Panorama X 0.9.004 Build 2586 Release Notes

Updating killed my PanX last night. Fired up the app and left it running until close of work. This morning both the app icon and its shortcut have a line through it and it shows the message that it is damaged or incomplete.

When I am running Panorma X from a laboratory computer, I run it from the Desktop. Prior to this update, I’ve always been able to update it from there as well. When I tried it this time, I got this message.

I don’t have permission to put anything in /Applications, so I created a ~/Applications folder, put it in there, and the update was successful.

For me, /Applications is read only, ~/Desktop is read write.

I’ve done some testing this week of Panorama X on computers at the local Apple store. Surprisingly, a copy I downloaded on Monday was still in the Downloads folder last night (they don’t allow it to be copied anywhere else). When I ran it, it offered to update, but then got the same error message you saw. BTW, that error message is generated by the code in the Sparkle framework, not by ProVUE code.

Nothing has changed on the Panorama end to change this behavior (and I haven’t changed the version of Sparkle used). Is it possible that the IT department changed the permissions on the desktop folder?

Why do you think this has something to do with updating? Panorama doesn’t update without user interaction? It is possible to configure Sparkle to do that, but Panorama doesn’t enable that option.

Simply this. You told us that an upgrade was available. You told us to start the application and it would update on its own. The application worked before the update. I opened no database nor made any change in my computer in any way. I left the application running for several hours. The application is now non-functional. I did nothing other than follow your instructions so my best guess is that it must be the update that caused it to cease working since nothing else has been done.

PanX is non-functional at this time and I did nothing other than turn on the application to let it update as directed.

Thanks

That is very strange. Panorama checks for updates only when it launches. If it finds that an update is available, it shows you the release notes and asks if you would like it to install the update. If you say no, that’s the end of it until you quit and launch again (or you choose Check for Updates from the Panorama menu.) As far as I know, It won’t just update in the middle of running.

If you say yes, a dialog displaying the progress of the download appears. When the download is finished, a button appears asking if you would like it to install the update and restart the application. If you say yes, the update is installed and Panorama is relaunched.

I don’t know what has happened on your computer. It does sound like you should probably erase the application and download a fresh copy.

Thank you. I did just delete and install again. The new version seems to be running. I did not ever see any alerts about options or buttons for upgrades. In the past, it would just update after you would announce an update. Usually the upgrade menu item was gray when I checked and things just seemed to happen automatically. Maybe my copy has always some type of flaw and it will work better now

Maybe this application is too advanced for my abilities. Sorry to have troubled you. I will just be quiet and continue my remedial studies of the older version. I wish your company the best for its continued success.

Do you mean Check for Updates in the Panorama menu? Is it gray now? It shouldn’t be. I just checked it on my copy and I am able to select it, when I do, it tells me that I am up to date.

No, I am sorry I gave the impression you were troubling me. If things don’t work, I need to know.

I probably have 50 or 60 apps on my computer that use Sparkle auto-updating. It’s always worked reliably for me with all of those apps over the course of a decade or so, but that doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. Sparkle has a reputation as a very reliable system, though. The consensus among developers is that you’re unlikely to be able to build something better than Sparkle on your own. The original developer of Sparkle, Andy Matuschak, was a programmer at Apple for many years.

autoupdate is an optional feature of the Sparkle framework, and it is an option (a checkbox) in PanoramaX’s update dialog, too.

So Bill has checked this autoupdate box some time ago, and PanX tries to install all updates automatically. That’s why the Check for Updates menu item is greyed out.

Obviously, in this case something went wrong during the autoupdate. Maybe a sudden loss of internet connection broke the download or the installation process.

How can Bill revert the chosen “autoupdate” setting?

For me, the check for updates menu item is always greyed out, except immediately after a successful update.

Bill Conable

So I think you have set that autoupdate checkmark, too, some time ago.
The question is how to revert this setting. I have not found a solution yet.

I think we’ll find the solution in the file

com.provue.PanoramaX.plist

and you would have to set

SUAutomaticallyUpdate	

from YES to NO, to switch back from autoupdate to “normal” updates.

From the Sparkle documentation:

SUAutomaticallyUpdate Boolean Default: NO. Enables automatic download and installation of updates. If set to YES, users will not be informed about updates, and updates will be silently installed when the app quits.

Unfortunately, that documentation isn’t talking about the com.provue.PanoramaX.plist file, it is talking about the info.plist file that is inside the PanoramaX application bundle. You can’t change that, it is only set by me in Xcode. Perhaps I should change that so that this option is not offered, actually it appears that SUAllowsAutomaticUpdates is what needs to be set to NO.

As far as I can see, the Sparkle documentation doesn’t document what items it puts in the com.provue.PanoramaX.plist file (by the way, this file is in ~/Library/Preferences). I looked in this file on my system, and did find 4 items set up by Sparkle at the bottom of the file:

<key>SUEnableAutomaticChecks</key>
<false/>
<key>SUHasLaunchedBefore</key>
<true/>
<key>SULastCheckTime</key>
<date>2017-09-16T04:12:36Z</date>
<key>SUSendProfileInfo</key>
<false/>

Maybe the best way to remove all of your sparkle settings is to simply delete the com.provue.PanoramaX.plist file. This will delete all Panorama related settings. You would have to log back in to your Panorama X account after doing this, and also re-set up any toolbar customizations, favorite databases, and any other preferences you have set up.

The other option would be to try to edit this file with a text editor or plist editor (which you are unlikely to have), and try to selective remove the Sparkle settings. If you try that, I would highly recommend saving a copy before starting the editing process. (Of course if you mess it up, you could always just delete it as I suggested above, and let Panorama create a new one.)

If William Conable or Bill Few is willing to send me their com.provue.PanoramaX.plist file, perhaps I can do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out what is going on.

Perhaps. But the download is signed, so Sparkle should reject it if it is corrupted. I don’t have a better theory, though.

Yes, that’s what you can do as developer to remove the autoupdate checkbox from the dialog and to prevent this situation for new PanX users.

But I am wondering if your action will reset Bill’s existing preferences.

I am not perfectly sure about the

SUAutomaticallyUpdate

entry in PanX’s preference file – it does not exist in mine; I am not using autoinstalling updates –, but I presume the two Bills will find it in their PanX pref file and it will be set to YES.

My guess is no.

I hope one or both of them sends me the file and then no further speculation will be required.

Interessant fact from the Sparkle documentation: when Autoupdate is checked, Sparkle loads the update in the background without asking you. But it will install the update finally when you quit the program. So I think your issue arose because something went wrong when you did quit PanX. Maybe a crash?

Bill Conable sent me the com.provue.PanoramaX.plist files from both of his computers – thank you Bill!

I opened them with BBEdit, and in both of them I found these two lines near the bottom of the file.

<key>SUAutomaticallyUpdate</key>
<true/>

I think that following these steps will turn off the Sparkle automatic updating feature.

  • Make sure Panorama is not running.

  • In the Finder, open the Preferences folder in your Library folder.

  • Make a copy of your com.provue.PanoramaX.plist file, just in case.

  • Using a text editor, open the com.provue.PanoramaX.plist file.

  • Find SUAutomaticallyUpdate, and on the next line, change true to false, like this:
    `

    SUAutomaticallyUpdate

  • Alternately, I think you could simply delete these two lines.

  • Save the file, then close the text editor window.

  • Open Panorama X, and hopefully the Check for Updates menu item will be enabled and will work.

I can’t guarantee that this will work, and I have no way to test this, but it seems pretty likely.

By the way, this is all predicated on the assumption that at some point in the past, you checked the Automatically download and install updates in the future option when Panorama asked you if you wanted to update, as shown below. The steps outlined above should undo that choice. I’m looking into removing this checkbox since it seems like this option might have problems (the checkbox is displayed by Sparkle, but it appears that it can be disabled).

Perfect! It worked in every way: allowed me to check, showed me the release notes, updated flawlessly. And you guessed right, I had checked the automatically update box right at the beginning.
Thanks!
Bill

David Thompson has figured out a problem with the auto-update. Panorama X comes in a zip file. When you expand the zip file, you get the PanoramaX.app file (many of you will have your browser set to do this automatically, so you may not be aware of that step). If PanoramaX.app stays in the same folder where the .zip file was, auto-update won’t work. When you try to update, you get a message that there is an update error, and that Panorama X can’t be updated when it is on a read only volume. At that point, if you simply quit Panorama and move it to a different folder, the next time you try to update it will work.

For most people, the solution is simple – don’t leave PanoramaX.app in the Downloads folder. Most of you have probably moved it to the Applications folder, so everything worked fine.

But there is a catch – if you moved the .zip file to the Applications folder, and expanded it there, updates won’t work. So make sure you expand the .zip file before moving PanoramaX.app to the Applications folder.

Jim,
I’m a bit late digging into this, but just noticed I had similar “mixed” results.

If it helps, here’s what I found.

I was running 0.9.002. Check for Updates was grayed out. When I restarted PanX it updated to 0.9.003.

Running 0.9.003, Check for Updates was still grayed out, however, I noticed that If I checked immediately after launch Check for Updates was available, but selecting it did nothing. And restarts were not updating to 0.9.004.

After reading your last post I scanned my HD for Panorama files and folders, and .zip files. I had already trashed the PanX .zip files, but I did find in Downloads a folder named Panorama X with a nested folder named webmaster@provue.com containing the real estate db example file. I moved that folder to my Pan folder in Applications, restarted PanX 0.9.003 and it promptly updated to 0.9.004.