downloaded or created per brokenman's instructions. this would save you the trouble of burning the .iso image file to a cd. If you have already burned it to cd, you would use something like:

cp -at /mnt/sr0/* /mnt/sdb2/

but make sure you know darn well what you are copying from and to, as there will be no popup confirmation dialogs.

Think of 'cp' as copying files around like copy and paste in a file manager. dd is more like a lower level copy that pulls the underlying file system of the partition (FAT, NTFS, ext4, etc) along with it, more like creating a disk image. dd is byte per byte and cp is file per file.

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 24 Jan 2014, 12:19
by jimwg
Greetings All!

Finally fixed the problem – which didn't just fix the problem with Archive Manager but the Network Connections panel too which had the same problem.

What I did was go into Always Fresh mode and renamed Changes to XChanges and rebooted normal and came up with the default Porteus screen where all the functions worked normal and began replacing the folders in the "new" Changes folder with ones from the old XChanges folder one at a time, specifically the opt, var, usr and .openoffice folders. Everything worked even the same panels configuration which are headaches to rebuild. I had already put Seamonkey in my Copy folder with aliases pointing back to .mozilla which saves a lot of placement headaches too. I had to adjust fonts placement for OpenOffice to find and found I could throw away the unneccessary LibreOffice folder which got in there somehow. I don't know exactly what or where the main culprit of my initial problem was but apparently it got left behind in the old Changes folder!

That first concern I had was after this fix that my free (on a 2 gig flash) space had jumped from 150 to nearly 400meg which made me wonder what files I was missing were still in the old changes but suspect it might have to do with Copy dupes somethings left behind somewhere there because once that was up running again it filled my flash to the brim because it lost my initital file manager settings in the switch (my Copy cloud fully accomdates my 8gig drive, so I use Copy's My Files Manager on my smaller flash to select only folders and files of interest on Copy's cloud that will fit neatly on my smaller drives.) Still I've archived my old Changes folder to another HD just in case I discover that important files were left behind that account for that massive raise of space, but so far every seems they're there.

Anyway just thought you all ought know and thanks for all the assist!

Jim in NYC

Re: Archive Manager Won't Work After Transplant

Posted: 24 Jan 2014, 19:14
by brokenman
And that, my friends, is exactly how you trouble shoot a broken changes folder. Bravo!