Config Files Need Updating, Too

[Lycan Thrope]

@PeterJones said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

A lot of upvotes, but no comments. Must not have any bugs. :-)

Haven’t had a chance to test it yet, so not sure if that’s true. :-)

Update: I’ve posted my Debug info and a screenshot of what I see on a Standard install to the Github page. No request to shutdown, it just shuts down after a while of looking at the spinning wheel, and then crash closes as far as I can tell.

The portable install worked fine from what I can see. It has the same ConfigUpdaterSettings.xml file settings as the one in the AppData for the standard install, but the log for the standard install is empty. The portable one has a log of the changes made.

Not sure what happened. I did initially install it to the wrong location, putting it in the Appdata directory, but it didn’t show in plugins so did not run. I then cut and copied the entire folder to the Programs folder location and it showed in the Standard install Plugins, I ran it, and the same things happened when I ran it for the first time, and everytime I run it again…consistent.

If it doesn’t change anything being as it’s the latest version of NPP, shouldn’t it not shutdown after running it with no changes?

[PeterJones]

@Lycan-Thrope ,

As I say in my reply over there, it looks like your copy is getting stuck long before it would ask to restart – it should have printed at least stylers.xml in the Status dialog. When I use my Win11 installed v8.8.1, or spin up a Win10 VM with an installed v8.8.1, it works as expected for me, so I don’t know what’s happening for you. We can continue the debug over in your Issue #2 discussion.

If it doesn’t change anything being as it’s the latest version of NPP, shouldn’t it not shutdown after running it with no changes?

haha, you’re funny. The “latest version of NPP” ships with themes that have many missing LexerTypes (languages) and stylers within the lexers, which is a major reason this plugin is needed. If you’ve never run the old ConfigUpdater.py or the plugin version, it’s guaranteed to make changes. (And even if you have run it before, because it does things like sort the languages, it always attempts to write all the themes, so will ask to restart even if it’s writing the same values back – someday, I might get my logic better to figure out how to compare the old-vs-new for the XML, and not ask to write if it doesn’t need to; but for now, that was the easiest to program.)

[Lycan Thrope]

@PeterJones ,
Okay, I’ll try your first suggestion, since you have VM’d a version and it works. It could be one of my plugins so I’ll start with deleting them, and report there, here. what’s up.

I did run the ConfigUpdater.py, but that was for testing when you started, and I haven’t done it since then, but it’s good to know even when the latest NPP is loaded, it’s already outdated. :-)

[Lycan Thrope]

@PeterJones ,
Report is in the Github post I just made, but the apparent problem was two off-book plugins I had tested and was playing with which are:

ControlledAutoIndent (1)
WebEdit (2.7)

As I mentioned in Github, they could just be incompatible with the latest Scintilla updates for all I know, but until they don’t cause a problem, I don’t need them and your plugin works fine for me with repository listed plugins. Hope this helps.

[Coises]

@Lycan-Thrope said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

@PeterJones ,
Report is in the Github post I just made, but the apparent problem was two off-book plugins I had tested and was playing with which are:

ControlledAutoIndent (1)
WebEdit (2.7)

I am on Windows 10. With my ControlledAutoIndent plugin installed (even when Enabled is not checked — in which state it should be doing nothing), I get the same result as @Lycan-Thrope.

When I removed it and tried again, I got through the first phase and encountered the request to restart. After answering OK, waiting for relaunch and then selecting Update Config Files again, a bunch of activity occurred, and then this came up:

This much is reproducible. I will try to investigate further. Debug info (captured before running first phase without ControlledAutoIndent):

Notepad++ v8.8.1   (64-bit)
Build time : May  3 2025 - 18:41:09
Scintilla/Lexilla included : 5.5.6/5.4.4
Boost Regex included : 1_85
Path : C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line : 
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
Periodic Backup : OFF
Placeholders : OFF
Scintilla Rendering Mode : SC_TECHNOLOGY_DIRECTWRITE (1)
Multi-instance Mode : monoInst
File Status Auto-Detection : cdEnabledNew (for current file/tab only)
Dark Mode : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
OS Version : 22H2
OS Build : 19045.5737
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : 
    ColumnsPlusPlus (1.2)
    ComparePlus (1.2)
    ConfigUpdater (2)
    DSpellCheck (1.5)
    mimeTools (3.1)
    NppConverter (4.6)
    NppExport (0.4)

Edit to add: I continue to get the Access Violation in the second phase even after removing all plugins except ConfigUpdater. I will continue to search for the causes of both errors.

Edit to add 2: The problem with ControlledAutoIndent was entirely due to a mistake in that plugin. It’s not even a “conflict,” just a straight-up error. I had no idea what would cause an “External Lexer” to be used. (The plugin keeps track of the current language so it knows what indentation rules to apply.) I made a silly mistake in the code that handles the External Lexer case, and just never hit it until now.

[Coises]

@PeterJones

I can give you this much concerning the apparent cause of the access violation:

but I don’t know what to check to determine what might be leading to this condition. Quite possibly I have some very old version of one of these files, because as best I can remember, I have never manually edited any of them except (I think) shortcuts, and I’ve never bothered to try to upgrade them outside whatever the Notepad++ installer does.

[PeterJones]

@Coises ,

Edit to add 2: The problem with ControlledAutoIndent was entirely due to a mistake in that plugin. It’s not even a “conflict,” just a straight-up error. I had no idea what would cause an “External Lexer” to be used. (The plugin keeps track of the current language so it knows what indentation rules to apply.) I made a silly mistake in the code that handles the External Lexer case, and just never hit it until now.

I’m not sure why the ConfigUpdater plugin would trigger your plugin to think there was an External Lexer (it is not a lexer plugin, after all)… but I’m glad you found that one.

Edit to add: I continue to get the Access Violation in the second phase even after removing all plugins except ConfigUpdater. I will continue to search for the causes of both errors.

Access Violation implies that there’s a null pointer someplace. I thought I’d fixed that for all the styler/themes, but with langs.xml being the last message in the status, maybe I didn’t check properly in the langs-updater. I’ll go take a look. (However, my normal debug in Win11 and my VM+Win10 tests all worked just fine for both themes and langs, so I still cannot reproduce the problem that’s causing that, so even if I find something, I’ll have to rely on you to test if I’ve actually fixed it.

While I am looking, could you try to do CANCEL instead of YES, and see if you still get the Access Violation at langs.xml when you are not running in Admin mode?

update 1: I see you posted a reply just before my post: thank you for that Call Stack: I will start my search at line 1077. :-)

update 2: could you go to the issues page and create a new issue (this Access Violation is separate from the freeze/crash, I think), and attach your langs.xml to the issue? Maybe with that file, I’d be able to reproduce the problem.

[Coises]

@PeterJones said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

I’m not sure why the ConfigUpdater plugin would trigger your plugin to think there was an External Lexer (it is not a lexer plugin, after all)… but I’m glad you found that one.

Apparently ErrorList is an external lexer, and ControlledAutoIndent is picking that up as the active language at some point.

While I am looking, could you try to do CANCEL instead of YES, and see if you still get the Access Violation at langs.xml when you are not running in Admin mode?

Same result (at least, superficially). However, I realize now that the switch to Admin mode was not happening when running under the debugger; the call stack I posted was happening with Notepad++ not in Admin mode. I don’t know if there is a way I can trap an error in the debugger while running with elevated permissions.

update 2: could you go to the issues page and create a new issue (this Access Violation is separate from the freeze/crash, I think), and attach your langs.xml to the issue? Maybe with that file, I’d be able to reproduce the problem.

I will do that shortly.

[PeterJones]

@Coises said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

Apparently ErrorList is an external lexer, and ControlledAutoIndent is picking that up as the active language at some point.

I guarantee it is not: it is a standard Lexilla lexer. Did you update your menuCmdID.h file which defines the external lexer constants?

…
No, it doesn’t look like you have:

But since it’s IDM_LANG+93 vs IDM_LANG+165, and you shouldn’t be looking at the IDM, that’s not the likely culprit (though something you should still fix)

Ah, searching for external in your plugin:

it’s using the L_xxxx enumeration values from the Notepad_plus_msgs.h::LangType enumeration

And that makes sense: Don chose to use whatever the “last” enumeration value happens to be for L_EXTERNAL, which means that every time a new built-in language is added, all plugin authors who compare vs L_EXTERNAL must update Notepad_plus_msgs.h whenever N++ does, otherwise their comparison will be off for anyone using one of the newer lexers in the most recent N++.

So definitely update menuCmdID.h and Notepad_plus_msgs.h, and then that comparison should not be true, and it won’t go into that section of code erroneously.

[Coises]

@PeterJones said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

it’s using the L_xxxx enumeration

Thank you. It appears (since of course updates could always happen without a plugin being updated) that I’ll need to find a way to determine what is an external lexer at run time (not just what would have been an external lexer when I compiled the plugin).

[Lycan Thrope]

@Coises ,
Glad you guys figured it out. I was really tired when testing this, and realized after I signed off and shut down the computer that I had already tested without WebTools, before I got impatient and removed all the plugins, since I started from the bottom alphabetically and was working to the top.

So the problem that was happening for me, was probably just the AutoIndent plugin, and I say probably because I can’t be sure the combo of it with another, possibly WebTools, couldn’t have been the culprit. I’d been up close to 21 hours when I shutdown and couldn’t force myself to sign back on. :-(

[PeterJones]

v2.0.1, with bugfix for @Coises “Access Violation” is released on GitHub. I have “paused” my nppPluginList submission, but will most likely submit 2.0.1 to the plugin list tomorrow, unless something else is discovered.

For those who want details:

Bugfix: Fix an “Access Violation” that occurs with specific condition of old langs.xml vs new langs.model.xml – when the model had <Language name="blah"><Keywords ...></Language> but the old langs.xml only had empty <Language name="blah"/>, it would cause the plugin to crash. The logic has been fixed so it properly copies over the new <Keywords ...> into the previously-empty <Language> element.

[Coises]

@Lycan-Thrope said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

So the problem that was happening for me, was probably just the AutoIndent plugin, and I say probably because I can’t be sure the combo of it with another, possibly WebTools, couldn’t have been the culprit.

For what it’s worth, as the author of Controlled Auto-indent, I can guarantee it was the culprit. It could crash under other circumstances, too, having nothing to do with ConfigUpdater; I just hadn’t hit one of them, and if anyone else did before you, they didn’t report it.

A fixed version exists now.

[Lycan Thrope]

@Coises said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

For what it’s worth, as the author of Controlled Auto-indent, I can guarantee it was the culprit. It could crash under other circumstances, too, having nothing to do with ConfigUpdater; I just hadn’t hit one of them, and if anyone else did before you, they didn’t report it.

I appreciate that, and I’ll go ahead and download it and test it against the old and new versions of ConfigUpdater. I’ve already downloaded, but not installed the new version of CU yet.

Update: It works fine under the old CU and the new CU. I tried it with CAI enabled and not enabled, and the CU ran through everything, so the crash condition from CAI appears to be gone. Glad I could help find that edge case, unknowingly. :-)

[PeterJones]

ConfigUpdater Plugin v2.1.0

ConfigUpdater Plugin has released v2.1.0, available thru GitHub release page.

• Add Dark Mode (Issue #7)
• Validate XML vs XSD during update (Issue #1) and interactive validation on-demand (Issue #14)
• Add ability to download most recent model XML files (Issue #19)
• Other Improvements: move config to dedicated subdirectory (Issue #6), only write XML file if it is changed (Issue #3), truncate the status logfile if it’s too big (Issue #10), make sure it only updates themes once for portable (Issue #15)

[Lycan Thrope]

@PeterJones ,
Just curious. Files that are flagged as invalid, what’s the recourse desired? I thought using the Validate Files would correct whatever was found after running ConfigUpdate that flagged those files and lines in the log.

I have two showing up:

One in stylers.xml

--- ConfigUpdater run at Friday, July 4, 2025 4:55:40 AM
--- Checking Styler/Theme File: 'C:\Users\camilee\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\stylers.xml'
+ LexerStyles: Sorted LexerType elements alphabetically (keeping "searchResults" at end)
! Validation of C:\Users\camilee\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\stylers.xml failed on line#1685:

XML validation FAILED: '2' is a duplicate key for the unique Identity Constraint 'unique-WordsStyle-styleID'.

Line#1685:
            <WordsStyle bgColor="FFFFFF" fgColor="000000" fontName="" fontSize="" fontStyle="0" name="COMMENT LINE" styleID="2"/>

…and a multiple fail in DarkModeDefault:

--- Checking Styler/Theme File: 'C:\Users\camilee\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes\DarkModeDefault.xml'
+ LexerStyles: Sorted LexerType elements alphabetically (keeping "searchResults" at end)
! Validation of C:\Users\camilee\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes\DarkModeDefault.xml failed on line#657:

XML validation FAILED: '5' is a duplicate key for the unique Identity Constraint 'unique-WordsStyle-styleID'.

Line#657:
            <WordsStyle name="EVENT" styleID="5" fgColor="8CD0D3" bgColor="3F3F3F" fontName="" fontStyle="1" fontSize="" keywordClass="instre2"/>
--- Checking Styler/Theme File: 'C:\Users\camilee\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes\MyDarkModeDefault.xml'
+ LexerStyles: Sorted LexerType elements alphabetically (keeping "searchResults" at end)
! Validation of C:\Users\camilee\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes\MyDarkModeDefault.xml failed on line#652:

XML validation FAILED: '5' is a duplicate key for the unique Identity Constraint 'unique-WordsStyle-styleID'.

Line#652:
            <WordsStyle bgColor="3F3F3F" fgColor="8CD0D3" fontName="" fontSize="" fontStyle="1" keywordClass="instre2" name="EVENT" styleID="5"/>

There are others for DarkMode as shown in this partial shot of the Validate box since I can’t screenshot the whole text since the box isn’t wide enough and it can’t be copied for inclusion in here under code format.

I see that double clicking the line, takes me to the file, and then I can double click the FunctionList view that leaves me on and that will bring up the line in the file, but the question remains…what am I supposed to change it to, or am I supposed to change it at all?

My viewing the new aspects made me believe the validation and correction was automatic by clicking those functions along with the Download new models. I fear I may just not know what these new capabilities are supposed to perform, so I don’t want to assume what they are supposed to do. Guidance?

[PeterJones]

@Lycan-Thrope said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

I thought using the Validate Files would correct whatever was found
…
My viewing the new aspects made me believe the validation and correction was automatic by clicking those functions … Guidance?

Sorry, I was hoping the section on Validation in the README would be enough. I guess I need to add a help button and see if I can explain things better.

The validation has occurred, and it has found errors.

Unfortunately, I cannot program enough intelligence into the plugin to be able to figure out the right/best way to fix the problems, so it does not correct errors for you. That’s why the double-click will take you to the right spot in the problematic XML file. Further, the stylers.model.xml button can be used to open the model file side-by-side with the problematic XML – and the plugin will do its best to align the model file so that it’s showing the same section of its XML as has the problem in the other (though, looking at the order that line#652 is listed, I think my alignment algorithm might need some work: that line proved assumptions wrong).

You are then supposed to compare the two, and use the semi-understandable XML error messages to help you figure out… Maybe I’ll have to figure out a way to convert the errors that the validation library spits out into something more human-readable.

• '5' is a duplocate key... indicates that there are two <WordsStyle> entries that have the same StyleID. StyleID must be unique for Notepad++ to be able to correctly map that row in the XML (or that entry in the Style Configurator’s Styles: list) to the underlying Lexilla style. When there are two with the same StyleID, Notepad++ only picks one to show in the Style Configurator and send to Lexilla. So you need to compare your XML with the model XML, and figure out what the right solution is:
  • Do you just need to pick one of the two duplicates and delete it (and if so, your human intelligence is needed to decide which is the right entry to keep and which to delete)
  • Or does one of them have the wrong styleID, and you just need to change it to a different value
• '' violates enumeration constraint... indicates that you have a keywordClass attribute on your <WordsStyle> that has an invalid value (in your case, the empty string). keywordClass needs to be one of the known types as listed in the error message, or the attribute needs to not exist at all.
  • You need to compare the failing XML to the model, and need to figure out what value of keywordClass should be there – or whether to delete the attribute altogether (if it’s not there for that styleID in the model)

along with the Download new models. I fear I may just not know what these new capabilities are supposed to perform, so I don’t want to assume what they are supposed to do.

The Download Newest Model Files grabs the most recent stylers.model.xml and langs.model.xml from the Notepad++ repo, and overwrites your possibly-out-of-date models. This will make sure that the model used when validating is the “current best practice” found in the repo. (I really thought that the README was clear on that one. Is it not?)

since I can’t screenshot the whole text since the box isn’t wide enough and it can’t be copied for inclusion in here under code format.

Created issue #23: I’ll see if I can get Ctrl+C and/or dialog resize to work. (I’ve never done either from C++; I really don’t have a lot of GUI-programming experience, so I’ve always started with “functional enough GUI for me to do what I want” for my plugins, without aiming for super-fancy features.)

[Lycan Thrope]

@PeterJones ,
After this review by you, and again, re-reading the readme file you linked, it became much clearer. I admit to having only a cursory knowledge of the xml files in reference to how they relate to the Language and stylers that are usually controlled by the dialogs, so I was a bit lost about what they were highlighting and I think that’s where most of my confusion was. I’ve learned a bit more with this help you’ve given.

After reading the more detailed description you gave, and also, I hadn’t realized that the *.model.stylers.xml file button became enabled only after selecting and double clicking the error, that it could then open the model file, so that they could be compared. I think I was kind of lost with the new whizbang options.

I’m sorry if my head is thicker than it needs to be when it comes to noticing and using the new stuff…but the thicker head helps when I hit my head a lot, to make sure everything stays inside of it, mangled though it may be. :-)

I got it now. Thanks.

[PeterJones]

@Lycan-Thrope said in Config Files Need Updating, Too:

became enabled only after selecting and double clicking the error

I should probably add a single-click handler to enable that button, too. (Without any selection, it wouldn’t know where in the file to go to, so I will probably leave it disabled with no selection)

[PeterJones]

ConfigUpdater Plugin v2.2.0

ConfigUpdater Plugin has released v2.1.0 v2.2.0, available thru GitHub release page, with improvements to Validation Dialog:

• Rename *.model.xml button to Go To Model (#23), and improve its ability to align the validating XML with the model file (#25).
• Add ability to copy the selected error message to Windows Clipboard (#23)
• Allow resizing dialog (#23)
• Add easier-to-understand error message for the most-common errors (#22)
• Add help button for more details on how to use the Validation dialog (#22)