It is currently March 28th, 2024, 10:53 pm

[BUG?] Missing skin error

Report bugs with the Rainmeter application and suggest features.
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7029
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

[BUG?] Missing skin error

Post by Yincognito »

I am experiencing some errors about missing a skin (in my case, the custom tooltip one) intermittently and at more or less random times in the previous beta versions of Rainmeter. I hope that your fix had a positive influence on the errors I got as well.

Specifically, in my case the errors weren't about the render target or initialization, but simply error messages about missing or not finding the skin - and the file was never deleted or anything like that. I didn't post the report since it didn't happen all the times, it was somewhat random, happening in general after relatively "intensive work" by Rainmeter (e.g. loading / unloading other skins, refreshing them, etc). In other words, it was hard to replicate. Also, the relatively complex nature of my suite would have probably made you reluctant in testing or replicating this.

Anyway, if it happens again (I just installed the 3382 beta) I'll let you know - with screenshots and everything. I doubt there is a problem in my code since in 99% of the cases this doesn't happen.
Last edited by Brian on July 7th, 2020, 9:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Moved to new topic. Made some slight edits to remove references to other topics.
Profiles: Rainmeter ProfileDeviantArt ProfileSuites: MYiniMeterSkins: Earth
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7029
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: [BUG?] Missing skin error

Post by Yincognito »

Yincognito wrote: June 27th, 2020, 3:30 pm I am experiencing some errors about missing a skin (in my case, the custom tooltip one) intermittently and at more or less random times in the previous beta versions of Rainmeter. I hope that your fix had a positive influence on the errors I got as well.

Specifically, in my case the errors weren't about the render target or initialization, but simply error messages about missing or not finding the skin - and the file was never deleted or anything like that. I didn't post the report since it didn't happen all the times, it was somewhat random, happening in general after relatively "intensive work" by Rainmeter (e.g. loading / unloading other skins, refreshing them, etc). In other words, it was hard to replicate. Also, the relatively complex nature of my suite would have probably made you reluctant in testing or replicating this.

Anyway, if it happens again (I just installed the 3382 beta) I'll let you know - with screenshots and everything. I doubt there is a problem in my code since in 99% of the cases this doesn't happen.
And here it is - the screenshot:
Missing Skin Error.jpg
As you can see, the skin is shown as "unloaded" in the Manage Rainmeter window, as "loaded" in the Context Menu and as "missing" in the Rainmeter Log. It's interesting how all these 3 possibilities are true at the same time.

Among other not related things, the tooltip skin has in the [Rainmeter] section:

Code: Select all

DefaultStartHidden=1
DefaultAlwaysOnTop=2
DefaultSavePosition=0
I'm not sure if all these are connected, just sharing all I know about the subject, maybe it helps in a possible replication. The skin will continue to show the same behavior as above (no matter which "tooltip parent" skin I hover to show the "tooltip skin") until I close and restart Rainmeter. It will then work for days, weeks, months or so, until it will happen again. I have no idea what triggers the behavior, but I'm currently in the state of "missing error", so if you want me to make some tests for you while it's not working, I'm all ears.

P.S. Even if my code would be the cause of this (which I seriously doubt, as explained in my previous post), the skin shouldn't be shown as missing in the log. Right?
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Profiles: Rainmeter ProfileDeviantArt ProfileSuites: MYiniMeterSkins: Earth
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7029
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: [BUG?] Missing skin error

Post by Yincognito »

Ok, since I didn't get any answer to this or at least the confirmation that the post was read so I can restart Rainmeter knowing I don't need to do any test to debug the issue, I'll just say that the "malfunction" happens even for simple bangs like [!ActivateConfig "#ROOTCONFIG#\Tooltip"][!ShowFade "#ROOTCONFIG#\Tooltip"], which even though they don't produce errors in the log, don't show the skin either.

This is definitely related to the skin being seen as "unloaded" (even though, as pointed out above I did load it beforehand), since the same error appears in the log when trying to set options on other actual unloaded skins. It seems that somehow the skin got in a "conflicting state", where some Rainmeter elements will show it as loaded (e.g. the skin's context menu), while others will see it as unloaded (e.g. the Manage Rainmeter window, the Log), something supported by the screenshot I posted earlier.

I posted the Rainmeter dump file here, if anyone is interested or thinks it's useful. Be aware that it's a 200+ MB file, compressed to a 65 MB file.

UPDATE: Clicking on the skin's name from the context menu (like highlighted in the screenshot above) in order to unload it seems to have (temporarily, i.e. until it'll happen again, a couple of days or weeks from now or so) solved the issue, no Rainmeter restart needed. I wonder what would have happened if I tried to click on the Load button in the Manage Rainmeter window, since the skin was there seen as unloaded and the Unload button was dimmed / disabled...
Profiles: Rainmeter ProfileDeviantArt ProfileSuites: MYiniMeterSkins: Earth
User avatar
Brian
Developer
Posts: 2673
Joined: November 24th, 2011, 1:42 am
Location: Utah

Re: [BUG?] Missing skin error

Post by Brian »

Hmmm, that doesn't seem right. I don't think the new "Default..." options are the culprit, but you never know.

Without something to "test", it is very difficult to find the issue. It would be best if you could post a small set of skins that demonstrate the issue, and also provide a detailed set of reproducible steps (if possible).

-Brian
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7029
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: [BUG?] Missing skin error

Post by Yincognito »

Brian wrote: July 7th, 2020, 9:28 pm Hmmm, that doesn't seem right. I don't think the new "Default..." options are the culprit, but you never know.

Without something to "test", it is very difficult to find the issue. It would be best if you could post a small set of skins that demonstrate the issue, and also provide a detailed set of reproducible steps (if possible).

-Brian
Ok - thanks for acknowledging this. I'll post 6 of the simplest skin(s) from my suite, so that you won't get lost in the existing "interconnections" and code particularities. Unfortunately, as I said, I can't help as much as I would like to in the matter of reproducing the issue, since it happens at random times, so I'm afraid that you'll just have to keep them loaded for a couple of days and if you're lucky you'll be able to experience the issue at some point. That's why I waited for you guys to answer yesterday, since I knew that it would take time before the issue happens again, so I intentionally left Rainmeter in the "issue happening" state in the hope I could help somehow in debugging the whole thing.

Generally, though, the log error about the missing "tooltip skin" happens when doing a "stress test" by moving the mouse very quickly over the (I have them touching each other, in a horizontal "row", in my layout) "parent skins", so that the tooltip skin gets loaded and unloaded very fast - and this can be easily seen in the Rainmeter Log file (I set Rainmeter to write the log to file so I can show it to you) that I attached to my post.

Now I know this is normal to happen once in a while, as sometimes, due to the very quick mouse over / leave over the parent skins, the unloading probably happens before the parent skin has the chance to pass over (using !SetOption bangs) all the info to the tooltip skin. What is NOT normal however, is for this error to be persistent, to the point of not being able to either show the skin, pass over the info to the tooltip skin, or having conflicting loaded vs unloaded states in the various Rainmeter menus.

In other words, in 99% of the cases, this error message doesn't lead to functional problems, as Rainmeter just keeps running and shows the tooltip skin at the next occurence of a mouse over the parent skin. The 1% of the cases lead to those kind of issues I mentioned earlier, where the error mesage becomes persistent and the Rainmeter code can't load the skin anymore, unless manually toggled from the context menu.

The skins:
MissingSkinTest_1.0.0.rmskin
The log file:
Rainmeter.log
Tip: You can automatically enlarge the skins by setting TextSize to a bigger value in Variables.inc, if you find the skins to be too small.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Profiles: Rainmeter ProfileDeviantArt ProfileSuites: MYiniMeterSkins: Earth
User avatar
Yincognito
Rainmeter Sage
Posts: 7029
Joined: February 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm
Location: Terra Yincognita

Re: [BUG?] Missing skin error

Post by Yincognito »

Brian wrote: July 7th, 2020, 9:28 pm Hmmm, that doesn't seem right. I don't think the new "Default..." options are the culprit, but you never know.

Without something to "test", it is very difficult to find the issue. It would be best if you could post a small set of skins that demonstrate the issue, and also provide a detailed set of reproducible steps (if possible).

-Brian
After a Rainmeter crash caused by a badly written skin recently, I discovered a - probably normal, but still strange - behavior that is almost certainly related to the bug described in this thread. Steps to reproduce (I always use the context menu for all these, but it might happen if using the Manage Rainmeter window, didn't test that):
- load some skin of your choosing (e.g. Test)
- exit Rainmeter
- rename that skin's folder to something else (e.g. Test1)
- run Rainmeter
- rename back the skin folder to what it was (e.g. Test)
- do a Refresh All of your skins
- in the context menu, check the bullet indicating the loaded state of the originally named skin (e.g. Test)
Result - the skin is shown as loaded in the context menu, even though it isn't loaded anymore in the Manage Rainmeter window:
Skin Loaded State - Context Menu vs Manage Rainmeter.jpg
Now, the difference in this reproducible scenario is that, unlike in my own from this thread (which still occasionally happens after all these years), it doesn't affect the ability to load the said skin from another one (like my tooltip skin is doing), but, given a basic attempt to do it via !ActivateConfig, you might just find out that it does (not sure about it though). Hopefully, if this reproducible case is corrected one day, maybe it will fix the problems (inability to load a half loaded skin, missing skin errors for existing skins) described in this thread too... :confused:
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Profiles: Rainmeter ProfileDeviantArt ProfileSuites: MYiniMeterSkins: Earth