Preferences Not Saved

rmscott

New member
My preference settings are not being saved between sessions. I click on Apply Global but when I restart PixInsight, everything is back to the "factory" settings.
 
This cannot be reproduced under normal working conditions on any supported platform. This is a machine-specific issue, unless you can provide a repeatable set of steps to reproduce the same problem consistently.
 
Hi Juan,

This is very reproducible on my Mac Mini and has persisted over the last few PI updates since I discovered it. Here are the steps that reproduces it every time:

1. Start PI.
2. Open the preferenes process.
3. Change desired settings. (it doesn't matter what or how many)
4. Click on Apply Global.
5. Close Preferences process.
6. Exit PI.
7. Start PI.
8. Open the Preferences process.
9. Look to see if the new setting have been retained. (they haven't been)

Is there a folder on my computer that the new preferences are supposed to be saved to? If so, I can look to see if the timestamp is being updated after saving the preferences.

HI hope we can get this sorted out.

Thanks,
Rick
 
The folder has "PixInsight.plist" that is being updated and "PixInsight64.plist" that is dated May 24, 2017.

Is it possible that PI is reading the "64" version when opeing and saving to the other one instead?
 
i think the PixInsight64.plist file is from the first 64-bit versions of PI. i have PixInsight32.plist in there as well. you could move it out of the way to test your theory.

i suppose you can also copy the plist file and then compare the copy to the original after starting PI to see if it's somehow being overwritten.

rob
 
Hi Rick,

This problem cannot be reproduced. Preferences settings are always saved on all supported platforms. In the sequence of steps you have posted, step 9 always reflects the changes to preferences made in step 3. This happens all the time, on all of our working and testing machines, on all platforms.

This is a machine-specific issue that has not been reported by other users. Check if you have some virus protection or file management utility running on your machine, which could be blocking changes made to PixInsight's configuration file. As Rob has pointed out, the file is "~/Library/PixInsight/PixInsight.plist" on macOS.
 
Hi, I have same problem.
New installation of Pixinsight with updates 1.8.8.8.
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Please advise what to check.
Thank you.
 
Once again, this cannot be reproduced. All preferences are saved under normal working conditions on all platforms. This is a machine-specific issue unless you can demonstrate a reproducible pattern.
 
This has happened to me for a while. I have only set my swap file preference, but when I restart PixInsight that preference is gone, and I have to redo it. I'm running windows 10 64-bit. I am running antivirus, but it has never yelled about any PixInsight file.
 
Once again, this cannot be reproduced. All preferences are saved under normal working conditions on all platforms. This is a machine-specific issue unless you can demonstrate a reproducible pattern.

My bug report of this issue was moved to general. This situation happens to me every single time I start PixInsight. I do not always receive the warning about the swap being set to the system temp. Even though there aren't thousands of these reports, it is something that comes up. Perhaps that are others who are not aware that their directory preferences are not being used because they do not receive the warming either. I do consider this a bug. As I mentioned in my bug report, the preference file is being updated with the swap directories I select. The timestamp is updated as well, but PixInsight does not use it.

Is there a startup log that I can examine to see what file PixInsight is actually using? I'm trying to assist in this by providing you and the rest of the development team information. I asked this on my now relocated bug report, but nobody responded.

Thanks,
Xavier
 
Xavier,

We are unable to reproduce the problem you are reporting. Preferences are always saved and restored well on all of our machines, on all supported platforms. So this is a machine-dependent problem unless we can reproduce it under normal working conditions.

The only cause that I can figure out for this to happen is that the PixInsight core application does not finalize execution correctly on your machine. That is, that it either continues running or crashes when you select File > Quit or close its main window, and thus the configuration file is not updated. Again, if this happens then it's a machine-specific issue.
 
Juan,
I have figured out MY confusion. I have been checking the preferences using the Preferences Process rather than Edit | Global Preferences. Using Global Preferences my setting are indeed set as you have indicated. The mystery that was confusing me is solved! I had been loading the default settings of the preferences but not the current settings. The problem wasn't the machine, it was me.
 
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