Update Error

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George Allakhverdyan | Forum Activity | Replied: Wed, Dec 23 2009 2:50 PM

Mark is right, right-click on the Logos4 folder and hit properties and ensure that you have all permissions set on this folder and the sub files and folders. It might be the case that you don't have the read and write but not modify property set

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Mark Barnes | Forum Activity | Replied: Wed, Dec 23 2009 5:07 PM

Then can you delete the file and re-run the installation? Make sure logging remains turned on so we can diagnose further problems. Also, make sure you read my comments at the beginning of this thread which said "You should make sure you run Logos with the same privileges you had when you installed it. If you install as admin, then run as a user you can get problems."

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Tony Garland | Forum Activity | Replied: Wed, Dec 23 2009 8:07 PM

Mark Barnes:

The problem is that some of the existing files can't be overwritten. This one, for example: D:\read\Logos4\System\es-MX\Logos4.resources.dll

You need to make sure you have r/w access to all the files in D:\read\Logos4\ before attempting the install.

To summarize about this permission failure:

1. The directory is writable by me.  I can create, edit, and delete files in D:\read\Logos4\System\es-MX without any problems.
2. The file is writable by me. When the update fails with this error, the original Logos4.resources.dll (from the previous version) has been successfully removed and a new copy of the file (with size zero) has been created.  As a test, I opened the dll file in an editor and was able to inject ascii text (although I'm aware a DLL would typically be a binary file) into it and save it.  So even the exact file it is complaining about is being created, although with size zero--and it is writable by me.
3. All this is as I would expect since I have Admin rights on the machine and originally installed Logos 4 "as me" without taking any special action other than inserting the CD and letting it run the install.

If I attempt to launch Logos 4 (the previous version before the update) as some other user, then it doesn't trigger the update and the previous version runs fine.  If I launch Logos 4 as myself (without using "run as...") then it triggers the update and fails.

I am a software engineer by profession and generally familiar with file permissions and I don't think that has anything to do with it.  It says "Error writing to file" and creates a DLL file with size zero.  But the file and directory have complete write permission to me.

So I'm still at a loss to explain what's wrong with the update.  If I uninstall Logos 4 and then reinstall it (so that it gets the latest version during the install), that works fine.  Its only at the point of the subsequent automatic update where trouble begins.

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Tony Garland | Forum Activity | Replied: Wed, Dec 23 2009 8:59 PM

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

I found out that Windows XP home edition disables the ability to login as "Administrator" except when running in Safe Mode. (The idea is that you only login as Administrator in Safe Mode to fix one of the other accounts--which can have Administrator privileges--and then boot back to normal mode.)

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/admins.htm

So I tried a couple of additional experiments:

1. Booted into safe mode, logged in as myself, and launched Logos4.exe with "Run As... Administrator".  This doesn't work because of the following error: "D:\read\Logos4\Logos4.exe  The service cannot be started in Safe Mode."
2. Booted into safe mode with networking, logged in as Administrator, and launched Logos4.exe.  After registering over the internet, it spends quite a while "downloading" but eventually fails with: "Logos 4 Bible Software encountered a problem and needs to close."

All this to say that my few attempts to try to run Logos4 (and especially the update) as Administrator under XP home have been futile.  Then again, I have no real indication that this would fix the problem I'm seeing in the first place since I have Administrative rights and Logos4 was initially installed under my account directly from the crossgrade CD.

To summarize: the update always fails with a zero-sized DLL which is successfully created in the correct directory--both the directory and the file itself are writable by me. So the error writing the file must be due to something else.  Since I'm unable to run Logos4 as Administrator under Safe Mode in XP home (and Administrator is unavailable outside of Safe Mode), I can't investigate whether running as the one-and-only Administrator would cause different behavior.

The question remains why the update reports an error writing the updated DLL, but successfully created the file itself (although empty) and is also successful at backing out the changes (deleting the zero-size DLL and restoring the original DLL) after reporting the error and I cancel the update.

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Mark Barnes | Forum Activity | Replied: Thu, Dec 24 2009 2:02 AM

Anthony,

Sorry you're still having trouble with this. A couple of points:

• Like you, I don't understand why Logos can write a zero-byte file, but then not add data to it.
• However, Logos is designed to run on a per-user basis. It's designed to normally install without needing Administrator privileges (though the pre-requisites like .NET need those privileges, as do some fonts).
• Logos therefore runs in a limited user mode, even if the user has administrative privileges (this is because the file is running from inside the user data folder, and Windows prevents files in there from having administrative privileges, unless you explicitly give it to them by choosing "Run as administrator".
• Therefore, it's best to always install/run Logos using the same user account, avoiding "Run as" if at all possible. Logos can't overwrite files owned by other users.
• If the permissions may have been compromised by doing this in the past, the best solution is to reclaim ownership of all the files in the Logos4 folder.

I hope this makes sense, and helps you solve the problem. Do let us know.

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Henry Finkle | Forum Activity | Replied: Fri, Dec 25 2009 6:22 AM

Anthony, how did you set the permissions for users in XP Home? The way I remembered it on my notebook is that I never saw any security settings on my version of xp home edition. To be able to make that tab visible, I had to download a utility from Microsoft.

If there is a "user group" with deny permissions, that will deny the administrators also. And maybe you might also need the "SYSTEM" account with all permissions set to allow also. A lot of times I saw installers fail if the "SYSTEM" account wasn't set on the folder or files that needed to be replaced.

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Tony Garland | Forum Activity | Replied: Sat, Dec 26 2009 12:15 PM

Problem solved!

I restarted in safe mode and logged in as Administrator and double-checked the permissions one more time.  As I saw before, my normal login identity "tony", which has Admin rights had both ownership and full control permissions on every directory from D: all the way down to D:\read\Logos4\System\es-MX.

I repeated what I had done previously: set both Administrator and SYSTEM permission at D:\read and told it to propagate the permissions to child folders and files (and then watched as it took several minutes to visit all the folders and files setting the permissions).  What was strange, though, was that when I browsed below D:\read again looking at security, neither Administrator nor SYSTEM appeared in the list of users. For some reason, these permissions were not propagated down as one would have expected.

I double-checked d:\read\Logos4 and saw something odd there that I hadn't noticed earlier:

• There were two users listed in the security settings which did not make sense given the accounts on the machine: "SID 0" and "unknown user".
• As with D:\read, neither SYSTEM nor Administrator permission had propagated to this folder.

I began to wonder whether these odd users were somehow interfering with the propagation of access permissions I had attempted earlier.  So I deleted both of them from the list of users, went back to D:\read and then gave recursive permission for Administrator (user), SYSTEM (user) and Administrators (group) down the entire D:\read tree once again.  This time, the permissions propagated all the way down D:\read\Logos4\System\es-MX and this fixed the problem.

So even though "tony" had the necessary permissions as an Admin, the other bogus users were somehow preventing Administrator, SYSTEM, and Administrators from being granted access each time I set these at a higher level and attempted to propagate the security settings downward.

And even though the update was running as "tony" with Admin permissions and complete control over the entire path down to D:\read\Logos4\System\es-MX\Logos4.resources.dll, something more was needed.  I'm not sure if granting SYSTEM, Administrator, or Administrators permission was the key as I didn't do them one-at-a-time.  But the main thing is it is fixed now.

I'm grateful for the patience and suggestions made by those who attempted to point me in the right direction to correct this glitch.

- Tony

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George Allakhverdyan | Forum Activity | Replied: Mon, Dec 28 2009 8:49 AM

Thanks for reporting on this issue Tony I'm sure other users may find it helpful, glad you got it working!

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Stephen Miller | Forum Activity | Replied: Sat, Jan 2 2010 10:35 PM

I now remember a change I made recently .... When I installed Windows 7 .... when windows started my User Icon popped up on the screen. This meant that Windows wouldn't start until I had clicked the icon.

Somehow I changed this so that Windows starts directly I switch on the computer.

I guess this has affected the user rights in my Logos 4 folder.

Stephen Miller

Sydney, Australia.

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George Allakhverdyan | Forum Activity | Replied: Thu, Jan 7 2010 4:40 PM

StephenMiller02:

I now remember a change I made recently .... When I installed Windows 7 .... when windows started my User Icon popped up on the screen. This meant that Windows wouldn't start until I had clicked the icon.

Somehow I changed this so that Windows starts directly I switch on the computer.

I guess this has affected the user rights in my Logos 4 folder.

 

Stephen Miller

Sydney, Australia.

This is interesting, glad you got around the problem.