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Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

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Yincognito
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Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by Yincognito »

Rainmeter 4.3.0.3266 beta (64-bit)
Language: English (1033)
Build time: 2018-11-30 16:52:14
Commit Hash: 8ff9f826
Windows 10 Enterprise 1803 64-bit (build 17134) - Romanian (1048)
Path: C:\Program Files\Rainmeter\
SkinPath: C:\Users\Zedd\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\
SettingsPath: C:\Users\Zedd\AppData\Roaming\Rainmeter\
IniFile: C:\Users\Zedd\AppData\Roaming\Rainmeter\Rainmeter.ini

AMD Radeon HD 7500/7600 Series
MYiniMeter_1.3.0.rmskin
(302.12 KiB) Downloaded 27 times
After installing Rainmeter using the defaults and restarting the system, the application doesn't start with Windows, despite it being present and enabled in the Task Manager / Startup tab. Not only that, but after creating the above .rmskin, uninstalling and reinstalling Rainmeter (to again test if it starts up with Windows) and finally installing using the defaults the said .rmskin package, the application doesn't automatically load the selected layout from the included ones, despite everything being checked to do so.

Basically I have to both manually start Rainmeter and manually load the desired layout after installing the .rmskin. This did not happen in version 3260 beta (64-bit), in a similar scenario (e.g. version 1.2.0 of my .rmskin). I've even tried running everything (Rainmeter's installer, Rainmeter application and the skin installer) as administrator (I'm already on an adminstrator account, UAC disabled, etc.), but it didn't change anything. With the previous version (3260b) I only needed to run Rainmeter as an adminstrator, and that was only because I had some registry queries in one of my skins.

Since we're at it, if at some point in the future things need administrator privileges to be correctly run, please write that somewhere on the site / forum. In the meantime, I hope you can reproduce the issue, so that you can fix it (if it needs to).

EDIT: Ok, I narrowed down the issue a little bit, and my skin is fine, it's not the culprit. I've installed and tested Rainmeter 4.2 Final Release - r3111 using my skin and it has the same problem as 4.3.0.3266 beta! Although I deleted v. 4.3.0.3260 beta from my internal drive after downloading v. 4.3.0.3266, I fortunately had a copy of it on my external drive. Guess what: when I again installed the 4.3.0.3260 beta and my skin, it all worked flawlessly! So there's something wrong in both 4.2.0.3111 and 4.3.0.3266b, but not in 4.3.0.3260b, because the latter starts with Windows and loads the skin layout just fine. Suggestion: keep a couple of older versions of Rainmeter available for download for a while, because in similar situations, there aren't much options to roll back to a previous beta.
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eclectic-tech
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by eclectic-tech »

Can not duplicate here... installs your package and opens selected layout (if selected).
mini.png
My install set "Start with Windows" properly, and does on every reboot... :???:

Rainmeter 4.3.0.3266 beta (64-bit)
Language: English (1033)
Build time: 2018-11-30 16:52:14
Commit Hash: 8ff9f826
Windows 10 Pro 1809 64-bit (build 17763) - English (1033)
Path: C:\Program Files\Rainmeter\
SkinPath: C:\Users\John\Rainmeter\Skins\
SettingsPath: C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\Rainmeter\
IniFile: C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\Rainmeter\Rainmeter.ini

Old Version Access: Build History
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Yincognito
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by Yincognito »

Thanks for trying, eclectic-tech. Too bad you weren't able to reproduce the issue. As for me, it seems I rushed into conclusions too early: apparently Rainmeter 4.3.0.3260b only wanted to start with Windows the first time, as now after a 4h shutdown, it didn't start with the OS. So it appears to have the same startup problem as the other two versions, it's just that this version is more "selective" and sometimes it "works". No problem with loading the layout after installing a skin though, so at least it's doing one thing right.

Thanks a million for the build history link though - I seem to have missed it.

P.S. I don't think that's important (since it never created any problem whatsoever), but I have MSI Afterburner installed, for the video skin.
EDIT: It (Rainmeter) also seems to be selective when it comes to getting the battery charge/discharge rates with the UsageMonitor plugin, but of course, you can't see what's wrong with that, as you apparently use a desktop, not a laptop.
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eclectic-tech
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by eclectic-tech »

Yincognito wrote: December 19th, 2018, 1:34 pm Thanks for trying, eclectic-tech. Too bad you weren't able to reproduce the issue. As for me, it seems I rushed into conclusions too early: apparently Rainmeter 4.3.0.3260b only wanted to start with Windows the first time, as now after a 4h shutdown, it didn't start with the OS. So it appears to have the same startup problem as the other two versions, it's just that this version is more "selective" and sometimes it "works". No problem with loading the layout after installing a skin though, so at least it's doing one thing right.

Thanks a million for the build history link though - I seem to have missed it.

P.S. I don't think that's important (since it never created any problem whatsoever), but I have MSI Afterburner installed, for the video skin.
EDIT: It (Rainmeter) also seems to be selective when it comes to getting the battery charge/discharge rates with the UsageMonitor plugin, but of course, you can't see what's wrong with that, as you apparently use a desktop, not a laptop.
You are welcome :bow: The "Old Downloads" link IS on the main site, above the current final release title.

Yes, I am using a desktop, so I can not test charge/discharge rates. :uhuh:

I also have the MSI Afterburner plugin installed (but not using any skin that require it) and agree that it is probably not related to your issue.

I do not run Rainmeter as admin, so that is one difference in our setup.

Perhaps one of the dev's can investigate further. Good luck! :rosegift:
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jsmorley
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by jsmorley »

There was a known issue where skins and layouts marked to load after the installation of a .rmskin were often not being loaded.

We think this is addressed in the latest r3270 beta of Rainmeter 4.3.

As to any issue with Rainmeter loading with Windows on a restart, I not only can't replicate that, I have never seen that behavior in all these years.


Every publicly released "final" version of Rainmeter, since the very beginning of the project, as well as every publicly released "beta" version for the latest and most recent last version, is available at https://builds.rainmeter.net.
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Yincognito
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by Yincognito »

Thanks, jsmorley - I'll test the new version and see if it solved the layout issue. I didn't see Rainmeter not starting up all these years either, but then, I had Windows 7 and was running the NomFerp & PerfMon plugins. Those two are about the only things that changed in my setup - the other is obviously the Rainmeter version.

I don't know, maybe it's a Win 10 1803 issue, although it all worked well for 3260b on the same OS until now. Oh, and forgot to mention, maybe it's related: I have disabled Win 10 fast startup and have a default balanced power plan that needs some tweaking towards more performance and less power saving. Maybe that counts too, who knows?
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Yincognito
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by Yincognito »

Ok, I think I have identified the source of the issue - I've attached a Windows 10 Event Log (Applications branch) in a .zip file. From the looks of it, it seems Rainmeter chashes at startup (something about PerfMon.dll, although it's not used anymore in my skins, since I've completed the migration to UsageMonitor). Hopefully jsmorley or some other expert will be able to open it and view it correctly - if you can't, just let me know and I'll copy paste the relevant info here.
Rainmeter Crash At Startup.zip
(28.56 KiB) Downloaded 24 times
I'm looking forward to an opinion about this. I've tested the new beta and it loads a layout after installing the .rmskin ... just not the layout I selected to be loaded at skin's .rmskin creation. But this one might also be because of my .inc files, I'll look into it more carefully later on.
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jsmorley
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by jsmorley »

Yincognito wrote: December 19th, 2018, 4:03 pm Ok, I think I have identified the source of the issue - I've attached a Windows 10 Event Log (Applications branch) in a .zip file. From the looks of it, it seems Rainmeter chashes at startup (something about PerfMon.dll, although it's not used anymore in my skins, since I've completed the migration to UsageMonitor). Hopefully jsmorley or some other expert will be able to open it and view it correctly - if you can't, just let me know and I'll copy paste the relevant info here.

Rainmeter Crash At Startup.zip

I'm looking forward to an opinion about this. I've tested the new beta and it loads a layout after installing the .rmskin ... just not the layout I selected to be loaded at skin's .rmskin creation. But this one might also be because of my .inc files, I'll look into it more carefully later on.
You might want to take the steps outlined here:

https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=118&t=23156
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Yincognito
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by Yincognito »

jsmorley wrote: December 19th, 2018, 4:05 pm You might want to take the steps outlined here:

https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=118&t=23156
Will do that, thanks - I'll keep you posted about that. Just for the record, no crash seems to show up in the event log when starting Rainmeter manually.
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jsmorley
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Re: Possible bug in the installer / skin installer?

Post by jsmorley »

Yincognito wrote: December 19th, 2018, 4:09 pm Will do that, thanks - I'll keep you posted about that. Just for the record, no crash seems to show up in the event log when starting Rainmeter manually.
I resist that you have found and eliminated all calls to the PerfMon plugin, since Rainmeter appears to be crashing due to that plugin .dll. In any case though, it shouldn't crash due to using PerfMon, which leads me to believe that you have an issue with your Windows perfmon database. That is not entirely uncommon.
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