* FH 6 under Linux & Wine. Basically works but need advice

[electron1948]

I run FH V6.22 under Windows 10 and all works correctly but I've finally had enough of Windows and am moving to Linux Mint 17.3. My experience? Been using Windows since V3.1 and FH since V3.

I've installed FH under Wine and transferred my FH project. Everything works perfectly until I come to add an image to an individual

Trying to add any image to any individual I get the error:

"Media insert failed. Unable to copy file ""."

It is not at all clear if this refers to the source or destination folder or the file itself. I've searched for any info on this error and drawn a blank. Can anyone provide any clue or suggest something I may have done incorrectly?

[tatewise]

I have moved this to the FH General Usage Forum, because the User Group Forum is for advice about this FHUG website.

Firstly, checkout the how_to:family_historian_v6_on_crossover_wine|> Family Historian V6 & Ancestral Sources V5 on Crossover & Wine advice, although there is nothing specifically about the problem you describe.

Are you using a Windows 7 bottle as advised there?

When adding the Media file, does the destination folder within the Media folder already exist?
If not, then the above advice suggests that FH may have difficulty creating that folder, which should be created beforehand using the native Linux filing system.

Otherwise, in Windows Explorer or Linux, can you open the original Media file(s), and copy them into the FH Project's Media folder?

[electron1948]

Mike, thanks for your response to my problem,

I looked at the article http://fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=how ... sover_wine before I started but it appears to be mainly Mac oriented and didn't help much. It keeps referring to "bottles" and I've not seen bottles referenced with respect to Wine under Linux Mint. (Mint = Ubuntu but looks more like Windows)

I simply carried out the usual Wine instructions for application installation by running the command: "wine setup.exe" within the folder containing the FH files. I then used Wine Config to set the emulation to Win 7 - I assume this is the same as a 'Windows 7 Bottle'! I then copied over my otherwise working project to the same folder as the Sample Project.

You ask:

"When adding the Media file, does the destination folder within the Media folder already exist?".

Yes, the destination folder exists and the many images already in there display correctly in FH so the program can find the destination folder OK. In addition I have tried creating other folders in the FH folder structure and copying to those - with the same error.

"Otherwise, in Windows Explorer or Linux, can you open the original Media file(s), and copy them into the FH Project's Media folder?"

Yes I can happily copy any number of files back and forth between the source folder and the Media folder.

It would help to know if the error message: "Media insert failed. Unable to copy file ""." refers to file/folder, source/destination then I would have a better idea where to look.

[tatewise]

I am sorry that our Knowledge Base was not very useful. It does mostly rely on feedback from Mac/Crossover users, and would welcome feedback from Unix/Wine users.

I do not use Mac, Crossover, Unix or Wine so cannot help much more. Hopefully a Unix/Wine user can help you.

I admit the error message is not as clear as it could be, and only a support request to Calico Pie will explain it better, but I suspect it is the destination that is the problem.

Can you try some other FH file writing commands such as File > Import/Export > Export and saving to say the Public folder. What happens with Backup commands writing the .zip files?

Have you tried installing some other Windows application that needs to write files?

[electron1948]

I have been experimenting.

I select an individual and go to 'add media'.

Select 'insert from file'

Navigate to the project's Media folder and select a file that already displays correctly.

The dialog that now appears (image attached) has the filename area blank, in spite of just selecting one!

The only way I can get a filename into this box is to link to a file that is already in the media folder, any other file from any other folder results in the filename box being left empty.

So it appears that it is the source that is the problem. Any ideas?

[tatewise]

I don't understand the subtle differences between your underlined alternatives, and a lack of attachment does not help
(Just state the name of the dialogue that is given on top left border of every dialogue.)
When you say " link to a file" do you mean choose Link to Existing Multimedia Record instead of Insert From File?
If so, then no file operations are involved at all, because you are using an existing Multimedia Record.
That is completely different to inserting a new Media Image file and creating a new Multimedia Record for it.

Do other file input commands also misbehave?
e.g. File > Import/Export > Import
but you may need to use Export command first to create a suitable file.

Looking back at your original posting, the error message appears to be referring to the file "." which is a Unix shortcut to the current folder, and does not usually apply to Windows OS.
How do you get past the Insert pictures or other media dialogue if there is no filename selected?
Do you still get the error message, and if so could you attach a screenshot.

Coupled with your recent posting, I wonder if FH is actually correctly installed in a Windows environment.

Can Wine users please comment on the order of the necessary configuration commands.
I would have thought it necessary to configure Windows 7 first, and then install FH (and AS).

BTW:
I presume you followed the advice in:
https://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_Installati ... figuration regarding previous or old Wine versions.
https://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_User%27s_G ... tting_Wine regarding Application and Windows configuration.
(Bearing in mind that FH will not install in Windows XP that appears to be the Wine default mode.)

[electron1948]

Mike, thanks for your continued help in this!

You said:

"I don't understand the subtle differences between your underlined alternatives, and a lack of attachment does not help"

I did try to include an image but plainly I got it wrong somehow. I've tried to include it again.

This is what I do:

Select an individual, select the 'Media' tab, click on the green + sign.

Select 'Insert from file' , browse to the folder, select jpg in the drop down and click on a jpg image

So far all is as it would be in Win 10 but from here it all goes wrong as I get the following:

Screenshot.jpg (18.05 KiB) Viewed 7461 times

The box 'Save file' is always empty in Linux whereas in Win this box will show the filename to be "inserted". So, although I can navigate to the wanted folder and filename this box doesn't pick it up for some reason. I have tried having the image in various folders in various places but the result is the same.

I have tonight tried an uninstall/reinstall under Wine specifying Win7 in case I did something wrong before but there was no change.

You also wrote:

"Looking back at your original posting, the error message appears to be referring to the file "." which is a Unix shortcut to the current folder"

If you look closely at the error ("Media insert failed. Unable to copy file "".") you will see that it ends ""." or expanded (" " .")

Removing the first and last quotes gives you: Media insert failed. Unable to copy file "".

So you can see it represents a Null entry and not a . (dot) entry - sorry about the confusion.

This evening I have also tried to export a ged file and it fails, nothing at all is saved in the selected location. However, text changes made to my own project are saved - so now I'm really at a loss.

[tatewise]

That is really mysterious, because that box should be labelled Save File As: not Save File!
If it were truly blank then the Add button would request a name to be entered.
So how do you get the error message you posted originally?
What happens if you enter a filename in that box by hand?

Have you tried drag & drop or copy & paste to insert the Media file?
See how_to:copy_paste_and_drag_drop|> Copy & Paste and Drag & Drop under Handling Images.

Also that posted dialogue window looks very much like Windows XP style! Maybe that is standard for Wine?

Are you sure you are running Wine version 1.8.4?

Interestingly, saving your Project Gedcom file does not need a dialogue window, but everything else does, so maybe the problem lies with either the Wine or Linux graphical user interface.

Have you checked all the main dialogues such as Records, Diagram, Report, Query and Map windows?

I am disappointed that no Wine user has joined the debate.

[Valkrider]

Sorry Mike I am not a Wine user otherwise I would have commented. I have not seen any of these issues under Crossover on a Mac. Bearing in mind that Crossover is just a fancy wrapper around Wine I am surprised that the OP is having these problems.

[Valkrider]

I have just received a special offer from Crossover. For 24 hours they are doing 40% off Crossover for Linux or Mac. All you need to do is go to their site and buy it and during checkout use code 40for24 to get the discount. I am not affiliated with them in any way just am a happy user. It may be an option for the OP.

To see if it resolves the Wine issue the OP could try the free trial of Crossover and if it works then take advantage of the offer.

[electron1948]

Mike, I've finally got back to this and made some real progress. You asked:

"Have you tried drag & drop or copy & paste to insert the Media file?"

I have and FH freezes with a rubbish dialog box displayed

"Also that posted dialogue window looks very much like Windows XP style! Maybe that is standard for Wine?"

Perhaps, I'm still a bit of a newbie to Linux & Wine - trying to escape from Win10.

"Are you sure you are running Wine version 1.8.4?"

Now we are getting somewhere! My version was 1.6.x so I updated this evening to 1.8, not sure how to get to 1.8.4. Having done that I can now insert images in Linux as I can under Win, Hooray! The 'corrupt' dialog you commented on is still the same though.

"Have you checked all the main dialogues such as Records, Diagram, Report, Query and Map windows?"

No but I will now so as to see what else works or otherwise. Most /all of the display features of FH seem to work OK, it's only the file oriented things that fail. I'll try to update to 1.8.4 first though before trying everything else . It would appear that the Linux Mint repositories are long out of date and you need a 'non-newbie' method to obtain the newer versions - I will store that gem away.

Anyway, many thanks for all your thoughts, questions and help as they all pointed my in the right direction.

Thanks also to 'valkrider' who suggested Crossover. If Wine really doesn't cut the mustard I'll give that a try.

[mjashby]

Have just picked up on this thread and have tried to follow the issue you are experiencing with copying image files from within a WINE installation of Family Historian. Unfortunately, you didn't mention what navigation route you were taking to try to copy image files to your project when you get the mystery error message.

One possibility is that the error message you get may arise because, although you can navigate to; and see the file you want to copy, the application is then reporting that it doesn't understand the path to the file you want to copy. This is a reasonably common issue when using in Linux/BSD variants (which includes Mac OS X) when working in 'virtualised' environments and accessing 'external' virtualised shared network drives.

If you are navigating through your Folder structure using Family Historian, then you may have only tried working through the mapped C: Drive structure. This is be fine for most actions, but Linux can throw up path permissions issues with mapped Virtual Network Drives when you try to perform certain functions which require higher permission levels - you have to think of your WINE Family Historian Application as individual Windows like computer, with the rest of your system being a Linux Computer Network it is physically connected to - so, if you haven't already, try navigating to a file you want to copy via the Z: Network Drive instead of C: and see if you get a different result when you try to copy, or still receive the same error.

If you want more up to date releases of WINE the you can get them direct from https://www.winehq.org which also provides user documentation. 1.8.4 is the latest 'Stable' release, but there is also the Development strand, currently 1.9.18

One other option for Linux users is PlayOnLinux - https://www.playonlinux.com/en - which provides a 'front end' for WINE 'conversions, in a similar fashion to Crossover, but has its own learning curve to negotiate.