Bugzilla – Bug 2143
Effects fail silently (and with buildup of .tmp files) when pluginsettings.cfg is locked
Last modified: 2021-02-01 12:43:14 UTC
Effects fail silently (and with build up of plu****.tmp files) when pluginsettings.cfg is locked. The preview works fine but the effect fails to work - trying to OK the effect causes a build of the plu****.tmp files (for which there is no clean-up). The user is not told that the effect has failed to work. The user can apparently save user presets but these only hold for this current Audacity session. On exiting Audacity the user sees two error messages: 1) message-1 >15:01:35: Error: can't remove file >'C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Roaming\audacity\pluginsettings,cfg >'(error5: Access is denied.) 2) message-2 >15:02:06: Error: Failed to update user configuration file.
Testing on macOS 10.14.5 Mojave with alpha 2.3.3 jc002 of 30Jun19 Similar to Windows 1) at Step 9 the effect is not applied - and there is no error or warning message 2) 3 temp file sof the form pluginsettings****** sre created )and there is no clean-up) 3) and steps 11-16 fail in the same way as on Windows
The buildup if temporary files appears to be a bug in wxWidgets, where wxFileConfig::Flush() uses wxTempFile::Commit(), which fails, and then the destructor of wxTempFile fails to clean up
These lines in EffectUIHost::OnApply explain the quiet failure to do anything when OK is pressed: // This will take care of calling TransferDataFromWindow() for an effect. if (mEffect && !mEffect->SaveUserPreset(mEffect->GetCurrentSettingsGroup())) { return; }
These symptoms date from at least Audacity 2.2.2, so they are not regressions, and not caused by the last wxWidgets upgrade
(In reply to Paul L from comment #4) >These symptoms date from at least Audacity 2.2.2, so they are not regressions Indeed - and this bug was never flagged as such
Demoting to P2 as this is not caused in normal usage of Audacity - possible use cases are: a) Virus checker locks the file b) user locks the file thinking that it protects contents from change
Demoted to P3 with a Release Note and Workaround as this file should not become locked in normal use of Audacity.
We used to get user reports on the Forum with this happening - but we have not had this for a very long while now - we used to think that maybe the files got locked by virus checkers, So the basic way of this happening is "extreme user error" i.e. the user deliberately locking the file. Accordingly I am going to downgrade this to P4
Tested on W10 with Audacity 3.0.0 21296b0 This now works properly on Windows, with a) an message shown to the user b) help button in the message c) no launch of the effect while the problem remains d) fixing the problem by unlocking and then using the Retry button proceeds to launch the effect e) the Quit Audacity button - "does what it says on the tin" And of course the blocking at step a) means that there is no longer a build-up of tmp files
(In reply to Peter Sampson from comment #9) The nuclear "Quit Audacity" button is maybe a little drastic for effects (temporarily) not working. But I think it's OK in the context of a single consolidated error message for all the use cases. ;-)
Tested on macOS 11.1 Big Sur with Audacity 3.0.0 21296b0 This now works properly on Windows, with a) an message shown to the user b) help button in the message c) no launch of the effect while the problem remains d) fixing the problem by unlocking and then using the Retry button proceeds to launch the effect e) the Quit Audacity button - "does what it says on the tin" And of course the blocking at step a) means that there is no longer a build-up of tmp files
In the light of the crash failure on Mac with Bug ]2652 I retested this on macOS 11.1 Big Sur with Audacity 3.0.0 accd177 Still works fine
