[texworks] external read-access causes TeXWorks to revert open file to old version

[Stefan Müller]

Hi,

Am Mittwoch 22 September 2010, 13:50:11 schrieb Paul A Norman:
> Stefan,
> 
> We may need a TeXWorks developer to step in here, but I know they are
> very cautious and thorough in their development procedures and I
> respect them for that, so it would seem a little unlikely that
> TeXWorks by itself would be the issue here ...
> 
> Do you have a completely different machine you can try and replicate this
> from?

Actually, I have two different machines, the one with Windows and the other one 
with Linux running on it.

> This part of your original posting makes me think that it is possibly
> a caching issue of commits from RAM to your hardrive.
> 
> " most of the times TeXWorks restores an version of the open file
> which is older than the saved document"

You may be right. I can't think how TeXWorks could possibly restore an old 
version of the  document. Is TeXWorks keeping automatic backups somewhere? 
(Like Word and OpenOffice do, to restore a file if they crash)

> I assume that the apparent "version" of the document has exactly the same
> name?

I'm not sure what you mean. An example what happens:
- I have a file "a.tex" with 600 lines (50kb, don't know if the size matters), 
Mercurial-revision: 150. I change something in one line. The file is marked as 
changed ("a.tex*" in headline of TeXWorks).
- I save the file ("a.tex" in headline of TeXWorks).
- I switch to hgtk and commit the change, new revision is 151.
- I switch back to TeXWorks. What I see now is the file how it was in revision 
150, but still "a.tex" in headline of TeXWorks.
- If I close TeXWorks and reopen it again with my file a.tex then I see the file 
from revision 151 again, as it should be. If I don't close the file and change 
something else, save and commit again then I destroy the change in revision 
151.
So the name is always the same...

> The bit about TeXWorks closing itself - makes me think about RAM
> pirarcy going on in the memory processes.
> 
> At a guess, a few things point to some sort of possible memory
> violation on your machine perhaps?
> 
> Has there been any history of RAM memory problems on your machine at all
> please?

I can't answer that for sure. I have trouble with hibernation on my Linux 
machine, but I think the problem with messed up documents is older.

> Also, there are newer  Windows versions of TexWorks available from
> Alian Delmot's  here (marked development but quite stable):
> 
> http://www.leliseron.org/texworks/      You'll notice that the number
> is v0.3  r606
> 
> And if you are happy to build it for other OS's, links are here:
> http://code.google.com/p/texworks/

I'll try that. Thank you for your help so far.

Stefan

> Paul
> 
> On 22 September 2010 22:31, Stefan Müller <warrence.stm at gmx.de> wrote:
> > Thanks for the fast reply,
> > 
> > I'm working on Linux Fedora 13 (it happened in older Fedora versions,
> > too) and Windows Vista. I encounter the problem on both systems. Version
> > of TeXWorks is 0.2.3 r466 (most current version I found).
> > 
> > During my daily work I have some applications open. Firefox, Google
> > Chrome, Pidgin, Kontact and Terminals are normally running. None of them
> > messes with the files under consideration. TortoiseHG is my Mercurial
> > client, under Linux its name is "hgtk", so naturally "hgtk commit" is
> > running and that's how I commit things. Maybe this client is causing the
> > problems, but it's hard for me to test with the console client (hg)
> > because of some missing feedback and pretty inconvenient handling. But
> > I'll try that.
> > 
> > Stefan.
> > 
> >> Thanks for that Stefan,
> >> 
> >> Just the regular things please -- what OS are you on - version and
> >> revision of TexWorks please.
> >> 
> >> Is any other application "open" when this happens?
> >> 
> >> What client are you using for Mercurial please - how do you 'comit'
> >> your work/files?
> >> 
> >> Thanks,
> >> 
> >> paul
> >> 
> >> On 22 September 2010 05:27, Stefan M?ller <warrence.stm at gmx.de> wrote:
> >> > Hi list,
> >> > 
> >> > I am experiencing some strange problems when using TeXWorks together
> >> > with the subversion tool Mercurial. Currently, my opinion is that
> >> > TeXWorks is causing the trouble, but I may be wrong.
> >> > 
> >> > I open a .tex-document in TeXWorks, change something, save the file
> >> > and commit the change in Mercurial while TeXWorks is still open. The
> >> > committed changes are stored in separate files, the .tex-file itself
> >> > is not changed during a commit. In about half of the commits
> >> > something goes wrong in TeXWorks [Why? The commit is in Mercurial,
> >> > TeXWorks should have nothing to do with it...]. Sometimes TeXWorks
> >> > just closes itself, which is annoying but not destructive.
> >> > Unfortunately most of the times TeXWorks restores an version of the
> >> > open file which is older than the saved document. If I close TeXWorks
> >> > at this point no harm is done, because this "revert" is not saved
> >> > [and I am not asked if I want to save]. If I don't discover this
> >> > "revert" in TeXWorks and continue with more changes and save, I wreck
> >> > my .tex-file with old parts of the document.
> >> > 
> >> > This issue sometimes even eats new stuff in my document; when I am not
> >> > ready to commit the new part but commit a different section, the new
> >> > part may be "reverted" to an old version where the new part is not
> >> > there.
> >> > 
> >> > I hope I clearly outlined the issue. I am in desperate hope that
> >> > someone can give me advice on how to fix this, as I already lost
> >> > several days of work because of this.
> >> > 
> >> > Best regards,
> >> > Stefan.