yWriter freezing in Linux (Linux knowledge preferred)

The_Riskbreaker

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So i'm gonna post this on the Ubuntu forums, but I thought there might be someone here, maybe Mr. Spacejock himself, that could shed some light on my issue.​

I run Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivative) and I downloaded yWriter5 from the Spacejock site (http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html), and then I also grabbed the Mono engine. For those not in the know, Mono is used to run certain programs in Linux, mainly those using the .net engine that Wine won't touch. So it installed just fine and it runs... until I try to save something.​

If I choose the "new project wizard" and put in my book title and author name, then finish up, it brings me back to the main screen of yWriter, but it's like the program has frozen. I cannot click on any menus or tabs, and the only way to close the program is by "KILL"-ing it. This also happens if I start a new project without the wizard and try to save something like a character or place.More freezing occurs. My friend who's studying Linux certs told me it might be because my user didn't have write permissions to the yWriter folder. I ran the chown command with recursing to make those folders mine, but still no luck. The program functions fine until something has to be saved, then it freezes.​

I realize this question may be outside the scope of most of the people here, as I think many are Windows/Mac people. My Windows Desktop may be fixed soon so I can try that, but since the creator of this software says it should work in Linux I'd like to tinker with it to try for success.​

Thanks,​
 

Alexys

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First thing I would do is check to make sure you've got the right version of Mono—yWriter 5 appears to specifically require Mono 2.4 or later—and all the recommended subsidiary packages, including corefonts. (This is unlikely to be the problem, as Mono 2.4 is quite old, but sometimes binary distros get behind.) Having an almost-compatible version could cause freaky behaviour in the program.

Unfortunately, I can't help you much more than that—my luck with Mono was sufficiently bad that I kicked it off my system a long time ago, and anyway, we're using completely different Linux distributions.
 

The_Riskbreaker

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I do have the right Mono version, and I definately have the corefonts. (I installed those fonts shortly after installing the OS due to wanting to ensure Wine would work right with other programs) I doubled check every Simon said on his page to make sure I followed the instructions.

I know Mint is consider as different from Ubuntu, but I also have gotten most of my the programs from my Ubuntu install to work in Mint by installing the latest versions. I think it's an issue with Ubuntu or something on my machine. If it does turn out to be a mint issue I'll take my query there.
 

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Can you check the error logs and see what they say? That would help.
 

The_Riskbreaker

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Didn't even occur to me, and i'm an IT tech. (sheesh!) Assuming that the program is genuinely erroring out I'll see what it says after work and report back.

I'll have to find where the logs are kept though, as I'm still learning Linux directories and such. Were this Windows i'd be all over it. Well there's only a few places it can be.
 
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BradCarsten

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The_Riskbreaker said:
My friend who's studying Linux certs told me it might be because my user didn't have write permissions to the yWriter folder. I ran the chown command with recursing to make those folders mine, but still no luck.
Click to expand...

just to clarify, when you right click on the folder and select properties > permissions

what option has been selected under:
owner > folder access
group > folder access
and others > folder access.
 

Alexys

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Try /var/log and /tmp first, then look for hidden files in your home directory, then check the application's directory (not a normal location, but given that it was designed for Windows . . ). In particular, check .xsession-errors, Xorg.log, and any system logs that may exist. Usually if you're running a program from a command line, errors get spat out there, though, including things that may not make it into the logs.

(Note that when I say "completely different Linux distributions", I mean I'm not using Ubuntu or any other Debian-descended distro. Different package manager, different init system, probably slightly different filesystem layout, definitely different philosophy.)
 
Tirjasdyn

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Urg, you're not gonna like the answer. This gets posted every other day on the Google Group for yWriter. I am not a Linux person, but I will point you in the right direction.

There is a bug in mono that freezes the program because of Winforms. This bug is low priority for the Mono developers. yWriter is behind in Mono version support because of Mono's usage of .net, which it is behind in supporting.

The good news is that Simon is working on a way to rebuild ywriter so it won't depend on Mono and be cross platform so that there can be a Mac version as well. There has been a lot of discussion on this on the group. So I would suggest going to the link the below to get the details so far as well as a more thorough explanation from Simon and other linux users of the program.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/ywriter
 

The_Riskbreaker

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Tirjasdyn, I read some of the posts on that group, and the jist I get is what you're saying. That i'm screwed unless yWriter catches up with Mono versions, or Simon's vision of a cross platform program sees the light of day.

Some people are reporting success by using Mono 2.2 or 2.3, which seems plausible, though they report that it becomes a roach motel. Someone else said they got it working under Wine, which confuses me. When I try to run it in Wine it tells me to use Mono.

My question is this; There are a lot of users there still using yWriter in linux. Is it because of the distro they're using? Is there a trick to make it still work? I'll investigate this issue and try and Macgyver it to work tonight. I mean, if I can tweak the heck out of Wine to get a Win 3.11 era game to work, certainly this application won't be too hard.
 

Alexys

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There's an option to install .Net under WINE via the winetricks script (winetricks dotnet20, winetricks dotnet30, or winetricks dotnet40). You might have to experiment to find out which of those works best with yWriter, and the WINE version may matter too. Check under ".Net Framework" in WINE's AppDB for detailed instructions. The people who have yWriter working natively may have an older Mono, a distro-specific patch, different versions of underlying libraries, or just a whole lot of luck. Without knowing the exact bug responsible, it's hard to be sure.
 
Tirjasdyn

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The_Riskbreaker said:
Tirjasdyn, I read some of the posts on that group, and the jist I get is what you're saying. That i'm screwed unless yWriter catches up with Mono versions, or Simon's vision of a cross platform program sees the light of day.

Some people are reporting success by using Mono 2.2 or 2.3, which seems plausible, though they report that it becomes a roach motel. Someone else said they got it working under Wine, which confuses me. When I try to run it in Wine it tells me to use Mono.

My question is this; There are a lot of users there still using yWriter in linux. Is it because of the distro they're using? Is there a trick to make it still work? I'll investigate this issue and try and Macgyver it to work tonight. I mean, if I can tweak the heck out of Wine to get a Win 3.11 era game to work, certainly this application won't be too hard.
Click to expand...

Catching up on versions of Mono isn't the problem, it's mono catching up bugs in their system. Certainly people have got it to work, I would read the posts on the issue there is also a link to the Wiki for ywriter on the group that has information on it as well.
 
Tirjasdyn

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Thought I'd update this since it happened in the last few days. Simon is no longer supporting yw5 in Mono. The link below has some alternatives you can use to run in in Linux. Otherwise you may have to wait until the next version which is looking at a full rewrite to work across platform.

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5_Linux.html
 
Tirjasdyn

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Simon released a new beta version and had done some work to get it work better in Wine. The link above was updated again with a lot more info on running ywriter5 on mac and linux using wine.
 
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