My PP4.5.1 has fallen and would not get up

[jjgui1]

(sorry, everyone, for the typos - I thought I proofed this so you would believe I DO speak proper English)

Ouch. I thought I would try the DL (the install exe and not the .zip) to put the new PP to work on my system. I'm not new to this at all, having done several upgrades now thru the years. However, this last install / upgrade attempt was a biter. It wouldn't come up w/o trying to reinstall itself, or at best, it would come up and not recognize any of my previous accounts and local folders. I played around with both the command lines of my desktop icon as well as the adjustments in the "options" area for storage. NOTHING worked so I had to set it all aside and recover (with a backed up version of .45) and go from there.

Notes about my configuration:
1) My desktop icon uses the -ini option to indicate where I have my .ini file. I keep the .ini with my PP data on a local drive for easier backup purposes. I copied my .45 environment to a new .451 directory and put the DLed PP-install.exe in that folder.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\ ... \POPPeeperPro-v451\POPPeeper.exe" -ini "C:\Users\(ID-goes-here)\Documents\poppeeper-data\poppeeper.ini"

2) I ran the install of the .exe and let it do it's thing - no errors, no issues (that I know of).

3) The desktop icon properties I planned on using after the update are shown in Line 1 above. This was just not working. I had updated both the "target" field and the "start-in" field to point to the .451 directory.

4) I updated the "Tools/Options/Data path" to point to a roaming location and also tried my "normal" documents directory location. NEITHER of them worked. I had to muck around with the "File /Autocheck" enabled and disabled during my edits. I couldn't make PP find my previous data or accounts.

At that point I gave up and went looking for a previous thread out here where I discussed this topic a few times with Jeff. I have kept my .ini file with my data and used this thread of information as a reference place when things went bump. That topic is now gone, or somewhere that I can no longer find it in "my posts". I haven't posted a lot so it should have been easy to find but is gone.

I see that all my yahoo accounts tonight are showing -11 erorrs or "check ur ID/PW" messages. one of my Hotmail accounts is showing the same thing. @$@#$@#%$%$%^&^%. Now I have to take the time and steps to reauthorize and recheck all of those accounts.

I don't know what changed or who did what to who, but this last install set has blown things apart. It used to be better and easier to manage.
Can anyone provide some clear and specific steps for this install and how it is done using the -ini option for moving my config file? Jeff, are you still out there? SOS .... SOS ....

[Jeff]

I can assure you that this did not change between v4.5.0 and v4.5.1. I can take a guess at what happened -- which is that when you installed PP, it was set to create a desktop shortcut and this overwrote your custom shortcut. That would explain why you started with an empty configuration (since the new shortcut will look in the default locations for your ini file, which it won't find). If that's what happened, then the solution is to rename your PP desktop icon so that it won't get overwritten in the future. You can also make sure that the desktop icon is not created during installation (but renaming your existing custom shortcut is really the best solution).

And -- related -- if you allow POP Peeper to run automatically at the end of the installation, it won't use your custom ini location. So you should untick the box.

So the question is -- have you double-checked your desktop shortcut to make sure that it has all the correct data, specifically the "ini" information?

If v4.5.0 works, then v4.5.1 will work with the same command-line; the ini file and data are completely compatible.

Also, something to note for future reference -- if PP is not loading your accounts (ie. the "Accounts List" is empty), then changing the "data path" will not help. The list of accounts is stored in the ini file, the actual messages are stored in the data path. So:
If the Accounts List is unexpectedly empty = Ini file
If the Message List is unexpectedly empty = data path

And the "data path" is stored in the "ini file" so if your ini file isn't loading, then your data path won't be the same. ie. no use trying to fix the data path when it's your ini file that's not loading.

Hope this helps.

And why are you still using WebMail protocol for Yahoo and Hotmail...? IMAP!

[jjgui1]

Hey Jeff.

In answer to your questions ...

Unlike other users in the community that might tweak their PP and other tools on a daily basis, I pretty much take a "set it, forget it" approach with the thing. If it's working, I let it be. I despise scrolling thru account after account and having to fuss with it. I KNOW my accounts were set up for IMAP and OAuth2 UNTIL there were failures, errors, and unreliability issues. I probably switched away during one of the last several times that Yahoo and PP were not getting along. Once set, I left things alone. I can only think that is the reason the settings were changed and left alone. I changed all my accounts across the board to use the OAuth2 settings when the recommendations and MOTDs came out. As long as it worked, I then left it alone. So again, I moved them back to OAuth2 until the next rash of -11 errors and other failures show up.

The issue with the desktop icon started AFTER the first attempt at loading the new software. I was very specific at that point to not overwrite or add another icon to the desktop and remember that decision. After that attempt, I can't recall what happened and I'm sure the install eventually did write over my icon and change the settings. However, I have the paths written down in a note because they are too long and easily messed up and so I don't have to fumble should they get destroyed. I can do simple copy N pastes and get them back. I've relied on this method for several rounds of upgrade hell. The same goes with the Options settings for storage. So why did it fail this time? I don't know. I checked both the Options and icon lines several times at the end and felt that the ini itself was creating a problem. I finally had to reverse course and simply go back to the previous environment and again verified the settings for the icon.

Something I have learned from previous attempts to upgrade is that the File / Exit command does NOT shutdown PP. PP is still running a process and I must use Task Manager to make sure it is truly gone before I can get new changes and configs to take effect. If I forget to kill off PP, then the next start up may continue to have the various issues and not be working from the new settings. So I'm pretty careful about my methods and technique. If all else failed, I relied on the information in the previous-and-now-gone thread to get me thru in case I missed something. I'll have to use this thread as a troubleshooting source, I guess, should I make a future upgrade. At this point, I'm not when that will be.

Thanks for responding, btw, Jeff. I wasn't sure if you were still involved in the forum/support anymore.

[mjs]

.... Something I have learned from previous attempts to upgrade is that the File / Exit command does NOT shutdown PP. PP is still running a process and I must use Task Manager to make sure it is truly gone before I can get new changes and configs to take effect. If I forget to kill off PP, then the next start up may continue to have the various issues and not be working from the new settings.....

I'm curious about this comment -- when you "Exit" POP Peeper -- which is to say stop the POP Peeper process (which can be accomplished via "File">"Exit", as you mentioned, and/or doing a right-click on the PP tray icon and selecting "Exit" from the context menu) -- I have a question: When you do this does the PP tray icon disappear? I ask because the tray icon should disappear when you do this and if this occurs then the PP process should not be running and therefore not be listed in the Windows TM.

.... I wasn't sure if you were still involved in the forum/support anymore.

.... FYI - As the "Admin / Developer" of POP Peeper I must say that you can be assured Jeff has always been and will continue to be fully involved.

[spc3rd]

If all else failed, I relied on the information in the previous-and-now-gone thread to get me thru in case I missed something.

Morning jjgui1,

Just for reference - Forum posts prior to April 23, 2015 (including the previous post you referred to) have been archived, and are only viewable by Moderators and Jeff.

Best regards,

[Jeff]

I've restored the forum post containing what I presume is the historical information you were looking for:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5196
I recommend writing the information down as this post will certainly get cleaned up at some point and removed again.

As for the installation -- The installation only overwrites files in the "Program Data" folder, the "startup" registry entry (if selected) and the desktop icon (if selected). It does nothing with your data files. The installation method has not changed significantly in a long time, so if there was a general issue with the installer, then a lot of people would be complaining. There are always *some* reports that something went wrong during installation, but it usually comes down to something like I mentioned -- that the person is using some custom installation method that the installer happened to overwrite. But that's not something that the installer can take account of. But I am absolutely willing and wanting to fix any problem that may exist -- so if you can provide more information, then please do so.

Personally, I have 2 shortcuts on my desktop. One that launches v4 and another that launches v5, both using the same custom command-line. I've never had a problem with them getting mangled, but more importantly, the command-line arguments have been the same since at least v3.

I wasn't sure if you were still involved in the forum/support anymore.

I'm not sure what your intention of saying this was. But if you would like proof of my involvement/commitment to supporting POP Peeper, here's a screenshot of the current topics in the forum. Look at the icons on the left, the ones with stars are the topics that I have personally replied to.

[jjgui1]

If it's working, I let it be. I despise scrolling thru account after account and having to fuss with it. I KNOW my accounts were set up for IMAP and OAuth2 UNTIL there were failures, errors, and unreliability issues. I probably switched away during one of the last several times that Yahoo and PP were not getting along. Once set, I left things alone.

Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread with another issue - but I'm quoting a previous response and answer from above about IMAP.

Well, again tonight another one of those cases has surfaced. An account on Yahoo that had been fine after moving it back to IMAP is now broken again. All the others accounts are ok in PP and the broken account works fine using a browser, so what is wrong with an account that was just fine last night and is broken tonight?

PP tells me: --- Version ---

OS: Windows 8.1 (x64)
POP Peeper: 4.5.0.0
Webmail: 4.5.3.0
SSL: 1.0.2.11
IMAP: 4.5.0.0
SendMail: 4.5.0.0
Profile Picture: 4.5.0.0 (disabled)
AntiJunk: 4.5.0.0 (disabled)
Spell Checker: 4.5.0.0 (disabled)
Web of Trust: 4.5.0.0 (disabled)

--- Web Test ---
Result: 200
Error:
Time: 20:43:04 - 20:43:05 (1 s) (-0400)
Data: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 17:43:04 -0700

--- Error ---
yah - (removed my account name) Copy [1000: IMAP] ['imap.mail.yahoo.com' (993) SSL: 1] [Smtp: 'smtp.mail.yahoo.com' (465) SSL: 1] [Consec: 1]
- Error (Server said BYE: IMAP4rev1 Server logging out)

[jjgui1]

jjgui1 wrote: ↑
Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:53 pm
" I wasn't sure if you were still involved in the forum/support anymore."

"I'm not sure what your intention of saying this was. But if you would like proof of my involvement/commitment to supporting POP Peeper, here's a screenshot of the current topics in the forum. Look at the icons on the left, the ones with stars are the topics that I have personally replied to."

(Couldn't figure out how to get 2 quotes to show so using the trusty copyNpaste above)

Jeff,there was no "intention" or ulterior motive in my statement. I actually wasn't sure if you and other admins had moved on. It had been quite some time since I had come to the forum and even longer in seeing a recent post from you. No harm, no foul. I wasn't sure if PP had been bought/sold/transferred to others now caring for its daily "feeding". As I've experienced with other products, once you get a good source for help and someone who is knowledgeable in things, they usually move on. Just like my forum topic had moved on (archived). I'm glad you are still here and feeding the beast AND available for these situations when my PP falls and can't get up.

[jjgui1]

.... Something I have learned from previous attempts to upgrade is that the File / Exit command does NOT shutdown PP. PP is still running a process and I must use Task Manager to make sure it is truly gone before I can get new changes and configs to take effect. If I forget to kill off PP, then the next start up may continue to have the various issues and not be working from the new settings.....

I'm curious about this comment -- when you "Exit" POP Peeper -- which is to say stop the POP Peeper process (which can be accomplished via "File">"Exit", as you mentioned, and/or doing a right-click on the PP tray icon and selecting "Exit" from the context menu) -- I have a question: When you do this does the PP tray icon disappear? I ask because the tray icon should disappear when you do this and if this occurs then the PP process should not be running and therefore not be listed in the Windows TM.

.... I wasn't sure if you were still involved in the forum/support anymore.

.... FYI - As the "Admin / Developer" of POP Peeper I must say that you can be assured Jeff has always been and will continue to be fully involved.

Wow, quotes on top of quotes on top of quotes .... yikes.
I can't answer your question directly from memory as to what was going on with PP and whether or not it was still in the tray. I do know that I've learned to check Task Manager because many times PP still had a process out there. I'll have to try to keep this in mind for the next time (if / when) and try to circle around with a comment on what I find. Of course, tonight I did the "File/Exit" command and PP was closed properly (because we were watching). This isn't always the case, though.

[mjs]

- Error (Server said BYE: IMAP4rev1 Server logging out)[/b]

Thanks for providing the entire Error Information regarding this issue....

I will from time-to-time occasionally get this temporary "(Server said BYE: IMAP4rev1 Server logging out)" error that you have referenced at which time the IMAP Server unexpectedly disconnects due to unsolicited BYE responses as a consequence of an Internal IMAP Server error (unrelated to PP) perhaps due to random timing/sync issues (a guess on my part) -- I find this specific error will generally clear relatively soon, typically as of the very next Mail Check.

Please report back as to whether this error ultimately clears as expected or still remains persistent.

Btw, on a side note, when you use IMAP are you authorizing PP -- that is are you pressing the "Oauth2" button and following through with the ensuing steps?

So then are we to conclude that you are having no other issues with PP as of this time?

As to the PP process continuing to run after manually Exiting PP -- please do check back with us at the time if in fact you Exit PP and find the PP process still running. I have never personally had this happen as a result of using the prescribed methods to "Exit" PP (that being "File/Exit" or alternately right-click on tray-icon and selecting "Exit") - which is why I had suggested that you look to see if the PP tray-icon disappears or not in these circumstance which will invariably be the case if the process has been stopped.

[spc3rd]

by jjgui1 » Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:31 pm. Wow, quotes on top of quotes on top of quotes .... yikes.

Indeed. Too many consecutive quotes within a post tends to detract from the primary issue being discussed.

Best regards.

[mjs]

by jjgui1 » Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:31 pm. Wow, quotes on top of quotes on top of quotes .... yikes.

Indeed. Too many consecutive quotes within a post tends to detract from the primary issue being discussed.

Best regards.

Hmm, I've never had a problem following similar consecutive posts.... (I guess perhaps for some "too many" may indeed tend to be confusing or should I say detracting -- uh, I guess maybe even only two deep... ).

[Jeff]

I do know that I've learned to check Task Manager because many times PP still had a process out there.

I wonder if you're actually running multiple simultaneous instances of PP, which could certainly cause some strange side-effects, especially during installation. POP Peeper tries to prevent that from happening (unless you're specifically telling it to run multiple instances), but it's certainly possible, especially if both instances are being auto-run at startup.

Too many consecutive quotes within a post tends to detract from the primary issue being discussed.

I would agree. It all comes down to personal preference, of course, but my style is to quote just enough text (1 line) to remind everyone involved what I'm specifically replying to. Presumably, they've recently read the original text so just a refresher should be necessary. And the original text is still available if it needs to be referenced.

Of course, you may notice that when I reply in the forum that it rarely attributes the author or includes a link to the original text. That's because I manually type {quote}...{/quote} (with [] instead of {}) instead of using the "quote" button, which is probably not a great habit either

[mjs]

Hmm, --- Seems clear enough to me

I would agree the quoting of the entire post as illustrated later in the topic could be confusing however.

[jjgui1]

Ok, I'm not even going to bother quoting as a mountain of exchanges above have taken place. Instead to preserve any sanctity and sanity left, I will quickly summarize:

- the original problem with the icon properties and the storage properties was averted by simply going back to my previous load and configuration thru the powers of a backup recovery. (and a duplicate copy) I did not try to revisit an upgrade and probably will ignore it for now.

- the new errors that IMAP puked up for me saying "BYE" was a random thing the other night and it stayed around for a while. I didn't worry about it too much as it was for one of my less-used accounts and I wasn't expecting a lot of email traffic from it. The problem is gone as of a day later all on its own.

- OAuth2 authentication / login / validation - yes I do all the steps of making sure the service will recognize my connection and give the server @ Yahoo permission to accept this type of connection from me. Its a pain to go thru all the accounts and verify all of it but it was the only way to figure out what was good and what was bad.

- No, I do not try to run multiple versions of PP. I click on it to start up things when my desktop has started and then have the accounts do their thing for rounding up the mail. Again, I don't constantly monitor it, but a number of times when upgrading has come around, I would encounter a stuck, orphaned, or hung PP process requiring manual clearing.

- Tonight a new challenge just erupted in the zone of "pain in the butt" errors. Two accounts on Hotmail that were working just fine earlier are now telling me the login has failed. "Account is blocked." It wasn't a PP issue, it was this new panic crap from Hotmail because it thinks I'm logging in "differently" than before. Issue resolved by using the web to login and calming its Hotmail feathers.

[Francis17]

To avoid having an install overwrite your customizations, you could take extra steps to limit the damage any installer can do. Here's some recipe.

Point the installer to a custom program location, like G:\Apps\Mailers\PopPeeper

When the install is complete...

Move the new Start Menu items to a custom location, like ...\Apps\Mailers\PopPeeper

Rename the new desktop icon.

Create a new config folder in a custom location, like F:\Cfgs\Apps\Mailers\PopPeeper (this holds the INI, license, etc)
Copy the new data folder to a custom location, like D:\Data\PopPeeper (this holds the mailboxes, dbs, messages, etc)

Create a new batch script for launching PP. This is the way to see at a glance how PP is being launched, regardless of how you give the command to launch the script. This is where you set exactly which EXE to run, in case you have more than one version installed. This is where you set the command line options, such as indicating which INI to use, in which Cfg folder. This is where you can write notes to yourself about how PP is set up.

Point the Start Menu item to the batch script, with no other customizations.

Point the desktop icon to the batch script, with no other customizations.

Point any keyboard macros for PP to the batch script.
Point any other launcher-type menu items or scripts to the batch script.
Point any Windows Startup registry entries to the batch script.

After each step, confirm that it works by launching the program, then exiting.

Include the following folders in your backup plan:
- Cfgs
- Data
- <Batch scripts>
- Installers
- *not* the Program folder, because it can be re-created from the installer without borking your custom setup

At this point the setup should be ready to run PP and set the configs inside the program. It will update the INI for you, with location of the Data folder, mail accounts, etc.

For fun I have a config-checking/editing script where I type "Cfg PP" and three file-exploring windows open up, showing the Program, Cfg, and Data folders. This is in case of needing to update the INI behind PP's back, while the program is not running.

If you want to get really crazy, then you could make the launch script open PP to different sets of mail accounts, by switching between different INIs or Cfg folders. Switching could even be done in response to different command line options passed to the script.

Yes the problem of controlling the setup yourself means you have to control every aspect of it, but that work may be worth the payoff of not-losing your setup to a simple installer.

Also, practice restoring the backup to a different installation of Windows.

After going through the learning curve of all this on previous updates of PP, installing 4.5.1 went smoother than any previous update - and I've been with it since version 3.8, at least. In case a new software version is not satisfactory, I can switch back to the previous version by re-creating the folder junction. This is one way that multiple versions can live on the disk, but this way the registry etc knows about only one version at a time. Folders like:
/Apps/Mailers/PP/Ver4.2 <real folder>
/Apps/Mailers/PP/Ver4.5 <real folder>
/Apps/PopPeeper <folder Junction; redirects filesystem calls and references to any real folder>
So the batch script, or anything else pointing to the program folder or EXE, points to the junction instead of a real folder. Re-build the junction, and voila! You've changed the software version up or down in one step