Qt Assistant: programmatically clear cache? - qt

I have a Qt 4.8-based application that runs on Windows 7 and uses Qt Assistant to display documentation. I've frequently had headaches with Qt Assistant relating to the need to delete cached files whenever I update documentation (I keep reading that cache problems have been fixed in various Qt updates, but the problems I have seem to persist). This occurs when I launch Assistant from within my application or directly from the command line (with assistant.exe -collectionFile myapp.qhc).
This is a major problem when I'm distributing my application to users. It's not OK to expect them to delete cached files on their systems.
I couldn't find anything in the Qt documentation on how to clear the user's cached help files. Is there something I'm missing?
I have also compiled my application for Linux, and don't seem to have the same problem there. It's just Windows.

Related

Unity deletes files itself from my asset folder on Mac OS

I've got a problem with Unity installed on Mac OS (Unity 2020.1.16f1 Personal and Mac OS Catalina 10.15.6)
It's look like Unity delete files by itself from my asset folder.
It occurs with both a Firebase (Firebase SDK 7.0.2) and PNG file.
The deletion seems to occur something like each hour (more or less)
However the problem don't happen with all my assets, for exemple with the Firebase SDK it seems that only the file FirebaseCppApp-7_0_2.bundle (and with my png file it happens only with a specific file).
Here's how I get the problem (exemple with Firebase SDK):
I import Firebase SDK I need into Unity (Import Package -> Custom Package and then choose the one I need)
Got this error: "DllNotFoundException: FirebaseCppApp-7_0_2"
Correct this error by going to Security And Confidentiality of my Mac and authorize Firebase to be open (when you download something from internet directly sometimes your Mac ask for this authorization because he don't recognize the developer)
Work perfectly for approximately 1 hour (I can make all changes I want, test my game with the game mode etc ...)
After 1 hour get the error of 2) again (on game mode)
I can fix the problem by reimport only one file from the SDK (FirebaseCppApp-7_0_2.bundle locate in Assets/Firebase/Plugins/x86_64/)
The first time I click play in Game Mode Unity crashes
Go to 3) step and continue
Is someone already get this error ? I've found multiple thread on internet talking about similar bugs (but not exactly the same) but nothing worked for me ...
I found and correct the problem. In fact the problem came from the iCloud which seems to not works correctly with Unity. For some obscur reason, the files which were deleted didn't sync with iCloud, and so when iCloud sent back the project the files were missing. You need to disable automatic sync with iCloud.
Some earlier versions of the Firebase SDK offered to add packages to the Unity Package Manager and would migrate files automatically. I would suggest using only unitypackage integration and trying to undo this migration in the process now. To see if this is the issue, do the following:
close Unity
open Packages/manifest.json and delete the entry for "ScopedRegistries" and remove any lines under "dependencies": { that start with "com.google. Note that Packages is a sibling of Assets (that is, it's next to rather than inside).
for safety, remove any Firebase packages under Assets. This include the folders:
Assets/ExternalDependencyManager, the (old) Assets/PlayServicesResolver, Assets/Firebase, Assets/Parse, Assets/Editor Default Resources/Firebase, Assets/Plugins/Android/Firebase, and Assets/Plugins/iOS/Firebase.
Download the latest Firebase Unity SDK (you can check the release notes here).
open Unity again and add each UnityPackage you need from the SDK. You can usually follow the errors in the console output if you've forgotten everything you're using.
A less likely issue you might be running into is MacOS's stricter behaviour with respect to gate keeper. There's a video here with a workaround, but since you mention the PNG files disappearing I expect that it's the External Dependency Manager.

MVFS error in a snapshot view after upgradation of ClearCase

I created a snapshot view using Rational ClearCase explorer.
After creating it, I set the config specs, environmental variables and later tried compiling my code and got an MVFS error which says:
Unable to determine if the current working directory is in MVFS - no such device or address
When I searched the IBM website for the sake of eliminating this error, I found out that a snapshot view does not use the MVFS !
Why am I getting this error when Snapshot view does not use MVFS?
When this issue got triggered: Actually in our project we were using a ClearCase (8.0.0.7 version). We never had problems when we tried to build our code on the 8.0.0.7 version. It was only after upgrading this version to 8.0.0.15 that the build issue has arisen. The legacy of both old and new ClearCases are baseClearcase
Some more specifications regarding the issue:
The server which we are using is a Windows 2003 server. I am creating a snapshot view in H drive (NTFS drive) as C drive is not available for use in our project, cleaning the previously built files by running the shell script clean_view.sh and then compiling our C code with the ClearCase command clearmake.exe all. Previously we used to follow the same procedure where build used to succeed, but now the same has become an issue.
This question is an extension to the question which I have asked previously. I am re-posting this question as a whole thing again in order to give more clarity about the issue and also for more number of ClearCase experts to chime-in. Kindly do not treat this as a duplicate one or force close it as my issue has not yet been resolved. Also please note that this is the first time I am working with ClearCase.
LINK FOR THE PREVIOUS QUESTION: MVFS error in a snapshot view
Recently there was a development in the solution of this issue !! We escalated this issue to IBM with the help of our client. They suggested us to use Dynamic views and we used them. To our surprise it was working fine and we are able to generate the executables. But the fact still remains that we are not able to use snapshot views !!
NOTE: This comment is just to share my knowledge and experience regarding this issue. :)
While a snapshot view isn't in the MVFS, clearmake has MVFS-specific functionality for build auditing.
You mentioned that the "H" drive contained the snapshot view, is H:
A local or network drive?
A drive letter created via SUBST? In this case, is the parent drive local?
Do builds in dynamic views still work?
Does the C drive exist? Is it remapped in a Terminal Server/Citrix environment?
A caveat: Windows Server 2003 is nearly a year past MICROSOFT'S end of extended support. I would recommend updating the server environment as soon as possible.
Truthfully, issues where a process fails, and the ONLY change is the ClearCase version are usually best handled by contacting IBM instead of using this venue. Not trying to shill or anything, but if it's a clearmake bug, it has to go there anyway...
Additional questions:
If the C: drive is inaccessible on the system, which is what "can't even get the properties" in the comment seems to infer, where is the OS installed? Where does %SYSTEMROOT% point?
If it worked on a different drive, what's different between those 2 drives (H: Failed and R: worked)

Qt Creator hangs every time I open a class file

I'm losing the will to live. Every time I open a class file in Qt Creator (3.0.1) it hangs for around 20-30 seconds, totally consuming the CPU core that it's running under. I tried changing pre-compiled header settings and deleting old settings files, but it still happens :( So, has anyone had this issue and solved it?
Please upgrade to QtCreator 3.3.0 - here the Qt team reworked the loading to use multiple threads and thus doesn't block the GUI while parsing the source and project files any more.

How can I enable auto-updates in a Qt cross-platform application?

I love applications that are able to update themselves without any effort from the user (think: Sparkle framework for Mac). Is there any code/library I can leverage to do this in a Qt application, without having to worry about the OS details?
At least for Windows, Mac and user-owned Linux binaries.
I could integrate Sparkle on the Mac version, code something for the Linux case (only for a standalone, user-owned binary; I won't mess with distribution packaging, if my program is ever packaged), and find someone to help me on the Windows side, but that's horribly painful.
It is not a complete solution, but a cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) tool for creating packages for auto-updates and installing them is available at https://github.com/mendeley/Update-Installer. This tool does not deal with publishing updates or downloading them.
This was written for use with a Qt-based application but to make the update installer small, standalone and easy to build, the installer uses only standard system libraries (C++ runtime, pthreads/libz/libbz2 on Linux/Mac, Win32 API on Windows, Cocoa on Mac, GTK with fallback on Linux). This simplifies delivering updates which include new versions of Qt and other non-system libraries that your application may depend on.
Before considering this though, I would suggest:
If you are only building for two platforms, consider using standard and well-tested auto-update frameworks for those platforms - eg. Sparkle on Mac, Google's Omaha on Windows or auto-update systems built into popular install frameworks (eg. InstallShield). I haven't tried BitRock.
On Mac, the Mac App Store may be a good option. See https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-16549 though.
On Linux, consider creating a .deb package and a simple repository to host it. Once users have a repository set up, the system-wide software update tools will take care of checking for and installing new releases. The steps for setting up a new repository however are too complex for many new Ubuntu/Debian users. What we did, and also what Dropbox and Google have done, is to create a .deb package which sets up the repository as part of the package installation.
A few other notes on creating an updater:
On Windows Vista/7, if the application is installed system-wide (eg. in C:\Program Files\$APPNAME) your users will see a scary UAC prompt when the updater tries to obtain permissions to write to the install directory. This can be avoided either by installing to a user-writable directory (I gather that this is what Google Chrome does) or by obtaining an Authenticode certificate and using it to sign the updater binary.
On Windows Vista/7, an application .exe or DLL cannot be deleted if in use, but the updater can move the existing .exe/DLL out of the way into a temporary directory and schedule it for deletion on the next reboot.
On Ubuntu, 3rd-party repositories are disabled after distribution updates. Google works around this by creating a cron-job to re-add the repository if necessary.
Shameless plug: Fervor, a simple multiplatform (Qt-based) application autoupdater inspired by Sparkle.
Shameless plug: this a relatively old question, but I thought that it may be useful to mention a library that I created recently, which I named "QSimpleUpdater". Aside from notifying you if there's a newer version, it allows you to download the change log in any format (such as HTML or RTF) and download the updates directly from your application using a dialog.
As you may expect from a Qt project, it works on any platform supported by Qt (tested on Windows, Mac & Linux).
Links:
Website
GitHub repository
Screenshot:
Though it works a bit differently than Sparkle, BitRock InstallBuilder contains an autoupdater written in Qt that can be used independently (disclaimer, I am the original BitRock developer). It is a commercial app, but we have free licenses for open source projects.
I've developed an auto-updater library which works beautifully on Mac OS X, Linux and pretty much every Unix that allows you to unlink a file while the file is still open. The reason being that I simply extracted the downloaded package on top of the existing application. Unfortunately, because I relied on this functionality, I ran into problems on Windows as Windows does not let you unlink an open file.
The only alternative I could find is to use MoveFileEx with the replace on reboot flag, but that is awful.
However, renaming the working directory of the application works on Windows 7 and Windows XP. I haven't tried Windows Vista yet.
I have found WebUpdate to be quite useful, though it's written with the wxWidgets. But don't worry, it's a separate app which handles your updates. The steps to integrate it are pretty simple - just write two XML files and run the updater. And yes, it's cross-platform.
The advantage of it is it will automatically download and unzip/install all you required and not just provide a popup with a notification about a new version and a link to download it. Another thing you can do with it is customizable actions.
Project's main page is here, you can read the docs or take a look at the official tutorial.
The blog post Mixing Cocoa and Qt may solve the problem for the Mac platform.
You can use UpdateNode which gives you all the possibilities to update your software. It's using a cross platform Qt client and is free for Open Source!
UPDATE
Just did some further analysis on that and really like this solution:
Pros:
Free for Open Source!!! Even the client is Open Source: https://github.com/updatenode/unclient
The client is already localized in several languages
Very flexible in terms of updates. You can even update single non-binaries.
Provides additionally a way to display messages though the client.
Ready to use binaries & installer for all common Linux distributions, single Windows binary, as well as installer and a solution for Mac (which I have not tried, as I don't have a Mac)
Easy to use web service, nice statistics and update check is integrated within few minutes
Cons:
I am missing a multi-user management in the online service. Maybe they will do it in future - I will definitely suggest that in their feedback portal
The client is a GUI client only - so, you will need to shrink it down to run without a GUI frontend (maybe only necessary for people like me ;-) )
So, bottom line, as this solution is quite new, I think there is lot of potential here. I will definitely use it in my project and I am looking forward for more from them! Thumbs up!
This is an old question but there is not Squirrel in answers which is BEST SOLUTION , here is what I'm doing in qt 5.12.4 with qt quick "my qml app" you can do this in any other language
I'm doing this in windows there is mac version of squirrel too, I don't know about Linux
download nuget package explorer release
https://github.com/NuGetPackageExplorer/NuGetPackageExplorer/releases
open nuget package explorer and add this directory 'lib/net45' it doesn't matter you have a .net app or not, I did this for my qt application otherwise it won't work.
add all files into this folder specify your version in the metadata
save nupkg file
download squirrel release https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/releases
add squirrel to windows environment path
open cmd and cd to directory of nupkg file
squirrel --releasify file_name.nupkg -> now inide releases folder, there should be setup.exe file which will install app and other files.
to create new version do 2,3,4,7,8 again if its an update it will create delta file which is only needed file to update, put this files into your service directory for example in updates folder of your website which you need to disable directory browsing in IIS , and to auto-update application you need to call Update.exe which is in parent folder of application root directory appdir/../update.exe --update http://yourserver.com/upates/ after application restart app should start with new version
you can find documentation for squirrel in https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/blob/develop/docs/getting-started/0-overview.md and nuget package explorer here https://github.com/NuGetPackageExplorer/NuGetPackageExplorer and you can use only nuget.exe too if you don't want to use nuget package explorer which can be used for dynamic generation of versions, which can be download from https://www.nuget.org/downloads
That easy. Now you have auto-update app which will download updates from the server and auto-update app. For more info you can read documentations.
note: for iis uses https://github.com/Squirrel/OldSquirrelForWindows/issues/205
I suggest you read on plugin and how to create and use them. If your application architecture is modular and be split into different plugins. Take a look at Google Auto Update utility http://code.google.com/p/omaha/. We use this.
Thibault Cuvelier is writing a tutorial (in French) to develop an updater. I know the explanations are in French (and everyone is not understanding French), but I think this can be readable with a web translator like Google Translate. With this you will have a cross-platform updater, but you need to write it by yourself.
For what I know, the only part of the updater that is explained in the tutorial, is the file downloading part. In the case this can help you, refer to the tutorial, Un updater avec Qt.
I hope that helps.
OK, so I guess I take it as a "no (cross-platform) way". It's too bad!
I have found a solution that can be automated with built-in self-extracting patches and updates. for windows. I have started using their sdk. take a look at the massive documentation here, https://agersoftware.com/docs/ the sdk is called securesdk and comes with their app, SecureDelta sdk. does a great job on any kind of files, better results than lzma-included delta updaters

where are the flex libraries? can i clear the cache?

Where are the signed, cached flex libraries on a windows / mac / linux system? They don't appear to be in my browser cache... so where is adobe keeping them?
So, as my answer below shows, I found the files. But can I clear the cache? After trashing the files in windows, I don't see the files get downloaded again (with fiddler).
You can see Flash's cached data using the Website Storage Settings Panel in the Flash Player Setting Manager. From here you can clear data relating to a specific site, or clear all data.
This from Adobe - Whats new in Flex 3:
The Player cache is different from the
browser cache in that it is maintained
by the Flash Player; therefore, it is
not cleared at the same time as the
browser cache, and will only store
items that have been signed by Adobe.
Here are a few other StackOverflow questions/answers that may have some good info:
SWF client side caching
Optimizing Flex when multiple modules are used
Is building separate .swc allow a faster loading of the application?
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=rsl_09.html
Platform
Location
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Adobe\Flash Player\AssetCache\
Windows Vista
C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Flash Player\AssetCache\
Linux
/home/user_name/.adobe/Flash_Player/AssetCache/
Mac OSX
/Users/user_name/Library/Cache/Adobe/Flash Player/AssetCache/

Resources