Config File

[d2b]

Hi...

With several users on separate platforms, both at our radio station, in my office and in their homes, we are presented wtih a maintenance issue when trying to keep all of the dBpoweramp installations in sync, i.e. configured alike.

A companion program that we use to inspect and "clean up" our rips has a feature that allows us to save the current configuration for the entire application as a zip file which can then be imported into each 'satellite' workstation to create a clone of the 'master' installation.

Is this possible with dBpoweramp?

Dennis...aka "d2b"

[Spoon]

Re: Config File

dBpoweramp writes to:

registry - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate

Path:

%appdata%\dBpoweramp\

[mville]

Re: Config File

dBpoweramp writes to:

registry - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate

Path:

%appdata%\dBpoweramp\

I have tried exporting the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate registry key and re-importing.

Many sub-keys are not being re-imported, too many to list here.

It appears to be those keys where the data contains the carriage-return character.

Please advise?

[Spoon]

Re: Config File

This is more to do with how you export and import, they are just values in the registry, exporting and importing should give 100% identical results always. What process are you using?

[mville]

Re: Config File

This is more to do with how you export and import, they are just values in the registry, exporting and importing should give 100% identical results always. What process are you using?

What I have tried is to export the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate key to a .reg file using regedit and Registry Workshop v.4.5.0, OS is Windows 7 64-bit. On export, using either application, all keys are exported OK.

However, on import, any keys that contain carriage return characters e.g. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate\dBpoweramp\C olumnsAllowed are NOT imported.

Please advise on how I should be exporting/importing the registry keys? In my experience, I have never been able to import registry keys that contain certain control characters like carriage return.

[Spoon]

Re: Config File

I would be very surprised if Microsofts own exporter cannot export values and import as they are in the registry, perhaps report as a bug to Microsoft?

[mville]

Re: Config File

I would be very surprised if Microsofts own exporter cannot export values and import as they are in the registry, perhaps report as a bug to Microsoft?

Regedit can export, but not import:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=86&topicid=60646

http://www.xtremevbtalk.com/showthread.php?t=155080

Can anyone else confirm this?

[mville]

Re: Config File

Not wanting to hijack this thread, but I would like some help/confirmation on this issue so we can be certain that current configurations can be backed up and restored successfully, which is what the original post was asking.

Anyone care to comment?

[Spoon]

Re: Config File

I am not sure how we can help, dBpoweramp writes certain values to the registry, as far as we know they are valid values. It would be beyond our remit to change these values because external tools cannot work correctly.

[mville]

Re: Config File

I am not sure how we can help, dBpoweramp writes certain values to the registry, as far as we know they are valid values. It would be beyond our remit to change these values because external tools cannot work correctly.

Spoon that is fine, as carriage return/line feed characters are valid values within the registry.

The question still remains however; how to successfully backup and restore an Illustrate configuration?

[Spoon]

Re: Config File

I rely on an operating system level backup, an image of the OS is taken, that can be restored 100% correctly in the event of disaster.

[mville]

Re: Config File

Spoon FYI

I wrote a vb app to analyze and extract the problematic registry values (i.e. those values that don't get imported using regedit). Those that I have found so far are:

"ColumnsAllowed"
"dCW-Cols"
"dCW-ColWidths"
"dMC-FileSelector-Cols"
"dMC-FileSelector-ColWidths"
"Asset-Playing-Display"
"Asset-Playing-Display2nd"
"dMC-FileSelector-List-Cols"
"dMC-FileSelector-List-ColWidths"
"artsearch1"
"CDRipperColumns1"

"WriteTagElements"
"PerfectMetaChrReplacement"

The problem is that these values are of RegistryValueKind String (e.g. data type REG_SZ).

If these values are of RegistryValueKind Multistring (e.g. data type REG_MULTI_SZ), then regedit imports the values correctly.

Hope you can look into implementing these changes.

[Spoon]

Re: Config File

REG_MULTI_SZ is not the correct way of storing these, from Microsoft:

REG_MULTI_SZ
A sequence of null-terminated strings, terminated by an empty string (\0).
The following is an example:
String1\0String2\0String3\0LastString\0\0
The first \0 terminates the first string, the second to the last \0 terminates the last string, and the final \0 terminates the sequence. Note that the final terminator must be factored into the length of the string.

We are storing strings as \r not \0 which is a NULL character.

[mville]

Re: Config File

We are storing strings as \r not \0 which is a NULL character.

Yes, REG_MULTI_SZ, like an array of null-terminated strings. Just thought this could ultimately be changed to fix the import issue, but maybe not.

... by the way you can add "artsearch" to the list of registry values that do not import using regedit.

So to conclude, users need to be aware that if they are porting their Windows Illustrate configuration to another Windows PC by exporting/importing the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Illustrate registry key using regedit (or similar registry tools that use .reg files), the registry values outlined in this thread will not be imported.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Config File

Spoon that is fine, as carriage return/line feed characters are valid values within the registry.

The question still remains however; how to successfully backup and restore an Illustrate configuration?

Just to add a data point, mville, in response to your previous question: I've never had an issue using regedit to import/export registry keys. When I've used this method to save or move dBp settings, I copy only the ripping profiles.



Beyond all that, though, I re-iterate a point I (and many others) have made before on this forum: It is utterly ridiculous that users must resort to registry manipulations to backup and/or transfer dBpoweramp's user-level settings. Most users are not knowledgeable about computer registries and should never even open regedit, let alone attempt to make changes. I honestly can't think of any other software I've used in at least the last ten years that doesn't either automatically save the user settings or include a function to let the user do it manually.

The "official" explanation is that every machine is different and the dBp installation should be specific to that hardware. Well yeah, of course...that's true of every program installation on every computer. It also has absolutely nothing to do with user configuration settings. dBp could easily include a way to import/export ripping profiles that doesn't affect the program's hardware-specific settings.

dBp is excellent software for ripping music. You can rip accurate files with 100% confidence, and you can make a incredibly detailed metadata manipulations for customizing your library to suit your needs. But not providing any means for saving all those extensive customizations is by far this program's biggest failing. In 2014, it's beyond archaic that a user has to come to an online forum and try to learn about messing with their Windows registry when they need to move a program (that they paid for, no less) to a new computer.