Discussion for Troubleshooting Guide wiki page

i could image the following:

Symtom: search is not finding anything...
Next step: Link here to 2nd stage diagnosis...

Symtom: is the blue icon showing in the bottom right corner....
Next step: Link here to resolution (Logos4 is still indexing).

Resolution: Logos4 is still indexing. This may take....

with this method there would be a Page contents with descriptive links to the primary symptoms. And a divided section with secondary symtoms. Resolutions might be on separate wiki pages which would be linked to from the symptom.

EDIT: see this brief example page http://wiki.logos.com/Steve%27s_temp_page

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/224971#Comment_224971

I was thinking that it wouldn't be so much log file deciphering stuff (only for crashes which hopefully are getting rarer now), but rather a repository for the answers to common problems that we've already figured out how to solve. Not the "how do I" type of questions, but the "it doesn't work the way it's supposed to" type of problems. We don't need to repeat over and over again in the forums "try restarting Logos, try starting with the Ctrl key held down and log in again, try doing rebuild index, try doing update resources, etc." -- from our collective experience, we ought to be able to come up with known solutions (or likely fixes) to common problems. A few of them are already documented in the FAQs or other random places on the wiki (such as "Connot connect to Logos servers"). But I envision pulling these all together into one Troubleshooting page for Windows, like there is for Mac: http://wiki.logos.com/Mac_Troubleshooting.

Here are some examples of the things I think people would look for on a Troubleshooting page:

Can't find in my Library such-and-such resource that I know I should have (some possible solutions: restart Logos if you just downloaded it, check Hidden Resources in case you accidentally hid it, do "update resources", try scan [explain details], failing all else: contact Customer Service to have them unlock it for you)
Logos won't start at all
Different number of resources on one machine from another
Sync doesn't work (are they offline?) or creates multiple note flags (known bug; there's a workaround)
Logos is really slow
No search results at all (finish indexing? could be something else -- there's a recent thread trying to help someone with this where they've definitely finished indexing)
Etc. Other ideas?

We could set it up with a troubleshooting question tree, for example if someone can't find a resource they know they should have (this is highly abbreviated just to give an idea of the flow of how we might set this up for one typical problem):

Question 1: [Be sure it really isn't in their Library] Open the Library, grid view, click on the Last Updated column header (turn on that column first if not visible), then press Home; do you see it now?

Question 2: Have you seen it download already? Is there a blue Logos icon in the lower right? If you hover over it does it say there are resources ready to be added to your Library? If so, Restart Logos.

Question 3: Check your Resources folder to see if the file is really there [explain how/where that is]

Etc.

EDIT: I see you posted again before I finished and were thinking pretty much along the same lines.

Floyd Johnson

Can't find in my Library such-and-such resource that I know I should have (some possible solutions: restart Logos if you just downloaded it, check Hidden Resources in case you accidentally hid it, do "update resources", try scan [explain details], failing all else: contact Customer Service to have them unlock it for you)

... or arrange for you to download the file. I had one resource that was showing up on one computer but not another. The missing file would not download with the "update resources" command. The solution was for the tech to find the required file on their own computer, arrange for me to download it, and then do a "scan". I still keep a copy of that file so I can reinstall it on newer computers that need to have LOGOS installed. I think the resource was the "Oxford Bible Commentary" but it has been long enough now, that it might be something else.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/224975#Comment_224975

I had one resource that was showing up on one computer but not another. The missing file would not download with the "update resources" command. The solution was for the tech to find the required file on their own computer, arrange for me to download it, and then do a "scan". I still keep a copy of that file so I can reinstall it on newer computers that need to have LOGOS installed. I think the resource was the "Oxford Bible Commentary" but it has been long enough now, that it might be something else.

Ah yes, I've had problems with that resource before too. Fortunately I still have the CD it came on, so I can scan the CD. But Customer Service did have to unlock the file for me specially for L4, even though I had access to it on L3 and had done synchronize licenses.

Here's another problem that comes up again and again: some metadata is wrong on my machine and yet it's correct for other users. This is a problem Logos should finally figure out and fix, but in the meantime there are a couple of workarounds for it, depending on whether you've got another machine where the metadata is correct or not. Scan from other machine; or hide the resource(s) with bad metadata, restart, unhide, and restart again. See this thread: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/29687.aspx

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/224971#Comment_224971

Can't find in my Library such-and-such resource that I know I should have (some possible solutions: restart Logos if you just downloaded it, check Hidden Resources in case you accidentally hid it, do "update resources", try scan [explain details], failing all else: contact Customer Service to have them unlock it for you)
Logos won't start at all
Different number of resources on one machine from another
Sync doesn't work (are they offline?) or creates multiple note flags (known bug; there's a workaround)
Logos is really slow
No search results at all (finish indexing? could be something else -- there's a recent thread trying to help someone with this where they've definitely finished indexing)
Etc. Other ideas?

Just to be obvious

Logos crashes on a search/other specific action
Indexer crashes

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/224971#Comment_224971

But I envision pulling these all together into one Troubleshooting page for Windows, like there is for Mac: http://wiki.logos.com/Mac_Troubleshooting.

Observation: Mac Troubleshooting wiki page content expanded over time from many forum answers (including some by Logos developers) - especially repeats whose answers were likely to be needed again - have noticed many forum posts that link to How to report Bugs in Logos 4 Mac - suspect PC Troubleshooting guide would need similar section, including link to Diagnostic Logging

Keep Smiling [:)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/224990#Comment_224990

have noticed many forum posts that link to How to report Bugs in Logos 4 Mac - suspect PC Troubleshooting guide would need similar section, including link to Diagnostic Logging

Yes there would definitely need to be a Resolution which instructs the users to setup logging & then create a new post with a descriptive title along with instructions to upload the log files.

Thus why i suggested that resolutions would probably be on separate wiki pages. That way users who know the resolution could also just show the link to the resolution in a response to a post.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/224990#Comment_224990

Observation: Mac Troubleshooting wiki page content expanded over time from many forum answers (including some by Logos developers) - especially repeats whose answers were likely to be needed again - have noticed many forum posts that link to How to report Bugs in Logos 4 Mac - suspect PC Troubleshooting guide would need similar section, including link to Diagnostic Logging

Yes, I find myself linking often to the Diagnostic Logging page for Windows users, and also the Uploading Logs page. And Screenshot.

I hope the Troubleshooting Guide could be a way for some people to solve their own problems (notice that this one particular user who launched us into this discussion wondered why there wasn't a troubleshooting guide). However we go about this, it would be great to have a link to it from the front page of the Forums and very near the top of the Wiki so that it will be found easily and save people the need for a back-and-forth step-by-step solution on the forums (which can take a couple of days sometimes), if possible. Also I'd want to link to it from my signature.

This thread is for MVP's to discuss the possibility of creating a new wiki page for a Troubleshooting Guide. This was requested by Mark Barnes (see this post).

Thanks, Steve. Also, I'm glad Floyd has contributed, too. I'm sure we're all happy for any forum user who's experienced in Logos 4 Windows trouble-shooting to join in, not just MVPs.

It's nearly midnight here, so I don't have much to contribute at the moment, other than to say I had also envisiaged that the guide might include some standard solutions to hard-to-diagnose errors (e.g. .NET crashes, etc.). Even though 'ordinary' users might not be able to diagnose the errors from the Logos logs or Event logs, at least it would provide us with a page where we could find all such solutions, instead of trying to find the last forum post we mentioned it on Google. Here's one recent example: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/30141/223127.aspx#223127

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225093#Comment_225093

Thanks, Steve. Also, I'm glad Floyd has contributed, too. I'm sure we're all happy for any forum user who's experienced in Logos 4 Windows trouble-shooting to join in, not just MVPs.

Just following what was in your post...fortunately i was able to edit it out.

It's nearly midnight here, so I don't have much to contribute at the moment, other than to say I had also envisiaged that the guide might include some standard solutions to hard-to-diagnose errors (e.g. .NET crashes, etc.).

i agree. If you or others get time tomorrow or monday you can add input. It will probably be monday in the USA before i have time to add much input. i hope that Dave Hooton and others that have a lot of skill at troubleshooting will join in this discussion.

It would seem logical first to discuss the basic layout of the page and how the page is to work. Then move on to discuss a means of collecting the info (problem, symptoms, resolutions) and who all wants to contribute and how/who wants to implement the idea. i would guess several might want to work on the wiki page(s), while some may not. At some point it might be very handy to have email to a group of individuals who want to contribute with copying all on ideas. All this is just an idea on how to organize a plan and is completely open to change.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225100#Comment_225100

Troubleshooting guide and resolutions may have 3 sets of information: platform specific (PC and Mac) along with Logos 4 troubleshooting that applies to both platforms (e.g. resources missing).

Here's one recent example: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/30141/223127.aspx#223127

On PC, .Net solutions are applicable (e.g. Mark's recent example).

Also Windows 7 speed tweaks => http://www.askvg.com/master-tutorial-to-make-your-windows-7-super-fast/ - have learned Logos 4 is faster when "Smooth edges of screen fonts" is checked (Visual Effects - Performance Options).

Logos Support for Windows has some articles that could be linked from Troubleshooting Guide (along with observations & expansions) => http://www.logos.com/support/completekblist

Mac Troubleshooting wiki page includes links to Logos Support for Mac pages plus observations & expansions (e.g. uninstall includes 3 parameter list files not on Logos Mac Support page).

Keep Smiling [:)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225100#Comment_225100

Just following what was in your post...fortunately i was able to edit it out.

Yeah, no problem. I realised it was my fault.

One thing that comes to mind is that Dave & others extensively use the log files to determine the problem.

There needs to be a section about Logs - when needed, what log files to look for; are they relevant (timewise); where they are whether or not permanent logging is enabled; how to enable logging and then upload them.

For the known problems (repeat downloads for example) it would not be inappropriate to delete certain L4 databases where this has been promulgated by Logos staff. But I would discourage speculative deletion or renaming and hand the problem to Tech Support for unknown crashes or log messages. My concern is that Logos developers/technical staff do not buy into many Forum issues to be aware of a problem; that it is often solved by a "fix" that buries the vital evidence. I need Logos to buy into this Troubleshooting Guide!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225340#Comment_225340

I've done some initial work on this, to see what you all think: http://wiki.logos.com/Windows_Troubleshooting

The idea is that you go through step-by-step, to see the errors resolved. It's obviously nowhere near complete, but I didn't want to go further until we'd agree on the right format, and the initial steps. The idea would be that this page wouldn't actually contain any of the solutions, but we'd link to other Wiki pages or forum posts as appropriate. I think, generally speaking, it would be better to create Wiki pages from forum posts because (a) they can be edited later, (b) it discourages people from replying to ancient forum posts, and (c) there'll be no potentially confusing discussion, just an answer.

I suspect the troubleshooting page may end up too long. If that's the case, we can split it up easily later.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225776#Comment_225776

Thanks for that start, Mark. Hopefully I'll have more time to help out with it when I get back from a trip (I'm going to be away and not checking in on the forum much at all from March 3-15).

The following page of error codes is old (from 4.0b) and hasn't been updated in a while, but it might be helpful info to include these in the troubleshooting guide (or pages that it links to) under the section "I have the Logos crash log and I know the specific error code"

http://wiki.logos.com/Logos_4.0b_Crashes

Even though many of these errors haven't been seen in a while, they are generic enough that the solutions for them ought to work if the condition ever arises again (e.g., Error ID 2297 = corrupt index --> rebuild index).

I think we ought to scour the forums for crash reports with error codes in them and try to build up a more complete list of what all the common error codes are (with help from Logos devs if they'd be willing to help out with some internal documentation), under what conditions they might arise, and what to do to work around them (while also reporting them to Logos since a fix is probably needed in their code; users really never should see these crashes).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225780#Comment_225780

I think we ought to scour the forums for crash reports with error codes in them and try to build up a more complete list of what all the common error codes are

I agree! In fact, I intended to do that to create that section of the troubleshooter. But what I found is that outside the beta forum, there were surprisingly few crashes. I had to go back to 30 January to find one (other crashes earlier were either beta crashes reported in the wrong forum, or indexer crashes).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225784#Comment_225784

outside the beta forum, there were surprisingly few crashes

Shouldn't we try to make this complete enough to help beta users troubleshoot things too? As long as they promise to not just find a workaround and then sweep the bug under the carpet. They still need to report a reproducible (if possible) case to Logos so they can fix it. But in the meantime, so they can continue to get some work done, a workaround might be helpful.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225787#Comment_225787

Shouldn't we try to make this complete enough to help beta users troubleshoot things too?

Personally, I don't think so, for three reasons. (a) It would add significantly to this page, potentially confusing non-beta users, or giving the impression Logos is very buggy; (b) beta users ought to be interacting with the forum anyway, (c) beta users should be sufficiently tech-savvy to find their own workarounds using the forum to help.

If you or others disagree, that's fine, but I think as a minimum, any beta troubleshooting info should be kept separate.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225789#Comment_225789

OK, I agree with you as to point (a), up to a point. But here are some reasons why I think we should include the errors beta users run across (perhaps separated out into a different section, though point 2 below will show why I think that might be a difficult task):

1) It would take a bit of the load off of us if a known error were documented here once it has been encountered; then further people encountering it could look up the error message here instead of posting a question to the forum

2) Yes most beta users are probably tech-savvy enough to Google the forums for answers, but many of them are lazy enough that they'd rather post a question and make us do the Googling work for them.

3) It's not immediately clear from an error code that it is something that could only happen in a beta release. The stable releases are certainly far more stable and thus it's far more unlikely that anyone would encounter one of these. But all the more reason for having a place where people can look them up in the rare (an unlikely) situation that they ever do come up. Suppose the bug where the index could end up being corrupted got fixed long ago, but the error message still exists in the code, and Logos will crash and put out that error code if, God forbid, the index should ever become corrupted again. There might be some subtle hard-to-reproduce bug that gets introduced (and ships) in Logos 4.3c where someone doesn't stumble upon it until after the stable release has been out for a while. Having that error message documented would be useful in such a case.

4) As for your concern that having all these codes documented in one place might give the impression that Logos is very buggy, many other software companies do this on their websites. Microsoft has tons of such lists, for many of their different software products (e.g., http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/193625; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/904336; etc.). We can get some ideas on how to organize this troubleshooting page from there. For example, they number all the articles in their Knowledge Base. We might not have enough to warrant doing that, but it might be a useful idea. We could probably get away with 3 digits rather than the 6 that Microsoft uses. See, for example, the References section of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/229683. It gives a nice brief summary of what each error is, and a link to the Knowledge Base article which deals with how to work around that problem.

5) As for your concern that this page might confuse non-beta users if it had too many error codes listed in it, chances are that most non-beta users will probably post to the forums first anyway. What this error list / knowledge base would do would be to give us a very quick way to look up an error code and the solution that has been found for it, and post a link to that solution page on the forum. So the non-beta user probably wouldn't even be seeing the long list of possible error codes.

Anyway, I'd rather have Logos be perceived as buggy with solutions than be perceived as buggy with no (easy) solutions to those bugs. The only people who will encounter this list at all anyway are going to be people who have already run into a bug so they already probably think of Logos as buggy.

The only reason you didn't list which I would say we shouldn't list the beta-only bugs, is it would take more of our time to do that list, and the small payoff might not be worth it.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225787#Comment_225787

Shouldn't we try to make this complete enough to help beta users troubleshoot things too?

Betas change so rapidly that I would be concerned about the maintenance involved - old information can be worse than no information.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/225998#Comment_225998

Shouldn't we try to make this complete enough to help beta users troubleshoot things too?

Betas change so rapidly that I would be concerned about the maintenance involved - old information can be worse than no information.

The point is, the error messages are generic things usually. They mean stuff like "your index is corrupted" and in many cases there is a known workaround that will fix it for now (e.g., "rebuild index"). It doesn't matter how you got the error message to come up. It might be a bug that is here now, gone tomorrow (as betas are in flux). The error shouldn't have come up at all, but given that it did, and Logos might take a while to fix the problem that caused it in this particular instance, it is helpful to be able to look up a workaround.

I would agree that we should not put in documentation for error messages that seem so specific to a particular release that they wouldn't be relevant ever in the future. But as a programmer, I know that many internal error messages can be triggered by multiple different paths in the code, when something gets broken that shouldn't have.

I've contributed some articles and made some changes to the wiki guide. It is still a work-in-progress but I have linked it with the main wiki page under Troubleshooting.

I removed the empty sections on Logos 4 is missing some resources (could be documented separately as common to Mac and Windows) and Logos 4 is very slow (documented on main page).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232245#Comment_232245

I removed the empty sections on Logos 4 is missing some resources (could be documented separately as common to Mac and Windows) and Logos 4 is very slow (documented on main page).

Shouldn't we remove the Troubleshooting section from the front page, merge all that stuff into the troubleshooting guide, and replace that section on the home page with a link to the guide? Otherwise there's likely to end up being more redundancy again and confusion among users about where to look for things.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232257#Comment_232257

Shouldn't we remove the Troubleshooting section from the front page, merge all that stuff into the troubleshooting guide, and replace that section on the home page with a link to the guide? Otherwise there's likely to end up being more redundancy again and confusion among users about where to look for things.

As there's now both a Mac and Windows Troubleshooting Guide and problems common to both, I don't think redundancy is an issue and the Troubleshooting section is a good point of focus. The Bugs section could be revised, though eg. the title, and How to Reports Bugs could be moved to the Troubleshooting section (see changes I just made).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232257#Comment_232257

Shouldn't we remove the Troubleshooting section from the front page

Redundancy -

Removed that section from the TOC; under Other Features. Removed Troubleshooting + unnecessary/duplicate links from VTOC (corrected links from TOC). Have moved & pointed to common issues in the FAQ on Troubleshooting from the Main Page.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232334#Comment_232334

Removed Troubleshooting + unnecessary/duplicate links from VTOC (corrected links from TOC).

i disagree with the change on the VTOC. Its goal was to contain all links to all wiki pages (with few exceptions). You have removed a whole table of links.

EDIT: now those links are orphaned with no easy way to find them.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232383#Comment_232383

Removed Troubleshooting + unnecessary/duplicate links from VTOC (corrected links from TOC).

i disagree with the change on the VTOC. Its goal was to contain all links to all wiki pages (with few exceptions). You have removed a whole table of links.

EDIT: now those links are orphaned with no easy way to find them.

The good thing about wiki history is you can easily get back what was deleted. I suggest putting it back to the way it was.

The bad thing about redundancy in pages like that is that people (like me) who forget the VTOC exists will forget to add links to it when we create new pages. I disagree that there needs to be one single page that has links to pretty much every page on the wiki. It becomes unwieldy and a maintenance hassle.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232412#Comment_232412

The good thing about wiki history is you can easily get back what was deleted. I suggest putting it back to the way it was.

i know, but will not restore unless a consensus is agreed upon first.

The bad thing about redundancy in pages like that is that people (like me) who forget the VTOC exists will forget to add links to it when we create new pages. I disagree that there needs to be one single page that has links to pretty much every page on the wiki. It becomes unwieldy and a maintenance hassle.

i have monitored the Recent wiki pages very closely and have maintained the VTOC with new links.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232412#Comment_232412

I disagree that there needs to be one single page that has links to pretty much every page on the wiki. It becomes unwieldy and a maintenance hassle.

At a minimum there need to be a top level page in the hierarchy from which you can logically get to all pages. We certainly can disagree on the maximum allowable number of clicked needed to get to a particular detail page.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232467#Comment_232467

The good thing about wiki history is you can easily get back what was deleted. I suggest putting it back to the way it was.

i know, but will not restore unless a consensus is agreed upon first.

Sorry about that Steve. My intent was to restrict the meaning of "troubleshooting" because the section with that title also had links to "How to ..." type pages and most links were duplicated/referenced by other links in the VTOC such as FAQ and Installation and Indexing FAQ's (under FAQ's). If they weren't dupes I added them to the FAQ page. ProcDump is probably orphaned but it is a very technical page and I'll probably include that in Windows Troubleshooting. Reporting Data Problems is a dupe of a Logos page that i included directly on the main page under Reporting Problems & Bugs.

The items under Bug were a dupe of what was on the main page under Bug (now Reporting Problems & Bugs).

So I was careful about orphans but more concerned that the dupes in VTOC and TOC were under misleading/confusing headings. It could be resolved by having duplicating a Troubleshooting section containing only Windows Troubleshooting and Mac Troubleshooting as that is where the main page is heading when I complete the update of Windows Troubleshooting.

The bad thing about redundancy in pages like that is that people (like me) who forget the VTOC exists will forget to add links to it when we create new pages. I disagree that there needs to be one single page that has links to pretty much every page on the wiki. It becomes unwieldy and a maintenance hassle.

i have monitored the Recent wiki pages very closely and have maintained the VTOC with new links.

I do agree with Rosie when the duplication is not focussed. I thought i fixed the links from TOC to VTOC - apologies if i missed any.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232508#Comment_232508

My intent was to restrict the meaning of "troubleshooting" because the section with that title also had links to "How to ..." type pages and most links were duplicated/referenced by other links in the VTOC such as FAQ and Installation and Indexing FAQ's (under FAQ's). If they weren't dupes I added them to the FAQ page.

i will yield to your decision.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/232383#Comment_232383

I disagree
that there needs to be one single page that has links to pretty much
every page on the wiki. It becomes unwieldy and a maintenance
hassle.

At a minimum there need to be a top level page in the hierarchy from
which you can logically get to all pages. We certainly can disagree on
the maximum allowable number of clicked needed to get to a particular
detail page.

Yes, of course. I wasn't implying there should ever be any orphan pages that can't be gotten to somehow from a top-level page. Number of clicks shouldn't be too high, but it doesn't need to be 1.

I was merely responding to this part of Steve's post (my emphasis formatting):

i disagree with the change on the VTOC. Its goal was to contain all links to all wiki pages (with few exceptions).

...not this part (which may or may not have been added later; I can't remember):

EDIT: now those links are orphaned with no easy way to find them.

I wouldn't have simply deleted those links from the VTOC without moving them to the troubleshooting page (or making sure they were already represented there).