MapInfo Pro

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hi Kalu

In the last 6 months, I occasionally had the same issue over the same period (6 to 9 months) with V15.0 (32 bit). It seemed to happen when I saved and closed the workspace at my usual speed. Therefore there was definitely something going wrong with the product. Though I have no idea as the underlying cause.

While the missing lines always contained the directory mappings/open table statements, it often included various lines of code from a few to many.

I have yet to encounter the problem in V17.0.3, though we're only undertaking user acceptance testing at the moment, so who knows what could appear under different circumstances.

Regards

------------------------------
Jason Kroeger
Spatial Products Lead
Department of Social Services
Canberra BC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hi Jason

Interesting that you have had the same issue, albeit with MapInfo V15.0.  I wonder if there is something in the Windows environment. We are using Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise version.  Version 1809.  What about you?

Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-07-2019 18:52
From: Jason Kroeger
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

Hi Kalu

In the last 6 months, I occasionally had the same issue over the same period (6 to 9 months) with V15.0 (32 bit). It seemed to happen when I saved and closed the workspace at my usual speed. Therefore there was definitely something going wrong with the product. Though I have no idea as the underlying cause.

While the missing lines always contained the directory mappings/open table statements, it often included various lines of code from a few to many.

I have yet to encounter the problem in V17.0.3, though we're only undertaking user acceptance testing at the moment, so who knows what could appear under different circumstances.

Regards

------------------------------
Jason Kroeger
Spatial Products Lead
Department of Social Services
Canberra BC

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hi Kalu

I suspect you're correct. I'm not sure of version, though Windows 10 Enterprise is the one.

Regards

------------------------------
Jason Kroeger
Spatial Products Lead
Department of Social Services
Canberra BC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-07-2019 22:58
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

Hi Jason

Interesting that you have had the same issue, albeit with MapInfo V15.0.  I wonder if there is something in the Windows environment. We are using Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise version.  Version 1809.  What about you?

Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT

Original Message:
Sent: 07-07-2019 18:52
From: Jason Kroeger
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

Hi Kalu

In the last 6 months, I occasionally had the same issue over the same period (6 to 9 months) with V15.0 (32 bit). It seemed to happen when I saved and closed the workspace at my usual speed. Therefore there was definitely something going wrong with the product. Though I have no idea as the underlying cause.

While the missing lines always contained the directory mappings/open table statements, it often included various lines of code from a few to many.

I have yet to encounter the problem in V17.0.3, though we're only undertaking user acceptance testing at the moment, so who knows what could appear under different circumstances.

Regards

------------------------------
Jason Kroeger
Spatial Products Lead
Department of Social Services
Canberra BC

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hello

While I haven't had your described issue, I'm of the understanding that the old version of MI is not compatible with Windows 10. I can't use the 32bit version of MI without it crashing

If you're still running 32bit MIPro I'd start looking at that as a possible cause.

Regards

------------------------------
Rebecca Marks
GIS & Environment Officer
Greater Hume Council
NSW Australia
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hi all
A bit of information to add about this issue.
I wrote a MapBasic tool that changes the the Save Workspace button on my ribbon tab to a custom Save Workspace button. The new button calls the usual save workspace command, then does a quick check of the workspace, by reading the WOR file as an input and check that the third line = "!Charset WindowsLatin1" .
I just caught my first corruption with the tool, after saving a workspace. There was nothing unusual about the session at the time.  I checked the WOR file in Notepad and it was indeed corrupted - with a large block of Null values from the third line down.  When I hit Save Workspace a second time, about 30 seconds later, the workspace saved correctly.  I guess it's possible this is network related or could it be something in MapInfo?
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hi Kalu,

I would be interested to note whether the workspace was being saved to a network drive location or was it local? 

One approach I can suggest to possibly help isolate this further would be to perform the same test but saving it to a local drive vs. network drive - and see if the issue occurs in both scenarios?

------------------------------
Dave Kuo
Pitney Bowes Australia Pty Ltd
Australia
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 19:39
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

Hi all
A bit of information to add about this issue.
I wrote a MapBasic tool that changes the the Save Workspace button on my ribbon tab to a custom Save Workspace button. The new button calls the usual save workspace command, then does a quick check of the workspace, by reading the WOR file as an input and check that the third line = "!Charset WindowsLatin1" .
I just caught my first corruption with the tool, after saving a workspace. There was nothing unusual about the session at the time.  I checked the WOR file in Notepad and it was indeed corrupted - with a large block of Null values from the third line down.  When I hit Save Workspace a second time, about 30 seconds later, the workspace saved correctly.  I guess it's possible this is network related or could it be something in MapInfo?
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Hi Dave
We have been wondering if this is a network related issue, or a MapInfo issue. It will be difficult to test, because we haven't been able to replicate/trigger this to happen when saving on a network drive.  It has occurred so infrequently, that even if we switched to saving all our Workspaces to a local drive for a period of weeks and we didn't see the issue  occur, then we still couldn't be sure if this is because it only occurs with network drives or if we simply haven't had an instance of it.
The fact that the workspaces are always corrupted in the same way, with the third line down being affected, makes me wonder if it's something in the way MapInfo saves a workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-17-2019 02:38
From: Dave Kuo
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

Hi Kalu,

I would be interested to note whether the workspace was being saved to a network drive location or was it local? 

One approach I can suggest to possibly help isolate this further would be to perform the same test but saving it to a local drive vs. network drive - and see if the issue occurs in both scenarios?

------------------------------
Dave Kuo
Pitney Bowes Australia Pty Ltd
Australia

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 19:39
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

Hi all
A bit of information to add about this issue.
I wrote a MapBasic tool that changes the the Save Workspace button on my ribbon tab to a custom Save Workspace button. The new button calls the usual save workspace command, then does a quick check of the workspace, by reading the WOR file as an input and check that the third line = "!Charset WindowsLatin1" .
I just caught my first corruption with the tool, after saving a workspace. There was nothing unusual about the session at the time.  I checked the WOR file in Notepad and it was indeed corrupted - with a large block of Null values from the third line down.  When I hit Save Workspace a second time, about 30 seconds later, the workspace saved correctly.  I guess it's possible this is network related or could it be something in MapInfo?
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT

Original Message:
Sent: 07-05-2019 03:34
From: Kalu Ribush
Subject: Corrupted workspaces issue

This is a problem that has been affecting our team occasionally for the last 9 months or so.  I think we first noticed the issue with MapInfo 17.0.1, but have also experienced it with 17.0.2 and 17.0.3.  It has only happened to me twice, but has happened to my colleagues (across three different PCs) several more times.  The problem is that we go to open a workspace, and find that it has been corrupted, in such a way that from the third line down, there is a large section of null values.  This means there are no Open Table Statements, etc, and the workspace cannot be opened.  We are assuming that the workspace gets corrupted when it is being saved in the previous session, however there is no way of knowing it was corrupted at that time, it's only when we try and open it later that we realise. Unfortunately we can't think of any common trigger that is causing this to occur. There doesn't appear to be anything about the particular workspaces that this issue has been observed with.  We've had to resort to restoring the corrupted workspaces from overnight back ups, sometimes losing some hours of work.  We haven't been able to replicate this issue.  At this time I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?  It may be something to do with our system or network environment.  We did wonder if this could be related to network glitch when saving, however this always seems to affect workspaces in the same way, with a block of null values from the third line down. The amount of null values also varies between different corrupted workspaces.
Note we have lodged a job with support, but as this is not something we can replicate, I don't expect they can assist much.
Thanks if anyone has any idea.
See example of a corrupted workspace.
Kalu

------------------------------
Kalu Ribush
Senior Mapping Specialist
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR)
Melbourne NT
------------------------------