Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse - bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall

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Index › Programming Questions & Help › Syntax Questions › bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall

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bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall (Read 358 times)

danielle

bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall
Jul 27^th, 2008, 6:17am

Hi everyone,

So I tried to tinker with preferences.txt to include an absolute path name in my build path. It didn't work, giving me a FileNotFoundException. I quickly gave up and reverted the processing.txt back to default, but the same exception continues whenever I run a processing program. I even reinstalled processing and it still occurs!

I get:

Uncaught exception type:class java.io.FileNotFoundException
java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\processing-0135\"C:\Program Files\Cycling '74\MaxMSP 4.6\edits4.6\performance\riffsamples"\Temporary_3898_4367.java (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect)

I just want it back to default. What do I do?!

Thanks,
Dan

danielle YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 10 Breda, The Netherlands	Re: bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall Reply #1 - Jul 27^th, 2008, 6:20am P.S. I am running windoze XP on a dell...

PhiLho

Re: bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall
Reply #2 - Jul 27^th, 2008, 12:23pm

I wonder what parameter you tried to change...
Anyway, logically a good re-install shouldn't change the preferences.txt file: if you install a new version, you don't really want to loose the tweaks.
The solution is to delete or rename the file: Processing will just create a new one upon running it. If you have tweaks you want to preserve, a solution is to close Processing, sort both files (the new one and the old one) and use a diff tool like WinMerge to report your changes (except the culprit) to the new file.

Note: your previous revert might have failed if you changed the file without exiting Processing.

danielle

Re: bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall
Reply #3 - Jul 27^th, 2008, 4:47pm

I had changed the build.path parameter. I had wanted to try to add an absolute path to a folder of .wav files, so I uncommented it and changed it to: build.path="C:/Program Files/Cycling '74/MaxMSP 4.6/edits4.6/performance/riffsamples". It seemed to treat it as a relative path instead of an absolute path, and gave me that filenotfoundexception to a weirdly formatted non-existent path. So I undid the changes in preferences.txt (back to default), but the result remained. I tried changing the build.path parameter to other folders, but the result remained pointing to that original change.

My processing directory is C:/processing-0135, and I have been editing the preferences.txt in C:/processing-0135/lib; processing did _not_ install a user version of preferences.txt in a user directory like it said it would. I searched the whole hard drive for another preferences.txt and there isn't one.

I totally deleted everything from the old install before reinstalling, so the preferences.txt file is definitely the default. I also tried installing another version of processing (0142) in a different location, but it had the same problem.

So I am wondering if I have affected some sort of Java/JVM path or other environment variable that can only be fixed by tinkering outside of processing. Is there another way (in windows or DOS or cygwin) to inspect/edit what the java classpath is specifically for processing?

fry

Re: bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall
Reply #4 - Jul 27^th, 2008, 9:14pm

this is exactly why lib/preferences.txt says:

# DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE, OR DELETE SETTINGS FROM THIS FILE

and then goes on to say:

# These are the default preferences. If you want to modify
# them directly, use the per-user local version of the file:

# Documents and Settings -> Application Data ->
# Processing -> preferences.txt (on windows)

# ~/Library -> Processing -> preferences.txt (on macosx)

# ~/.processing -> preferences.txt (on linux)

have you checked your Documents and Settings folder? chances are, you have system/hidden folders set to be hidden and/or are not including them in your search, so you can't find the Application Data folder where your prefs file is located.

with a working version of processing, you can also find the preferences location inside the preferences window, it's listed at the bottom.

danielle YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 10 Breda, The Netherlands	Re: bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall Reply #5 - Jul 27^th, 2008, 9:27pm Thank you, it was indeed in a hidden folder. What an annoyance I've been. I will do penance for not following the lib/preferences.txt no-edit directions! Shame on my destructive impulses!

fry YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 2623 mass, usa	Re: bad preferences.txt path even after reinstall Reply #6 - Jul 27^th, 2008, 9:32pm Yep, now I have to add something in all caps about "DON'T BE LIKE danI AND IGNORE THIS SOLEMN WARNING" for the next release.

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