Macrotone Blogs

Macrotone blogs upon Joomla, our products and other matters.

Problems updating iTunes 11.1.4.62

apple logoJust received a update from Apple for iTunes, which I proceeded to install. Unfortunately it failed to install claiming it couldn’t restart Apple Mobile.

The error was 'Error 7 (Code 193)'

Tried a reinstall with the same results.

One suggestion seen on the web was to check the .Net installation, which I proceeded to do (version 4.5.1) and also checked that al .Net patched were applied, which they were.

Regretfully this didn’t not resolve the problem or make any difference at all.

In the end resorted to uninstalling all Apple products, including Quicktime. iTunes. Apple update service, Apple mobile etc., before performing a fresh reboot.

Now this time I could install the update successfully and it all works as before, picking up all existing music etc.

Why was the update so complicated?  I thought computing was supposed to be easy, not take up ones time performing pointless tasks.  Sarcastic smile

Problems with Windows 7 SP1 installation

windows7The question of quite how one is perceived as an expert in all things computing when one knows a little about one aspect of IT, is one that I will leave for those much more knowledgeable than I.

The other week I was presented with a PC that was reported as ‘crashing’ whilst in use.

I must admit I never managed to find it  crashing on me whilst I was looking it over, but there were a number of things that didn’t look quite right, as is usual when presented with a machine with ‘problems’.  There was a lot of ‘temp files’, consuming disk space and it was split into two partitions, the second of which (the data partition D:) was virtually empty and the system partition C: was virtually full, so a repartitioning would be a good start.  The Windows registry revealed a lot of entries that were not being used and there were obviously a lot of updates missing of which the most obvious was SP1.  One proceeded to run virus scans and starts updating with the latest Microsoft fixes. However whilst most of the updates applied themselves without any issues. SP1 would fail with an error message ‘0x800f081f’.

Searching the web suggested various solutions such as running a full disk check, installing the Windows Update Readiness Tool etc., but none of these made the slightest difference to the symptoms, even though there were a few disk errors detected and corrected.  As each solution involved quite a long time to complete, especially the disk check this was not going to be a quick resolution.

The Microsoft web site didn’t throw up any possible solution, but surely after all this time, I couldn’t be the first person to hit this problem? After several days spent trying the suggestions and after much searching I eventually found this link. Although it was concerning Windows 2008 R2 it was still applicable. The symptoms described almost exactly match what we were experiencing. Even the screenshots reflected the symptoms we observed, although the event log display was slightly different.  With this closeness we tried the suggestion.

The removal of the patch KB976932 with the Deployment Image Services and Management Tool, took over an hour and it was not always immediately obvious that it was being removed, or even doing anything at all, but one resisted the temptation to ‘tinker’.  Once removed the next attempt to install the SP1 upgrade immediately started working.

Over an hour later after a reboot we could then check for any further updates. As you may guess there were nearly another 100 patches to apply, so we were not complete yet, but at least we were over our major hurdle and we were almost ready to finish our tests and give the machine back to its owners.

Strange 1604 errors with upgraded Joomla 3.1.5

b2ap3 icon joomlaWe today tried an upgrade of a copy of our Joomla 2.5.14 site to Joomla 3.1.5 as a test to see just how much we would have to change and the work involved.

The upgrade seemed to complete successfully and then we started to look further.

There are some obvious component that do not have Joomla 3.1 versions and we found that there was a need to upgrade some plugins which were causing front end site errors of various types but mainly relating to Mootools. Nothing too difficult to resolve.

On the front end we then started noticing a few page errors 1604 with messages similar to the following:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'FROM WHERE ='index.php?option=com_xxxxxxxx&view=yyyyyy' AND ='1' LIMIT 1' at line 1 SQL=SELECT FROM WHERE ='index.php?option=com_xxxxxxxx&view=yyyyyy' AND ='1' LIMIT 1

It is very evident as to what is wrong with the SQL statement but the question is why and where is the statement coming from.  It certainly doesn’t look like a statement in any specific module as far as we can see.  The particular components (and modules)  in question work perfectly fine upon a fresh install of Joomla 3.1.5 so I think we can eliminate the component/module from being at fault.  It is not restricted to one component either.

Disabling module(s) sometimes indicates a specific module at fault but as I said earlier the module(s) works fine on a ‘fresh 3.1.5’ install.

We have also seen ‘404’ errors reported when trying to install/upgrade an existing component to the latest version to run on Joomla 3.1.5.  Again the components install fine on a fresh ‘3.1.5’ install.

Of course it could be that the various components do not upgrade correctly on Joomla 3.1.5 but this seems unlikely especially as one can update the component successfully on a ‘fresh 3.1.5 install’.

Our conclusion is that it is probably the ‘Joomla’ upgrade itself that is at fault. Even ‘reinstall’ of the Joomla update doesn’t resolve the problems. Inspection doesn’t provide any clear ideas at present as to what could be at fault, so it is probably fair to not even contemplate thinking about updating our ‘live’ site just yet until a few of the remaining ‘issues’ are resolved.  There is a need to ‘preserve’ our existing data and an export/import approach doesn’t really bear thinking about.

One to revisit later possibly once 3.2 has stabilised.

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Another PC puzzle

windows7It must be the week for PC problems, since I was given another one to try and puzzle out the other day.

The machine was running slowly, and seemed to have difficultly in logging off users, shutting down, and even performing any long term tasks. Also noted that Windows Update would loop forever ‘Searching for updates’.   Even trying to run a virus scan kept hanging on files which I am reasonably sure were virus clean.  The machine wouldn’t ‘hibernate’ or ‘sleep’ and the user was forced to depress the power button to close down the machine.  To add insult to injury even the ‘task window’ was behaving erratically making diagnosis night on impossible, but when it did work the machine was showing less than 3% usage.

I have never seen a machine behave quite like this and immediately suspected a virus infection of some form. Norton and McAfee kept 'sticking' on various files when running and wouldn't run in safe mode for some obscure reason.  Even the McAfee program was refusing to use 'Real Time checking' and would periodically say it needed updating, even when at other times it was 'up to date'. Managed to run a virus scan using the excellent McAfee Stinger program in safe mode, which revealed that the machine was virus free, which whilst satisfying still got one no nearer to knwing what was going on.  Next various attempts were made to resolve individual symptoms with mixed success. Never could get Windows Update to work reliably though.  Even resorting to system restore and using the oldest restore from a month earlier, exhibited the same symptoms.

After wasting several hours trying to pin down the source of the problem the final step was just to bite the bullet and perform a factory reset, having ensured that I had copies of all the users files (documents, music etc.).   The restore worked perfectly and then comes the task of updating it with all of the latest Microsoft updates, which is no small task.  It is at times like this that you realise just how many fixes Microsoft release for their operating system. Several hours later it is still finding more fixes. Once you have run an update, running it again shows even more fixes are found.  It took six, yes six separate update checks to get up to date and that is just for the operating system itself, not for the Microsoft applications (Office). 

Next to load the user applications and copy back the users files.  In all over 24 hours have been spent dedicated to just getting the machine back to a usable state and I still have no distinct idea of what was causing the problem in the first place.  No viruses appeared to be present with all virus software fully up to date, and the program installation history indicated nothing new had been installed for several months.  Obviously a few program updates may have been made to things like browsers, but the problems were present even with no browsers active (but background processes were of course still present).

I suspect I may never really know what was the cause of the problem and searching the web doesn’t throw up any similar reported situations. One to put down to ‘unknown’ I guess. Never had to resort to a Factory reset before, but it proves the worth of the manufacturers (in this case HP) supplying them in a reserved disk partition.

Windows 7 Networks connectors suddenly stop working

windows7Had an interesting problem this morning which while not difficult to fix took up a lot of time investigating.

Yesterday the laptop was working perfectly fine, connecting to the internet via the wireless connector. This morning the wireless connector failed to make a connection to the hub.  Very strange, but even more so when all other PC devices were working fine, and even the plugged in network adaptor was failing to make a connection.  Running the command line ‘ipconfig’ command didn’t even display the network adaptors as existing!

Looking at the network adaptors didn’t show anything unusual in the control panel. They were present and enabled and running fine.  However the network trouble-shooter said there were problems with the adaptors but couldn’t say what was wrong.  A fat lot of use they turned out to be.

Looking at the system activity the only events that I could see were that yesterday afternoon I upgraded ‘Tortoise SVN’ to the latest 1.8.1 version and this morning it looked like ‘Trusteer Rapport’ had also updated itself. Now the machine was fine after the Tortoise upgrade, and presumably the network connection must have been fine if Rapport had upgraded itself.

Uninstalling ‘Rapport’ did not resolve the problem, so tried using System restore to a point prior to the ‘Rapport’ update, but this also failed to resolve the problem.  At this point I decided to uninstall the two network devices (using Device Manager), and then use the ‘discover new hardware’ option to reinstall them.  Surprise, surprise the main network adaptor suddenly started working.  At last a clue.

I then proceeded to perform system restore again to the latest point and then uninstalled, and rediscovered the adaptors.  The main network adaptor worked straight away, but because I had obviously removed the wireless connector details, all of the ‘automatic’ connection details for the adaptor also were lost, so it was necessary to re-enter the connection keys etc.

So the only thing I can conclude from this is that the ‘Trusteer Rapport’ (version 3.5.1208.41) must somehow have impacted the network adaptors, something which even uninstalling didn’t resolve. For those unfamiliar with Rapport it is security software that is used to protect secure sites such as banks etc. Quite why it should impact the network adaptors is not quite so clear. Searching on the web didn’t discover anything similar reported but then again perhaps it is still ‘new’ and nobody else has reported it yet?

Windows 7 Updates August 2012 Problems


Having experienced a few problems with the latest set of Windows 7 Updates for August 2012 I thought I would create this post to possibly assist others.

Firstly the problem seems to only impact 64 bit versions of windows, since 32bit seems to work successfully.

The problem manifests itself as a ‘Failure to apply updates’ following the forced reboot, causing it to fall back to the created restore point.

The cause seems to be fix KB2647753 which can be applied upon its own but not in combination with the others.

Up to 12 updates may be required depending upon the system being updated, but the solution appears to be to select KB2647753 and install it on its own, and then following the reboot (which showed a message about updating the registry) to install all of the other updates as one set. This does require a few reboots but all the updates do get applied successfully.

If like me you tend to update several machines at the same time and start off an update on one machine before starting it in another etc., before returning to the first machine, it is easy to miss he failure message which doesn't stay on the screen for very long. The first one notices is when the machines require updates to be applied a second or possibly a third time. Very annoying.

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