Change History keeps turning back on.

[Plactus]

I don’t care to use the change history feature. I know how to turn it off in options; the problem is, at some indeterminate point afterward – may be a couple hours, may be a few days – I open Notepad++ and there it is, turned on again.

How can I stop this from happening?

[PeterJones]

@Plactus ,

That doesn’t happen for me.

Do you run just a single instance of Notepad++, or do you run in multi-instance mode? (ie, what are your Settings > Preferences > Multi-Instance & Date > Multi-Instance Settings? or using the -multiInst command-line option ?) Because in multi-instance mode, only one instance has permission to write settings to disk, so you may have turned it off in an instance that cannot save its settings, so the next time you start a copy, it starts with the saved settings rather than your “I turned it off in options” instance.

Are you sure you don’t have multiple versions of Notepad++ (installed or portable) on your computer? It may be that one copy of notepad++.exe is reading/saving settings in %AppData%\Notepad++ (🛈), and another portable copy is reading/saving settings in the same folder as that copy of notepad++.exe

Do you use the Cloud Folder settings (Settings > Preferences > Cloud & Link > Settings on cloud), or the -settingsDir command-line option ? Because I haven’t tested it, but maybe if your cloud or settingsDir folder was unavailable, Notepad++ reverted to %AppData%\Notepad++ instead, so maybe it got saved to AppData when Notepad++ normally reads your settings elsewhere.

For helping yourself debug the problem, I would highly recommend looking at ?-menu’s Debug Info while it’s “working correctly”; then the next time it arbitrarily stops working, check the ? > Debug Info again, and compare the two… (If you Copy the info from the dialog and save it to a file, then once you have one working and one not-working copy of the Debug Info, you could paste them both here, and we can help you understand what’s different, if anything.)

Maybe you have a weird plugin that’s changing the Change History settings, though I don’t know of any that do. But the Debug Info would also show you (and us, if you shared it with us) all the plugins that you have installed.

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See also: User Manual > Config Files Location

[Plactus]

I do run multi-instance mode but I’ve made sure to close everything, open a new window, and adjust the settings there. Hasn’t helped.

Multiple versions seems unlikely. Only one is listed in the Windows control panel programs list.

Not using cloud folder settings.

I’ve copied my debug info; if it reverts again I’ll get a copy of that and see if there’s any difference.

[Michael Vincent]

@Plactus said in Change History keeps turning back on.:

I’ve copied my debug info

How about posting it here so we can see what plugins you’re running. There are a few (e.g., Changed Lines, NppExec, PythonScript) that do or could manipulate Change History settings beyond the Notepad++ configuration.

Cheers.

[Plactus]

Here it is:

Notepad++ v8.5.3 (64-bit)
Build time : May 15 2023 - 06:09:36
Path : C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line :
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
OS Version : 22H2
OS Build : 19045.4529
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins :
mimeTools (2.9)
NppConverter (4.5)
NppExport (0.4)

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(It turned back on. The only difference between the two is that I opened the one where the Change History was on by opening a file, so the command line was the file location “C:\Users\Username\Dropbox\Filename.txt”)

[Michael Vincent]

@Plactus said in Change History keeps turning back on.:

Plugins :
mimeTools (2.9)
NppConverter (4.5)
NppExport (0.4)

There goes my idea of a plugin override - those are just the defaults and none of them would be suspect in this case.

ADDED: Perhaps just check if isChangeHistoryEnabled="0" (0=off, 1=on) is in your Notepad++ ‘config.xml’ file. Based on your Debug, I think it would be in %AppData%\Notepad++, but someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

Cheers.

[Plactus]

@Michael-Vincent

It’s there.

I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling now, hopefully that’ll fix things.

[mkupper]

@Plactus said in Change History keeps turning back on.:

I do run multi-instance mode but I’ve made sure to close everything, open a new window, and adjust the settings there. Hasn’t helped.

What versions of Notepad++ are you mixing and are you using -settingsDir= and sharing the configuration between versions?

If you are using v8.6.5 or or newer and then use v8.6.4 or older with the same config.xml file then your change history setting will get enabled.

The setting is in config.xml under <GUIConfig name="ScintillaPrimaryView" isChangeHistoryEnabled="..." />

Up to to Notepad++ v8.6.4 the setting was either yes or no. For example, isChangeHistoryEnabled="yes"

Starting with Notepad++ v8.6.5 this was changed from a yes/no value to a number:

• isChangeHistoryEnabled="0" is neither setting enabled.
• isChangeHistoryEnabled="1" is just Show in margin enabled.
• isChangeHistoryEnabled="2" is just Show in text enabled.
• isChangeHistoryEnabled="3" is both Show in margin and Show in text enabled.

If the setting is a number and you run older version, let’s say v8.6.4 it does not recognize the 0, 1, 2, or 3 setting as it’s expecting yes or no and so changes it to the default which is yes.

If the setting is ‘yes’ and you run a newer version, let’s say v8.6.5, then there is code that recognizes a yes and converts it to 1 for just Show in margin enabled. If the setting is not recognized, such as if it’s no or any random string then it uses a setting of 0 which is is neither setting enabled.

[PeterJones]

@Plactus,

isChangeHistoryEnabled="0"

You confirmed that “it’s there”, which implied the value was as listed as well. But if you’re on 8.5.3, the value should have been yes or no …

So either, despite your belief that you only have one copy of notepad++.exe , you have multiple versions on your computer, or your confirmation of existence and value was really only a confirmation of existence, in which case, you need to confirm the actual value, both in the working and non-working cases.

I do run multi-instance mode but I’ve made sure to close everything, open a new window, and adjust the settings there

After you adjusted the settings, did you exit Notepad++ again to cause it to save settings? Because if you launch another instance before the settings are saved, you will still have mixed settings.

Notepad++ v8.5.3

So that’s quite a few versions out of date. If I ever have problems with an app and I see that it’s that far out of date, the first thing I try is an update, because bug fixes and features improvements happen – as @mkupper showed, there has been a change to that exact setting in the interim.

[Plactus]

I’ve looked for other installations and didn’t find any, but like I said in my last post, I uninstalled and reinstalled and am now running 8.6.8; I may have checked config.xml after the reinstall.

Whatever the case, it’s been behaving since the reinstall. Thank you all for your help.