RedNotebook

Corrupted file?? Cannot launch application

Asked by Glyn Wilson

A week ago a severe electrical storm hit my neighbourhood. Lightening bolt touched ground very near by. Internet cables ((some strung between buildings outside)) carried the lightening voltage inside homes, causing total damage to Internet Switches, Routers, and Network Cards. The electric shock even travelled down my mouse cord, and into my hand.

Obviously, my computer was still running at this time. I could not shut down fast enough. My RedNotebook application was open and I was just about to save and close when the lightening hit.

Unfortunately, I had not made any Exports or Backups using the RedNotebook menu system.

As the lightening bolt lit up my Network Card, my monitor screen went blank and my GNU-Linux (Ubuntu 14.04) operating system was reset (put into a forced reboot). So, my RedNotebook application was zapped as it was on-screen at the very moment the lightening hit.

Thankfully, my ASUS Motherboard survived this brush with Mother nature. Later, after electrical power was restored, I was able to reboot normally. But, when I attempted to launch RedNotebook, it would not open my data file.

Upon clicking the icon, the application attempts to launch ... a rectangle is displayed ... but with no contents. The RedNotebook structure, and my own data files do not appear on-screen. After about 3 seconds, the rectangle disapppears, and the launch fails.

Using Synaptic Package Manager, I have reinstalled once. After that brought no improvement, I then completed two full removals of the package, each followed by a reinstall. The second attempt using the Ubuntu Repository.

The problem symptoms remain the same.

I still cannot launch a reinstalled RedNotebook ... and the momentary display of that rectangle with the blank content is all I see before the launch attempt aborts by itself.

Is there a residual file placed somewhere else in the system (and not in the root/usr/share folder) causing this problem?

Any suggestions as to how I might clear this hitch?

All my other applications are working normally. My data files (Documents, Downloads, Videos, Music, etc) are all okay. None were affected by the lightening hit. Therefore, my harddrive is confirmed as okay.

I just have this isolated problem with RedNotebook that persists even after I have performed a full removal (via Synaptic Pkge Mngr) and multiple attempts at reinstalling.

Prior to the incident, I was running the latest version: 1.8.1 ... on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

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Solved by:
Jendrik Seipp
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Revision history for this message
Glyn Wilson (glynwil) said : 		#1

It has been quite some time since I posted my initial question ... see above ... to describe my application launch problem.

This is a genuine query. What I describe above is an accurate account of what happened.

I fully removed the RedNotebook application using the Synaptic Package Manager (several times) ... before downloading again and installing again.

I simply cannot get RedNotebook to launch anymore.

Everything was fine until my computer was hit by a lightening bolt. It was not a direct hit, but strong enough to knock out my Network Card (which has since been replaced).

I got a mild electric shock from my computer mouse!

The RedNotebook application was open and running when this lightening bolt hit (via the Internet cable strung outside).

My computer was tripped such that it lost UPS power momentarily. So, RedNotebook running on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS was not shut down properly. It was cut immediately.

But ... none of my other applications have been similarly affected. My harddisk is okay. I lost no data. Obviously, my O/S was unaffected. The only problem is with RedNotebook.

Every since the lightening bolt hit, and since rebooting my computer, the application will not launch. All that I see is the outline (rectangle sub-window is displayed) but inside this rectangle, no content appears. Then, after a few seconds, the launch attempt is aborted by the program.

Something is locking RedNotebook out. Anybody got any clues as to what that might be??

I used to rely heavily on my RedNotebook. It is a great application. So, I am very frustrated having to suffer such a strange anomoly.

So, I am looking forward to receiving assistance from someone within the RedNotebook community. Thank you.

Revision history for this message
Jendrik Seipp (jendrikseipp) said : 		#2

Can you please post the log from $HOME/.rednotebook ?

Revision history for this message
Glyn Wilson (glynwil) said : 		#3

Thanks Jendrik ... here's the Log content:

2014-11-15 10:59:46,984 INFO Writing log to file "/home/grw/.rednotebook/rednotebook.log"
2014-11-15 10:59:46,985 INFO System encoding: UTF-8
2014-11-15 10:59:46,985 INFO Language code: en_US
2014-11-15 10:59:53,862 INFO Running in portable mode: False
2014-11-15 10:59:53,862 INFO First Start: False
2014-11-15 10:59:53,862 INFO RedNotebook version: 1.8.1
2014-11-15 10:59:53,868 INFO System info: machine: x86_64, platform: Linux-3.13.0-39-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty, processor: x86_64, python_version: 2.7.6, release: 3.13.0-39-generic, system: Linux, GTK version: (2, 24, 23), PyGTK version: (2, 24, 0), Yaml version: 3.10
2014-11-15 10:59:54,256 DEBUG Default font: Ubuntu 11
2014-11-15 10:59:54,256 DEBUG Default size: 11
2014-11-15 10:59:54,401 INFO Cloud ignore list: [u'about', u'after', u'again', u'although', u'another', u'around', u'before', u'being', u'continued', u'could', u'during', u'first', u'front', u'right', u'someone', u'something', u'still', u'there', u'think', u'today', u'towards', u'until', u'using', u'usual', u'which', u'while', u'would']
2014-11-15 10:59:54,401 INFO Cloud include list: [u'job', u'play', u'spam', u'work']
2014-11-15 10:59:54,401 DEBUG Start compiling regexes
2014-11-15 10:59:54,402 DEBUG Finished
2014-11-15 10:59:54,491 DEBUG Tray icon visible: False
2014-11-15 10:59:54,502 INFO Opening journal at u'/home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary'
2014-11-15 10:59:54,502 DEBUG Starting to load files in dir "/home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary"
2014-11-15 10:59:54,531 DEBUG Loading file "/home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary/2014-07.txt"
2014-11-15 10:59:54,572 DEBUG Loading file "/home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary/2014-08.txt"
2014-11-15 10:59:54,585 DEBUG Loading file "/home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary/2014-09.txt"
2014-11-15 10:59:54,589 DEBUG Loading file "/home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary/2014-10.txt"
2014-11-15 10:59:54,589 ERROR An error occured while reading /home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary/2014-10.txt:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/rednotebook", line 12, in <module>
    rednotebook.journal.main()
  File "/usr/share/rednotebook/rednotebook/journal.py", line 589, in main
    journal = Journal()
  File "/usr/share/rednotebook/rednotebook/journal.py", line 219, in __init__
    self.open_journal(journal_path)
  File "/usr/share/rednotebook/rednotebook/journal.py", line 345, in open_journal
    self.months = storage.load_all_months_from_disk(data_dir)
  File "/usr/share/rednotebook/rednotebook/storage.py", line 96, in load_all_months_from_disk
    month = _load_month_from_disk(path, year_number, month_number)
  File "/usr/share/rednotebook/rednotebook/storage.py", line 72, in _load_month_from_disk
    month_contents = yaml.load(month_file, Loader=Loader)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/yaml/__init__.py", line 71, in load
    return loader.get_single_data()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/yaml/constructor.py", line 37, in get_single_data
    node = self.get_single_node()
  File "_yaml.pyx", line 702, in _yaml.CParser.get_single_node (ext/_yaml.c:8262)
  File "_yaml.pyx", line 903, in _yaml.CParser._parse_next_event (ext/_yaml.c:11022)
  File "_yaml.pyx", line 912, in _yaml.input_handler (ext/_yaml.c:11143)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 668, in read
    return self.reader.read(size)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 474, in read
    newchars, decodedbytes = self.decode(data, self.errors)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xb6 in position 1: invalid start byte

Revision history for this message
Best Jendrik Seipp (jendrikseipp) said : 		#4

The file /home/grw/.rednotebook/data/My Daily Diary/2014-10.txt is
corrupted. Close RedNotebook, try moving it out of the journal folder
and restart RedNotebook. Afterwards, you will have to find out where the
file is corrupted, fix that part and try to move it into the journal
folder again. Alternatively, you can add your text back manually via
copy-pasting to the usual RedNotebook interface.

Revision history for this message
Glyn Wilson (glynwil) said : 		#5

Yes, that did the trick Jendrik. I now have my RedNotebook working normally again, and I am very happy about that!! :~D

The corrupted file 2014-10.txt is a total mess, and a write-off.

It is now a large file totally full of odd characters. Looks like this file (or area on disk) was written to by the lightening bolt that shot all the way through my Internet cable, NIC, and Motherboard.

Indeed, although the weather event happened early November, I think I had October's file open when the lightening bolt actually hit my area.

I think I can consider myself lucky that my total losses were only a NIC, a Network Switch, and one data file containing all my RedNotebook records for October.

Taking the positive view ... I can say that in addition to restoring normal service, I have learned the location of my raw data files (in the file system) so I can now make regular backups.

I appreciate your time Jendrik. When I am finally in a better situation, I will send you a donation as your RedNotebook application is valuable to me.