RedNotebook

Help! My RedNotebook no longer opens in Windows 7 x64

Asked by Connie Talbert

I installed Redbook 1.4 last night. I played with it a little, and exported the stuff you include in the weekday template to see how it worked. It worked great. I recommended it to my online class. This morning I began setting my preferences, making real entries and modifying templates. I created a "Date Entry" template, under the edit tab there was a time/date format that worked well in the template. But then I decided to rename it Time & Date Entry. I wasn't able to rename the template so I went into the templates file and deleted the old one, then I created a new one. First I tried to put a forward slash in the title, but the thing would just go out of template creation. Then I used an "&" sign instead. It seemed to work, but then suddenly the template pulldown stopped working. I was still able to type in the journal. The pulldown never worked again so I decided to close and reopen. The program never reopened. All I saw was a flash of a window and then nothing. I tried everything. nothing was working. I did a cold reboot. still nothing. I tried to find my files manually and couldn't. Reluctantly, I uninstalled the program, went to the website, and tried reloading it. It still does the same thing. I tried this twice. I even saved the .exe to my desktop and tried loading it from there instead of just running it. Now I am here. I really liked the program and was planning to contribute. Can you help me? I need an answer right away because part of my online class involves keeping a journal and so I need to submit pages of it for a grade. The pdf export was key in choosing this software. I liked what I was doing before the crash. Everything else on my laptop is working fine. It is not running minimized in my tray, it just flashes and all sign of it opening disappears. Help!

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RedNotebook Edit question
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Solved by:
Jendrik Seipp
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Best Jendrik Seipp (jendrikseipp) said : 		#1

Your files are in C:\Docs and Settings\username\.rednotebook. I would recommend removing the configuration.cfg file and the templates directory. Then try restarting the program. If it doesn't work, rename the data folder to data-backup and restart RedNotebook. Does it work now? If not please attach the contents of rednotebook.log

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Connie Talbert (krontalb) said : 		#2

Thanks Jendrik Seipp, that solved my question.

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Connie Talbert (krontalb) said : 		#3

Thanks I am running again! But I want to tell you what happened in case it happens to others. First, My Documents and Settings folder was locked tight and I could not access it! (apparently a result of some erronious Windows update) I thought perhaps that was why the program wasn't opening either but that wasn't it. Anyway, I tried everything to unlock it, then gave up and did a google search and found my answer. I had to delete EVERYONE and then re-add it to my users list in the documents and settings folder properties. Found an easy procedure here:
http://blog.dpjonline.com/2010/02/26/how-to-unlock-documents-and-settings-folder-in-windows-7/

After doing this, I tried re-opening...no dice. So then I proceeded to your directions. It worked! However, by further process of elimination and by moving rather than deleting the old Templates directory, I discovered the true culprit. it was the "&" sign in the title of the template I created! That is all it was! As I said, your program crashed when I tried to use a front slash, but it seemed to accept the & sign. Not so much. When you make updates, consider sending up an error message whenever someone tries to use a "Bad" character to name a new template. Stop it before it crashes the program.

I ended up being able to put back the old template file completely including the "culprit" file I had created, by simply renaming the culprit file to Time Date Entry. Now everything is back the way it was, even all my template revisions! Thanks again.

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Jendrik Seipp (jendrikseipp) said : 		#4

Thank you very much for your investigation! I will definitely look into
this and fix this error in an upcoming RedNotebook version.