Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

bhertel

Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

in Integration and Hardware • 1 year ago

we are using processing in an attempt to teach programming skills to High School students on a school net work. I do not know what exactly happend but Processing seems to have created a huge number( think recursion) of folder within folder within folder .... . On a windows system I cannot delete them and it has cause our nightly backup to fail. I have ~ 90 students working with processing and it has happen to two of them. The system administrator will not allow us to use this software if we cannot figure out what happened and how to fix it. that would be a shame, HELP thanks

Replies(6)

amnon.owed

Re: Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

1 year ago

I have never heard of this problem. Where are these directories created? What is their name? Post a screenshot or something so we get a better view of your problem. Processing creates a directory and some files when it runs a sketch, but these are not recursive. Perhaps these two students have created sketches with code that does this.

bhertel

Re: Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

1 year ago

Processing creates a folder in mydocuments and the students are saving the sketch to that folder. Processing normally creates a folder with the sketch inside. In this case it is saving a folder inside the orginal ,then another folder in it and on and on.

It has happened to three more times this class period. When it happen the save arrow seem to get stuck(stays yellow)

I had the student change computers but the problem seems to be attached to the user not the computer. All student stuff is saved a network drive so they can log into any machine in the school.

How would I send you a screen shot? and what would you like it to show?. I can show the result of opening the folder within the folder within the folder til the file structure gets to deep... I have no clue?

PhiLho

Re: Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

1 year ago

What version of Processing are you using? Are these recursive folders empty? (beside the nested folders, of course) How are they named?

I had such problem once, I don't recall how, I don't think it was related to Processing.
IIRC, a solution I used was to do go down the hierarchy for a dozen of levels or more, and move the sub-dirs to a higher level. And again, until all dirs were at a path manageable by Windows (less than 256 chars).

amnon.owed

Re: Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

1 year ago

How would I send you a screen shot? and what would you like it to show?. I can show the result of opening the folder within the folder within the folder til the file structure gets to deep...

Yes this would be useful to see. You can upload images directly to a forum post. Click the "Insert Image" button.

Two questions to further clarify the issue:

Does it only occur on save as / new sketches (aka when the directory structure has to be created) or also when saving existing sketches?
What happens when affected students save it in another location instead of the default sketchbook? For example on the local hard drive instead of the network drive or perhaps on a usb.

bhertel

Re: Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

1 year ago

It may be happening on Save as I am not sure but it is a possiblity because I tell them to make sure they know where they are saving stuff, so I can find it to grade it.

I am not sure about saving to another location, generally when it happens it freezes and we have to restart the computer.I will try the usb drive for the ones I know are having trouble.

amnon.owed

Re: Processing created and endless amunt of folders that prevents nightly backup of server

1 year ago

So you are not using an unusual, short or reserved filename. It's hard to guess where things go haywire. The source code shows safeguards against (manual) recursive saving. When I tried to save in a directory of the same name, I indeed got a warning. Once you pinpoint the problem so that it becomes reproduceable and attributable to Processing, you could consider reporting a bug.

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