[ardour-dev] Ardour tarball visually unusable after installation - now with a crash!!

[Joe Hartley]

On Sat, 07 May 2005 11:18:46 +0300
Sampo Savolainen <v2 at iki.fi> wrote:
> Like Ron said, 'scons install'. But you also must check whether the
> ardour_ui.rc ardour loads at startup is updated. You see this in
> ardour's console startup messages. You might have an ardour_ui.rc lying
> around in your ~/.ardour/. If so, delete it and all should be fine and
> dandy.

I really didn't like the new look of ardour when I installed a cvs
tarball last week, and I'd moved older ardour_ui.rc files about.

This time, I moved my ~/.ardour directory to ~/.ardour.x, moved
~/.ardour_system.rc to ~/.ardour_system.rc.x (just in case; I think
that one's deprecated), moved /etc/ardour to /etc/ardour.x, and
moved /etc/ardour_ui.rc to ardour_ui.rc.x (also deprecated, I think).
(Can you tell I've been using ardour for a while??)

Then I did an "scons install" as root:
      . . .
scons: Building targets ...
Install file: "ardour_system.rc" as "//etc/ardour/ardour_system.rc"
Install file: "ardour.rc" as "//etc/ardour/ardour.rc"
Install file: "gtk_ardour/ardour_ui.rc" as "//etc/ardour/ardour_ui.rc"
scons: done building targets.

So far, so good.

I then started jack and ardour manually.  Here's the output of the ardour
console:

xtc:~% ardour
Ardour/GTK 0.9beta29
   (built using 0.594.4 with libardour 0.891.1)
Copyright (C) 1999-2005 Paul Davis
Some portions Copyright (C) Steve Harris, Ari Johnson, Brett Viren, Joel Baker

Ardour comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it 
under certain conditions; see the source for copying conditions.
ardour: [ERROR]: UI: couldn't find rc file "/home/jh/.ardour_ui.rc"
Loading UI configuration file /home/jh/.ardour_ui.rc
Loading system configuration file /home/jh/.ardour_system.rc
warning: failed to load external entity "/home/jh/.ardour_system.rc"
ardour: [ERROR]: Ardour: cannot read system configuration file "/home/jh/.ardour
_system.rc"
ardour: [WARNING]: Your system generates "Mod2" when the NumLock key is pressed.
 This can cause problems when editing so Ardour will use Mod3 to mean Meta rathe
r than Mod2
ardour: [ERROR]: Error: could not write /home/jh/.ardour//instant.xml
ardour: [ERROR]: keyboard_target: error setting binding state: invalid node
ardour: [ERROR]: Config file not saved
ardour: [ERROR]: Error: could not write /home/jh/.ardour//instant.xml
ardour: [ERROR]: Error: could not write /home/jh/.ardour//instant.xml
Segmentation fault

OK, Ardour's REALLY unhappy that I don't have a .ardour directory.  It
also doesn't seem to look to /etc/ardour for anything.

Note the segmentation fault:  that happens after I cancel the New session
setup window and... MOVE THE EDITOR WINDOW!!!  Again I'm getting hosed by
the lack of an .ardour directory.

So, I mkdir ~/.ardour.  No crashes, but also still no theme.  I also get a
seg fault when I try to load an existing session:
ardour: [ERROR]: keyboard_target: error setting binding state: invalid node
Loading session /tape/LastManStanding using snapshot mast+gain_auto
Segmentation fault

I rm -rf ~/.ardour/*, then do this:
xtc:/usr1/ardour% cp ardour_system.rc ~/.ardour
xtc:/usr1/ardour% cp ./gtk_ardour/ardour_ui.rc ~/.ardour


ardour: [ERROR]: UI: couldn't find rc file "/home/jh/.ardour_ui.rc"
Loading UI configuration file /home/jh/.ardour_ui.rc
Loading system configuration file /home/jh/.ardour_system.rc
warning: failed to load external entity "/home/jh/.ardour_system.rc"

Huh, it doesn't seem to want to use an .ardour subdirectory for this
at all.  OK, I'll copy to my home directory:

xtc:/usr1/ardour% cp ./gtk_ardour/ardour_ui.rc ~/.ardour_ui.rc
xtc:/usr1/ardour% cp ardour_system.rc ~/.ardour_system.rc
xtc:~% rm -rf .ardour
xtc:~% mkdir .ardour

Ardour then loaded with these messages:
Loading UI configuration file /home/jh/.ardour_ui.rc
Loading system configuration file /home/jh/.ardour_system.rc
Loading user configuration file /etc/ardour/ardour.rc

And I'm up and running with the new dark-as-a-goth's-mood theme.
Issues I'd had before swwm resolved: The strips at the top (meter, 
tempo, etc.) are all visible, and the waveforms are visible.

So, what have I learned?

~/.ardour must exist before running ardour
/etc/ardour/ardour_ui.rc is ignored
/etc/ardour/ardour_system.rc is ignored
~/.ardour/ardour_ui.rc is ignored
~/.ardour/ardour_system.rc is ignored
~/.ardour_ui.rc must exist
~/.ardour_system.rc must exist

I'm now back with a working system, which is good.  Unfortunately, it's
using a theme I dislike a great deal.

Onward and upward...

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh at brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa