Thanks to a user called Pete who gave me an insight into what's going wrong I have come up with a workaround:
Choose File--> Options--> Workflow--> Skip Authorisation.
Obviously for this to work you need to be recently logged in to YG! using IE (not Firefix or Chrome, PGO uses the IE cache).
The first time you try to download you will get the error "Object not set to an instance of an object".
This is an initialization problem which does not recur per session so try to download a group, get the error, choose another group, download that and go back to the initial group.
BTW have patience, it may seems initially that nothing is happening but downloading seems quite slow at the moment (for me anyway).
Cheers,
Wilson.
I have only one group. I tried to change the setting (skip authorization), and tried it several times. Unfortunately, it didn't work.
What happened? You were unable to set the Skip Authorisation flag or the download didn't work?
You can add another group (any public group will do) if your problem is that you don't have a second group.
Cheers,
Wilson.
I was able to change the flag but the download didn't work.
OK, so you changed the flag and went back to the main page and tried to download one group or you tried a Refresh?
What error did you get ? "Login failed" or "Instance of an object" ?
Cheers,
Wilson.
Error was "login failed".
Will re-installing of the program make any difference. At this point, I can't download the messages, and am stuck.
Worth a try...
Dan says he will look at this issue tomorrow.
Cheers,
Wilson.
I did as you told but it didn't work, but mine shown "Instance of an object" error.
I reinstalled and now error message is "Login Failed".
If you re-install PGO it will reset the Skip Authorisation flag to off.
You need it to be set on.
You can change it in Choose File--> Options--> Workflow--> Skip Authorisation.
This workaround works for most groups but not all. Some groups will give the error:
"Object not set to an instance of an object".
no matter what we do. Currently we have been unable to find a difference in groups that work & those that don't work.
Cheers,
Wilson.
Thank you I have to reset the Skip Authorization again after reinstalled. But it just return to "Instance of an object" error LOL. It happened to both my group. No luck.
After re-installing, and setting the "skip authorization" flag "ON", I still get the error message - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Not sure how I can still access the old messages I had downloaded prior to this error. It seems to me I lost the downloaded messages :( :( :(
Down
So, when you highlight the group name in the left hand pane, you do not get shown the message list?
I cannot test this. I only get the "Object reference" error for new groups, not old ones.
Cheers,
Wilson.
That is correct. I suppose I should have exported the messages into another file and imported after re-installing. But I didn't.
Down
If you re-install you should still have your message database unless you deleted it yourself.
PGO installs never delete user data. That's been mantra since day one.
One of my group had been downloadable, but it became undownloadable like the other groups after the admin change to require approval for new membership. I hope this info help.
Wow, that's very interesting.
Thanks for that!
Wilson.
Based on the above I went and looked at the four groups I can not access through PGO. Each one required approval to join or you could join but needed approval to post messages. So it would be nice if some of the other users could look at the group requirements for the groups they can not access through PGO and report if there are restrictions on joining/using the group. Maybe Yahoo has added some new checks for these groups or now stores the member information differently than what PGO expects.
I have some restricted groups that will download and others that give a "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" message and don't download.
I've compaired the group descriptions and don't see a difference.
This is the Group Settings:
Group Settings
This is a restricted group.
Attachments are permitted.
Members cannot hide email address.
Listed in Yahoo Groups directory.
Membership requires approval.
Messages are not moderated.
All members can post messages.
==
Michael
For the restricted groups, some can be downloaded, some cannot. The next question is, for the unrestricted groups, can they all be downloaded? If so, the problem still lie some where in restriction setting.
The Login Failed problem started immediately after I upgraded from 4.0.813
to 4.0.818. I had no choice but to upgrade, since 4.0.813 was about to time
out. I did set Workflow to enable the checkbox by Skip authorization
All I see now are these lines:
PG Offline 4.0.818
Days left for trial use - 59
Receiving messages for all groups.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Downloading completed.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
This pattern suggests to me that it is not something that Yahoo changed, but
rather something that was broken in the PGO source code sometime after v4.0.813.
Peter E.
Since I am now "Dead in the Water" and can not download anything, is there any
chance I could get a copy of 4.0.813 that has an extended time-out?
I did save copies of all my data bases, so I do have versions prior to the data base
update that happened when I tried to use 4.0.818. Version 4.0.813 was working
perfectly when it timed out and forced me to move to a newer version of PGO beta.
Thanks,
Peter E.
Have you tried opening the .db3 database file with SQLITE Studio or SQLITE Manager to see if the data is still there?
Cheers,
Wilson.
I backed up the three primary databases before I installed 4.0.818, so if I could get
a copy of 4.0.813 that was not expired, I could continue to successfully access and
build on these files. It seems that something broke sometime after 4.0.813 in the
source code for PGO, considering it worked perfectly up until October 9, when I
upgraded to 4.0.818. This is long past the time when Login failed began to be
reported by other PGO Beta users.
This means the problem is not due to a change by Yahoo and is not related to
anything particular to the groups I am downloading, but is something in the newer
PGO source code.
Peter E.
Hi Peter,
Have you got access to another machine you could install 813 on to verify that it genuinely still works for you?
Cheers,
Wilson.
Wilson and I continued this discussion by private email, and he may
be able to announce some good news soon.
Peter E.
I tried 813 myself and it does work.
If you can install 813 on another machine it might provide a temporary solution.
If you never had 813 you may be able to uninstall your current version and install 813.
I've had 813 so cannot test this.
Cheers,
Wilson.
Can you give us a link to 813?
http://www.personalgroupware.com/groupmanager/pg-offline-4.0.813-x86.exe.zip fails.
-Gabe Fineman
Hi Gabe,
Please try the link again:
http://www.personalgroupware.com/groupmanager/pg-offline-4.0.813-x86.exe.zip
I have uploaded 813 to the /groupmanager/ folder.
Cheers,
Wilson.
See update on 21 Oct 2014
Thank you for posting the link to version 813.
I uninstalled a previous versions and downloaded and installed 813.
It started without problems and showed all of the files in the latest database with no problems.
It downloaded two of my six groups that are both Public.
The other four (three Restricted and one Private) gave the result of
"Object reference not set to an instance of an object"
Is there anything that users (like me) can do to help diagnose and solve this problem?
-Gabe Fineman
Thanks for running this test. Your post kind of goes along with my findings posted in a message on October 7th.
I started trying to look at what was going on using Wireshark. PGO definitely has a problem handling certain groups. As usual I started and then my attention had to be diverted.
Maybe somebody out there could do a little research with a program like Wireshark or a similar program and see if they can figure something out. I would compare the data from a good download to a bad download but never got that far. This is still on my list to try and accomplish.
My testing (and that of others) indicates that uninstalling 818 and re-installing 813 on the same machine will not work.
Something gets left behind from 818 that mungs 813.
If you have a different PC on which you can clean install 813 it should work.
It worked for me & I could get groups list & download groups that would not download using 818.
@Bill IIRC you told me that you had defeated the PGO trial period. I would be very interested to see you install 813 on a machine that previously had 818 on it.
Cheers,
Wilson.
I got 813 installed and it does work. Running Windows 7 Pro 32 bit. Here is what I did and other people may not want to do this.
Went into C:\ ProgramData\Personal Groupware\PG Offline 4\updates_x86.aiu and changed to extension to .xxx just in case the install looks at this for the latest version of the program. I do not know if this is necessary.
Deleted all references to PGO from the registry.
Went into the Control Panel and under Programs and Features uninstalled PGO.
Ran the install program for 813 and skipped the update to newest version and 813 installed.
Turned off skip authorization so I could use the Refresh button.
It ran and also found all my previous options and the database from 818 and ALL IS GOOD.
This is an update to my previous post on 20 October 2014.
Following the suggestion of Bill Bradshaw, I downloaded Wireshark and looked at the traffic between my machine and Yahoo. The problem was, of course, my fault. Following previous suggestions, I had set my options to not authenticate but to assume that I was manually logged into Yahoo. Once I unchecked that box, downloading worked.
To clarify another issue. I am running Win 7 Home Premium SP 1 and uninstalled all previous versions of PGO but did not clean up the registry. Then installed 813 on the same machine. Yes, data was not deleted, including the settings, but none of that prevented 813 from working.
Glad to see you checked whether the registry needed to cleaned and that this step can be deleted. People may want to go in under the help menu and set the option on to not check for updates.
version 819 works nicely for me. No more login fail. Thank you!
Version 819 only helps for one group. The same login problem is still there for all the other groups
Ary
Ary,
Do you have 'Skip Authorisation' switched off? (File--> Options--> Workflow)
If it is switched off (i.e box not ticked), please mail me some of the groups you're having trouble with:
Wilson @ wilsonlogan.com
Cheers,
Wilson.
The Dread Login Fail issue have return after almost a month working nicely with 819.
If you're getting login fail, start IE and login to YG! using IE.
That at least proves that its not a problem with YG!
If you can get logged in with IE, start PGO & try to download.
If you get an error, set Skip Authorisation on and try again.
Cheers,
Wilson.
Tried all that. ;)
The only different between Skip Authorization On/Off is Login fail and Object reference error.
PGO 819 is now acting just exactly like 818 was acting. Have to download groups individually and some groups will not download at all. Had to activate Skip Authorization to get any of the groups to download.
Quote from: Bill Bradshaw on December 10, 2014, 05:36:02 PM
PGO 819 is now acting just exactly like 818 was acting. Have to download groups individually and some groups will not download at all. Had to activate Skip Authorization to get any of the groups to download.
Glad to here the confirmation that issue has returned. Yahoo must put some update up again. It was fine yesterday.
Yes, seeing it too here in UK.
Nothing works without Skip Authorisation. With it I can get public groups but not private groups.
Cheers,
Wilson.
819 started getting "login failed" again. I have 'skip authorization' as unchecked, and group is a private group. No more message downloading. Any help?
Add my name to those also experiencing the problem today :-) So does this suggest a change at the Yahoo end, if nothing has happened to the PGO program itself?
Martin
NZ
Martin,
Yes. Its Yahoo.
What I don't get is 'Skip Authorisation'. It should be bomb proof.
You login to Yahoo, PGO uses the cached login data. No matter what Yahoo have done to the login screen, 'Skip Authorisation' should work.
Currently PGO can login itself (vulnerable to Yahoo changes) or use 'Skip Authorisation' (invulnerable to Yahoo changes?).
Other potential avenues include:
1) Have the user login via the actual current Yahoo login screen popped up by PGO in a web control.
2) Use the Yahoo SDK. I always discounted the SDK because it doesn't do groups but it does do logins...
Cheers,
Wilson.
Here is what I get for the 7 groups that I download:
1. If skip authorisation is unchecked, the log-in fails for every group - over and over again.
2. If skip authorisation is checked (and I have logged into Yahoo Groups) I get:
- For groups that need a password, the statement "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" for each group of 20 messages that it tries to download.
- For groups without a password, very slow downloading.
- The entire process stops after the first two or three groups.
-Gabe Fineman
-Washington, DC
Quote from: Wilson Logan on December 11, 2014, 10:35:23 AM
2) Use the Yahoo SDK. I always discounted the SDK because it doesn't do groups but it does do logins...
You've lost me with SDK. Can you clarify pse?
The SDK is a developer interface for Yahoo. The advantage is that once published, they can't muck about with the interface i.e. it would be stable.
The down side is that to use it the application needs a specific identifying key. This means that Yahoo can then track everyone using PGO and if they don't like it, they can rescind the key.
So maybe not such a good idea.
Thanks. So basically we can't use PGO again for the time being. The errors I get match those reported by Gabe Fineman above.