Parts update on windows not working

None of my Windows 7 pro systems can do a parts update, but my linux dev system can. At first I thought this was a parts repository problem, but el-j pointed out that a new install of Frtizing worked for him (possibly on linux though). On Windows if in Fritzing I click help->Check for updates I get an error box "Unable to access network site for "C:/fritzing/frtizing.0.9.3b.64pc/fritzing-parts’. Fritzing can not update the parts folder automatically. ". Clearing the user directories and reinstalling Fritznig from the zip file does not do the initial parts update (presumably due to the same error) and gives the same error message if I click on Check for updates. Is anyone else on windows seeing this or is it only something wrong for me? One machine that fails used to work but hasn’t been on (and therefore hasn’t done its patches) for several months. Even before the patches have been applied the failure is the same (I was wondering if a Windows patch had broken the update but that doesn’t look to be it). Is anyone else seeing this error message or is it something local to me?

Peter

Mine’s the same. - extra words to get over the 25 letter limit -

Well good to know it’s not only me! More reports of failure and whether it is both Win7 (all I have tested) or win 10 too would be useful as well. Linux (and I assume the Mac) seems to work fine still. The bad news is I’m not sure where to go from here. I guess the first item of business is find a work around. It should be possible to manually import the parts repo and then rebuild the database to get updates. I’ll try that and see if it works. Then I need to get back to hacking on lingit2 on windows (I have found documentation that I haven’t seen before that may help) to get a debug environment up to try and see what is wrong in more detail than is being currently reported.

Peter

Is it possibly an anti-virus issue? Another user on Github recently reported that they could not write to the parts bins because of Bitdefender. https://github.com/fritzing/fritzing-app/issues/3270#issuecomment-412409911

I don’t think so, as I tried a laptop that used to work but hasn’t had updates either from Windows or the av provider for months and it also doesn’t work (thus seeming to eliminate a windows patch as well). My current guess is something changed in the repository or bit rot in a component such as libgit2, but that should also affect linux and it doesn’t appear to be. At present I’m rebuilding my Windows dev setup to try and get to the point of being able to debug the transaction on windows (which is going to be exciting because I have to use some Microsoft debugger rather than gdb …). That of course is made harder because I never got libgit2 to work properly even when updates were working correctly.

Peter

Same scenario on my ‘mini-tower’. Newer DELL Inspiron 3668 with Windows 10 Home (64x), OS build: 17134.228; Version: 1803. The pc came with McAfee LiveSafe pre-installed.
Months ago I un-installed McAfee, updated Windows Defender, and verified an exception in the firewall to allow “Fritzing.exe” to accept inbound and outbound activity.
If memory serves me correctly, there was no issues with ‘fritzing’. However, a OS reset was needed to dismiss the discrepencies from un-installing McAfee.
Question: Is there a link on ‘fritzing’s’ website where someone can download the parts library update(s)?

Yes I think so. You need to either clone or download the zip from

in to C:\fritzing\fritzing.0.9.3b.64.pc\fritzing-parts and then in Fritzing click Part->regeneratate parts database to install it (note I haven’t yet actually tried this and you may want to keep a backup copy of the 2 user data files in

kill corrupt files:

There are two user directories (with your parts and the parts database) which don’t get touched during an install (to not affect your sketchs during upgrades). On Windows they are in

c:\users\username\AppData\Fritzing\roaming\Fritzing (which is a hidden directory so you need to enable hidden directories in explorer) and

c:\Users\username\My Documents\Fritzing (where username is your windows id)

If you don’t have any parts or sketches you want to keep you can just delete those two directories and Fritzing will receate them, or you can move them aside by renaming them if you wan to keep something in them.

Which contains the current database and your sketches (and doesn’t get cleared on a reinstall of Fritzing). Fritzing will happily use the backup copies if you replace them. I’m trying to get a development environment up but am having troubles with libgit2 (which is what does the automatic update) even before this latest problem. Being able to debug the libgit2 calls should tell me (maybe :slight_smile: ) what is wrong to get a fix going.

Peter

Hello Peter,

Your post was very informative, and clear-cut. I went to the GitHub site and looked at the dates and descriptions of the individual files. There are only a few, which does not show anything of significant importance regarding updated/new parts.
I believe your post to be a primary alternative until the ‘libgit2’ discrepancy is resolved. The link to the the zip allows anyone the ability to ascertain if it is worth cloning or downloading based on the date and description of each file.
In my case, it is not feasible to clone or download the zip. The changes are insignificant and not needed.
Thank-you for your reply.

Hawkeye

Unfortunately I don’t think there is a quick fix for this. It looks to me that the problem is likely that the libgit2 library in the Windows zip file is too old and none of the cyphers it supports are supported by github anymore and the ssh connection fails. I can’t be sure because I don’t have a copy of the original libgit2 that shipped with 9.3b and a current version works fine (other than problems with some new parts). So it looks like parts update needs to be done manually by importing the latest repo in to fritzing-parts in the code directory (it appears to load just fine without rebuilding the database). On the plus side I have managed to figure out how to get a Windows build environment running so hopefully soon you should be able to do a build from source to make a version that will both fix bugs and update parts.

Peter

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