Client crashes during restart, when Show backbone issues is on

Started by HuubR

HuubR Lv 1

Update, Saturday, 10 September 2022, 20:30 UTC

This is no longer an issue, since yesterday's release (confirmed for 20220909-b42954dba9-win_x64).
Many thanks to @jflat06 and other devs for fixing this bug!
Case closed   (cannot find the button to do that)

Original post, Thursday, 08 September 2022, 23:00 UTC

Installation of the new client (20220906-d431352453-win_x64) was a breeze. Client starts up all right, but with default settings for everything. So I used General Options - Advanced - Import Preferences. Immediate success! But at the (required) restart, it crashed before I even got to the login screen. Next attempt: a "warning" saying something I already knew:
And indeed: the problem persists.   :-(

Instead of re-installing the latest version, I renamed options.txt to some other name. This made the client start up OK, but of course with all settings back to default. Well, not quite: my View Preset options were still there   :-)

After an elaborate search, I managed to track the problem down to the line
 "view_options/show_backbone_issues" : "1"
in options.txt (part of my imported preferences). When I change that back to the original "0", everything is OK.  After logging in, I can then go to View Options, More View Options, and tick Show backbone issues: that works normally. But as soon as I restart the client while that option is on, the problem is back.

Remedy (for now): be sure not to tick that view option, or to untick it before you exit!

HuubR Lv 1

Now that we know what to avoid, here's how to import your preferences, without having to edit the options.txt file:

  • Go to General Options - Advanced - Import Preferences
  • In the dialog box Foldit must restart after import, choose Yes
  • Select the folder where your preferences are
  • At Success! Restart Foldit to save changes? choose No, so you have the opportunity to do the next step:
  • Go to View Options, More View Options, and make sure that Show backbone issues is off
  • Now exit and restart the client
  • Check all your View Presets, except the one named "None", and if necessary, edit them so that Show backbone issues is off (do not forget to save each Preset that you modified)

Note: selecting the very first View Preset ("None") seems to lead to an immediate crash! If that should happen, you might still have to edit options.txt, as described in the previous post.