Notepad++ File Status Auto-Detection not working

Claudia Frank

sorry but additional compiler flag does not work either.

Cheers
Claudia

Vitaliy Dovgan

Looks like time to use additional logging then. I mean, logging around file status detection. (I briefly looked at the code, and it’s not obvious at the first glance what exactly can go wrong.)

Vitaliy Dovgan

I’ve found out the cause of the problem. In VS2015, the stupids from Microsoft have broken _wstat for Windows XP! According to a simple change inside the file “PowerEditor\src\ScitillaComponent\Buffer.cpp”:

int st = generic_stat(_fullPathName.c_str(), &buf);
char s[512];
sprintf(s, "Buffer::checkFileState() -> %d, errno %d, FileName \"%S\"", st, errno, _fullPathName.c_str());
writeLog(_T("1.txt"), s);

one can notice that _wstat always returns -1 under Windows XP with errno 22 (EINVAL).
So the fix seems to be to replace _wstat with some native WinAPI function, since we can not rely on VS2015’s CRT anymore.

chcg

See https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues/403 and https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues/438 which also suffers from this issue. From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6566978/whats-the-difference-between-struct-stat64-and-struct-stati64-on-win32, maybe we are facing a 64bit issue, see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/14h5k7ff.aspx. What happens on using _wstat64.

Vitaliy Dovgan

Yes, it could be that _USE_32BIT_TIME_T needs to be defined for Windows XP. On the other hand, it was reported that defining _USE_32BIT_TIME_T, in its turn, creates problems with std::chrono… Just madness.

Vitaliy Dovgan

Basically, _wstat is used there just to get the file modification time and check if it is read-only or not. There are 2 corresponding WinAPI functions that can be used instead, without being relying on _wstat at all: GetFileTime and GetFileAttributes. Using them, any further breaking change in _wstat will not affect Notepad++ at all!

Vitaliy Dovgan

As far as I understand, an honour to implement the proposed change is mine :) As Notepad++ is the base for all its plugins, I consider such task as quite important. I don’t promise I do it quickly, but I already have an idea what exactly to do. Since _wstat is already called through a macro, the most straightforward change will be to call own function instead of _wstat via the very same macro, providing own structure returned by the function, and the structure will be filled by the WinAPI functions. So the code will remain similar at the surface, but will not rely on _wstat anymore.

Vitaliy Dovgan

OK, guys, I want to make everything in the proper way :) Do you usually create a new git branch to use it for the pull request? Or just directly modify the “master” branch? And is there any possible hints/problems regarding authorization (such as special write rights, SSH, etc.)?

chcg

See https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/pulls e.g.
https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/pull/4172 made from branch cmeriaux:fix_shortcut_validity. So branching your forked master is the better way, so you could easily pull upstream master again for future work. See also https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md. There shouldn’t be problems regarding auth against your github fork.

chcg

Maybe check this one https://gist.github.com/Chaser324/ce0505fbed06b947d962 regarding git usage with github.

Vitaliy Dovgan

Probably I’m doing something wrong, but here is what I’m getting currently:

git.exe push --progress "origin" feature/file-status-detection-winxp

remote: Permission to notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus.git denied to d0vgan.
fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus.git/': The requested URL returned error: 403

chcg

You can’t push to the repo of donho at https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus. Do you have a fork of it? Something like https://github.com/chcg/notepad-plus-plus?

Vitaliy Dovgan

That must be it! I did not fork it indeed, just created a branch directly from the https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus. Will do the fork, thanks.

Vitaliy Dovgan

You know, I realized I absolutely hate the f*ckin’ git, just completely and absolutely.
I’ve created https://github.com/d0vgan/notepad-plus-plus/tree/feature/file-status-detection-winxp and I followed hell of instructions to synchronize it with the main (non-forked) repository. Currently I’m having:

git remote -v
origin  https://github.com/d0vgan/notepad-plus-plus.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/d0vgan/notepad-plus-plus.git (push)
upstream        https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus.git (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus.git (push)

And I already tried commands such as (I’m listing them here one by one, but actually I tried them in different order according to what I found in internet):

git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/master
git rebase upstream/master
git rebase master

but still an attempt to create a pull request shows much more changes than I actually made.
I just don’t have any idea what else I need to do to overfight this git madness. It just drives me out of my wits.

Vitaliy Dovgan

OK, I’ve created https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/pull/4226
I have no idea idea why git shows changes in the functions isCertificateValidated and isAssoCommandExisting - I did not touch them at all! If I knew how to get rid of those “changes”, I would do it already.

ggo98

Still have the same issue on some machines (file change not detected).
In my case, it’s on Win 8.1 with NPP 7.9.5 (same with 7.9.1 and previous versions)…
Any solution since 2018 please?
Thanks.

PeterJones

@ggo98 ,

If you have an exact sequence of events that doesn’t work as expected, which others can replicate, then share it here, and we can try to confirm; if we agree that there’s a problem, then you can follow the FAQ to make a bug report. But all you have is a vague assertion that something “doesn’t work”. I’ve never yet seen a version of Notepad++ that doesn’t report to me when an external process has changed my file in my workflows. So, with the lack of detail you’ve provided, the best I can say is “it works for me”.

For example, a repeatable sequence:

create a file named opened.txt in Notepad++, with the text This is opened., and save into a known folder
right click on the tab bar, and select Open Containing Folder in cmd (or File > Open Containing Folder > cmd)
from the cmd prompt, echo appended >> opened.txt
click on Notepad++: it will say,
when I say Yes, the file reloads and now shows This is opened.appended .
That says Notepad++ noticed the change in the file.
Turn on Monitoring mode (either the eyeball on the toolbar, or View > Monitoring (tail -f)
Do a few instances of time /t >> opened.txt from the cmd window
the Notepad++ editor shows the updated file with a few timestamps

?-menu > Debug Info

Notepad++ v7.9.5   (64-bit)
Build time : Mar 21 2021 - 02:13:17
Path : C:\usr\local\apps\npp\npp.7.9.5.portable.x64\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : ON
OS Name : Windows 10 Home (64-bit) 
OS Version : 2004
OS Build : 19041.867
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : mimeTools.dll NppConverter.dll NppExport.dll

The settings in Settings > Preferences > MISC > File Status Auto-detection may also influence your results. During my above experiments, mine were set to

So again, I say, “it works for me”.

David Brigden52

Everyone,

I backed into this issue the other day and and can replicate. It’s related to the NotePad++ split view. I see this in 7.9.5 and saw in 7.9.3 though I assume this is older.

Debug Info:
Notepad++ v7.9.5 (32-bit)
Build time : Mar 21 2021 - 02:09:07
Path : C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit)
OS Version : 2004
OS Build : 19041.804
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : none

Here’s how I can repeat.

open/create 2 files call them view1 and view2 and save
move one to other view.
click on view1 so that N++ is focused there
open a command prompt and edit view2. (I used copy con)
click on the Notepad ++ title bar
N++ is focused on view1.
click on view2. no warning of file status change.
Click on the command window and then back to view2 and the message appears.

If you change step 5 to click on the edit window for view1, you don’t get the warning. If you change step 5 to click on view2, you DO get the warning. Similarly, if you are in view2 when you go to the command prompt, what happens is also changed.

Click on the N++ title bar and the warning will appear.
Click on view2 and the warning will appear
Click on view1 and the warning will not appear

Michael Vincent

@David-Brigden52

Unless I’m misreading what you wrote, this sounds like expected behavior. Consider a Notepad++ session with 20 files open and I run some external program that modifies all 20 files. I don’t think I want 20 popups saying each file was modified. I think I’d rather get the prompt when I activate any single one of the files that has changed.

It sounds like exactly what you are describing. View2 changes and you only get the popup when you click on View2. Again, suppose I have 20 views and 19 of them are updated externally but I’m still editing the one that hasn’t changed. I don’t want to deal with 19 popups just so I can continue editing my current 1 unchanged file.

Cheers.

PeterJones

@David-Brigden52 ,

Sorry, I cannot replicate your results. When I try the experiment, it works exactly as I would expect.

See this screenToGif.exe screencapture.

Notepad++ v7.9.5   (64-bit)
Build time : Mar 21 2021 - 02:13:17
Path : C:\usr\local\apps\notepad++\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : ON
OS Name : Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit) 
OS Version : 1903
OS Build : 18362.1256
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : ComparePlugin.dll ExtSettings.dll HexEditor.dll LuaScript.dll MarkdownViewerPlusPlus.dll mimeTools.dll NppConsole.dll NppConverter.dll NppEditorConfig.dll NppExec.dll NppExport.dll NppFTP.dll NppUISpy.dll PreviewHTML.dll PythonScript.dll QuickText.dll TagLEET.dll XMLTools.dll

Oh, I checked my settings, and I had:

When I disable Update Silently, I get similar results, but with a popup each time:

…

And I agree with the answer that @Michael-Vincent gave while I was composing this reply: I might expect that whatever is visible would be updated immediately (or at 1 minute intervals, or some reasonable period) – which it seems to be, in my experiment, shown. I would not expect (or want) to get update messages for multiple background/non-visible files until I wanted to switch to those files.

But honestly, if I know I’m looking at a file that is being changed by a background process, I think I prefer the “update silently” option, so it doesn’t pester me every time.