Something for you to test

[Wilson Logan]

Hi All,

The part of the program which does the parsing is a VC++ dll. It can be loaded separately from the existing PG Offline executable.

In laymans terms, if you copy this file:

http://www.personalgroupware.com/groupmanager/yg_mr.dll

into your PG Offline install directory and overwrite the existing yg_mr.dll you will be able to download *some* groups.

It turns out that Yahoo are concurrently running more than one format of groups HTML so some groups will work for you and some won't.
Obviously we're working on parser data to handle the second format we discovered.

Another proviso is that the message body is lacking formatting information. It will come in as if it was a .txt file. You can still read it but its not so nice. Clearly we're looking at that as well.

Your PGO install directory should be:

C:/Program Files/PG Offline/PGO/    for Windows XP systems

and

  C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.<computer-name>\My Documents\PG Offline\PGO   for Windows Vista


If, like me, you have opted to install to C:/Program Files/PG Offline/PGO/    in a Vista system you will need to turn off UAT so that
yg_mr.dll can be copied into that location which is protected under Vista.

If you can't find your PGO install directory, do a search for pgoffline25.exe or yg_mr.dll


This is not a final solution or anything like it. I am releasing this just to let people see that some progress is being made.
I know how frustrating it is to be waiting and apparently nothing seems to be happening.

Cheers,

Wilson.

[Brad]

Thanks Wilson,

Something to play with.  I was able to download some new messages but lost view of the older messages, which is no great lost because I'm sure I can reload them later when we get all the bugs out.

Brad

[Brad]

Forgot to mention that I'm running on Visa with program loaded at C:Program Files......

Brad

[nightstitcher]

Questions:

I am using Windows 2K, and PG Offline 2.5.47. My installation is in: C:\Program Files\PG Offline, and I store my MDB files on another partition.

1.  Will the .dll (or the eventual full fix) work with Windows 2K? (I really don't want to have to install a new operating system...)
2.  Will it work with 2.5.47, or do I need to install the latest 3.something? (Don't mind doing that; just need to know what else I might need to know to make things work).

Most likely I'll be waiting for the full fix, since someone reported the current test-run caused problems for their earlier messages, but when the full fix comes, I want to be ready.

[Brad]

I need to correct my earlier statement.  I DID NOT lose my earlier messages.  I found I'd clicked the "View New" option rather than "View All".

So, give it a try, at least I can now read some stuff offline rather trying to read online on Yahoo.  There are formatting issues but it's better than not having the messages at all.  I'm sure we can corrent that later.

Brad
Santa Fe, NM

[Wilson Logan]

OK, I've put up a new version of the dll in the same location as before. Just download it again and copy it over the old one. Best to rename the old one to yg_mr-old.dll or somesuch.

This one should work for all groups and be perfect except that it can't recognise HTML line breaks. You'll see squares instead of line breaks which looks ugly but overall the thing is an imnprovement.

Nearly there!

Cheers,

Wilson.

[Brad]

Wilson,

The new DLL worked on all my groups except HamRadioAntenna.  For some reason, it gets the number of messages on the web site but then hangs and doesn't start downloading.  After a while (even after I've bailed out of the program), I get the Vista "PG Offline Executable has stopped working.  Windows is collecting more information about the problem.  This might take several minutes."  Then I get another popup saying "Do you want to send more information abut the problem?  Additional details about what went wrong can help Microsoft create a solution."

The other 9 or so groups download without any problems.   (FYI, the first trial dll didn't work with this group either.)

Brad

[Wilson Logan]

Hi Brad,

I had a similar (same?) issue with Vista. It turns out I needed to re-register MSCOMCTL.OCX

In Windows, in the command line (where it usually says 'Start search') type in

C:\Windows\System32\regsvr32 MSCOMCTL.OCX

You may need to login as Admin to do this. I didn't but your mileage may vary.

Cheers,

Wilson.

[Brad]

Thanks Wison, but no joy.  When I try to run C:\Windows\System32\regsvr32 MSCOMCTL.OCX, I get 0x800281c error which seems to indicate I need higher privileges, even thought I'm logged into the computer as administrator.  I don't know how to run the command line like I can do with a normal program by right clicking and click on run as administrator.

So, in short, I need some hand holding.  :D

Brad

[Wilson Logan]

Hi Brad,

I'm guessing that either your MSCOMCTL.OCX is missing from C:\Windows\System32\  or you have insufficient authority.

First try and locate the MSCOMCTL.OCX file in C:\Windows\System32\ using File Manager (ie just browse to the folder and ensure the file is there) or do a Search for MSCOMCTL.OCX


Then in Windows do Start--> All Programs--> Accessories--> Command Prompt and right click the Command Prompt icon choosing 'Run as Administrator'. Then register the OCX as before.

Cheers,

Wilson.

[mjnelson99]

Downloaded 3.0.74 with no joy. Then downloaded and replaced the above dll. JOY!!!!

I have gotten the most importand groups to download so far.

I do keep getting complaints from Vista Home Premium 32 that the program has crashed. Don't know what is causing that one.

Will now go to the Yahoo Groups I have with Yahoo Asia. They are coming in, too.

The program is getting stuck when one group is downloaded and finished. I think PGOffline is rebooting each time I get the complaint from Vista.

At least my groups are now current through today!!!!    YEA!!!!

Mary

[mjnelson99]

Downloaded and installed latest version 074?? Needed the new dll above to get downloads successfully.

I re-registered using C:\Windows\System32\regsvr32 MSCOMCTL.OCX and it took.

The program is crashing when I attempt to compact a database both before and after registering.

At least I did get everything pulled into PGOffline. One Y Group is quite large and that one might really need compacting.

Any ideas on the compacting problems?

[mjnelson99]

Compacting decided to work. I did not do anything else while it was compacting. Don't know if that was what caused success instead of crashing program.

Everything now up to date and compacted.
Thanks, Wilson.

Mary

[mjnelson99]

 :-[
Wilson,
After copying the new dll and re-registering the ocx file Vista crashed on reboot completely.

On reboot I am getting rundll32 errors related to an nvidia dll that never popped up before.

Problem event name: Message starts out APPCRASH
Application Name: rundll32.exe
version 6.0.6000.16386
timestamp 4549b0e1
Fault module name: NvCpl.dll
Fault module version: 7.15.11.7824
Fault module timestamp:  48ebdea3
Exception code: c0000005
Exception offset:  000e606f

and several additional lines.

It is possible for the Nvidia dll to decide to give problems at the same time the others look to be fixed.

Any feedback?
Thanks
Mary

[Wilson Logan]

Hi Mary,

There's a new DLL I want everyone to try.

I'm going to post a new message in a second with instructions.

http://www.personalgroupware.com/smf/index.php?topic=719.0

Cheers,

Wilson.