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[glynor]

I struggled all weekend to finally upgrade my main server system to MC22, without success. I tried both the release build and the available-over-the-weekend beta build. In all cases, MC22 hangs on first launch, and never actually displays the UI.

I think I tracked it down, but I haven't had the time to confirm it yet. My copy of MC21 had Chromium enabled as the web engine. I think what was happening is that it imported the settings from MC21, and was trying to download a copy of Chromium from your servers, but that takes forever with my cruddy Internets. As an example, it took 1.25 HOURS to download the release build of MC from home when I wanted to try that to make sure it wasn't just something broken in the beta.

That's why I haven't been running MC22. Because downloading an update usually means it is quicker to drive to work with a USB drive and download it there and run back home.

In any case, I think that's what is going on. I've re-enabled IE as the engine in MC21 and will try re-upgrading later on. But, you might want to make this a little cleaner somehow for other users. If I'm right, and the download fails or is slow, MC just dies and won't load the UI at all. Perhaps in that instance (after relaunching and showing the "you crashed" dialog) you should try toggling Chromium off automatically?

My experience was poor and I had to just abandon trying to upgrade to MC22 entirely.

Also, FWIW, the MC22 install broke my MC21 installation's COM registration until I reinstalled it. I got the UAC prompt when re-launching MC21 and everything, but it was broken until I reinstalled.

[astromo]

glynor, what are using for a modem?



Good work that you're leading the testing for the end of the line users out there. Chapeau!

[JimH]

I have an old Telebit 9600 baud modem somewhere.

[glynor]

I used to have one of those style modems for my TI-99, back in the day!

The issue isn't so much of a problem in-that my Internet is broken and like living in the mid-1990s again*. My comment was more about the failure mode. If a user upgrades MC, it now "slurps in" all of your old settings. This is new compared to previous versions. Before, you could migrate settings if you wanted to, but you weren't forced. Now, you are.

And, unlike ROHQ, for example, where it is only part of the product, MC22 will not start for me at all. I get a big, blank, black box with no UI.  And, worse, I have literally NO resolution to this issue available (save manually editing the registry after the fact). I tried uninstalling MC22 and reinstalling it. No joy, same black window, because it "upgrades" itself again. I get no feedback about what is wrong. Nothing but a hung, black window. Not a good failure mode due to a download in progress, if indeed that's what is happening. And this would apply to machines that have no, or limited, Internet connections as well, not just weirdos like me living in the dark ages (on a laptop away from wifi, for example).

I guessed (and am still only guessing about the Chromium thing as I haven't yet tried again) it was some setting in there that was causing it, but there is now no way to "reset" MC back and force it to NOT upgrade old settings, unless you remove the old version (and all settings) too. I could (and did) uninstall/reinstall as many times as I wanted, with no luck. The auto-crash helper wouldn't help (it doesn't have a generic "reset all settings" option) and uninstalling wouldn't help. My only "normal human" choice would have been to also remove my working copy of MC21. But most mere mortals wouldn't try that. They'd abandon MC22 first!

* It isn't quite that bad, FWIW. When I get network access, it works and I get between 0.7 - 2mbps. The issue is that my connection doesn't stay stable. I can load web pages (secure ones give me trouble), but for stuff that takes a minute or three, the connection often fails and resyncs a few seconds later. So, the 1 1/4 hour download wasn't, of course, one download. It was 4-5 failed downloads followed by one mercifully successful one. 

[glynor]

Switching back to IE instead of Chromium did the trick. I'm now able to make MC hang (just like before) by re-enabling Chromium as the engine and re-launching MC. I'm going to let it sit there hung this time and see if it eventually fixes itself.

So that's good. I can actually use MC now (though I might need to reinstall it one more time if Chromium never finishes downloading). It does, I think, reveal some gaps in the ability to get yourself fixed with the new settings upgrade system, though.

My recommendation is one (or both) of the following:

1. Add an option in the installer (under custom/advanced setup) to NOT upgrade settings and to set it up new.
2. Add a "reset settings to default" option to the "safe mode" startup fixer tool. I'm a bit less sure of this one, but it would have helped me in this case.

One last thing, because I don't know if I explained it well before. My issue was the interaction of the fact that the installer upgrades settings, and the fact that the only way to clear settings (other than manually hacking the registry) is to uninstall. So, I could uninstall and remove all of my MC22 settings, but that didn't help because when I reinstalled MC22, it would re-upgrade my MC21 settings (which didn't work).

So I was stuck. I couldn't launch it, and I couldn't get it to clear settings without also nuking MC21 (and probably all previous versions). I'm fairly certain I saw others complain about the same thing before, but in this case, it prevented me from even using the product.

[glynor]

Just to confirm... Letting it sit at the big-black-window eventually worked. Took about 10 minutes to finish downloading Chromium. My Internets was working shocking well yesterday (the trees holding up the phone lines were strong I guess).