Grasping at Straws - A Profile Gone Bad

[swvalley]

Ok - We have a teacher whose Activstudio just won't go. They have uninstalled, reinstalled; created a new profile for the computer not once, but twice; talked to tech support; prayed to all appropriate dieties and a few inappropriate dieties, but nothing works. I walked into the room and noticed that the icon for the teacher's flipcharts is different than what I see on my computer, and I'm wondering if this might be indicative of the problem (see images below). Good first, bad second.

http://www.Prometheanplanet.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=3649&stc=1&d=1233340612

Has anyone else had such a challenge? If you did, how did you resolve it? I've combed the forum and tried the suggestions from the greatest minds. My hope in posting this here is a conglomeration of these great minds both technical and teachers. Let's face it, we see things differently and the more eyes on this the sooner these students can benefit from this great instructor's use of Activstudio.

Please feel free to email me at svalley@lwsd.org

Thanks!
Sean

As a quick fix I have installed INSPIRE. This is NOT what we've spent an entire year training our teachers on however, so I'm hesitant to call that the solution, for now it's just a fix.

[Louise Chew]

Can they start studio?
Does the problem only occur when they try to open one of their flipcharts? If so, do they get a message when opening it?

If they use inspire can they open one of these flipcharts?

[swvalley]

Activstudio says it's open, but the toolbar is not available. I have deleted all the ini settings in order to restore the ability to see the toolbar, but nothing has worked.

These flipcharts have opened without incident in INSPIRE...

And one more twist (well, two in one)... the user has this same problem on EVERY computer she tries to use (yes, we're on a sizeable network), but when any other user is logged into the SAME computer it works fine. This is a profile specific problem and it's driving us NUTS :) :(

[LisaD]

Have no idea if this will help but I've had this happen before a couple of times (but maybe on my Mac.) The tool palette was there but not on the visible screen.

When I changed the resolution of my computer screen (to higher resolution), the palette was way off to one side. I moved it back towards the middle, then changed the resolution back to normal and there it was.

Just an idea.

Lisa

[Nigel Pearce]

Because Studio is running for others on this machine, then as you say it points to a problem of settings for the individual.
When this user is logged on, you should remove the following files from their \My Documents\Activstudio 3 folder:

as3settings3.ini
asprofilepath3.ini
codec.1

Then try running studio again.

This should place the program back to its default state for the user.

[swvalley]

Thank you Nigel,
This brings a new twist to the forefront... we've deleted everything, even to the point of giving the user a new profile (was bbutler - then bbutler1 - now bbutler2) and the problem still exists. On Monday I will ask the people who created the new profile if they created a new one or copied the old one to see if it's still hanging onto something.

I did receive an email today that she LOVES Inspire, the problem with that is that we've spent roughly a bajillion dollars training all 1500 teachers on V3 this year, and I'm scared that our nominal users are going to panic if we move to something so drastically different. I'm not opposed to people making their own Inspired choices, but for an enterprise roll-out, I don't think we're there right now.

[Westlake]

When this user is logged on, you should remove the following files from their \My Documents\Activstudio 3 folder:
as3settings3.ini
asprofilepath3.ini
codec.1
Then try running studio again.
This should place the program back to its default state for the user.
Would it be worth also deleting the .pfl files in that folder as well?
Hilary

[Nigel Pearce]

Good idea but deleting .pfl files won't make a difference. These files can only be loaded manually in the program using Main Menu > Customise > Profile > Open.

When the user logs on, is the system initialised from some default Window profile, or are you using something like RM Connect?
Does your user have an ADMIN.INI file in their Activstudio folder?
Does your user have some unusual display settings?
Has your user been using multiple monitors?

[saha]

Try deleting all registry files for activstudio.

[swvalley]

When the user logs on, is the system initialised from some default Window profile, or are you using something like RM Connect?
Each client has a Windows 2003 Active Directory Profile

Does your user have an ADMIN.INI file in their Activstudio folder?
No...we did a standard “out of the box” install

Does your user have some unusual display settings?
No

Has your user been using multiple monitors?
No…two types of set-up are being used…Desktop cpu with a flat screen OR standard monitor AND desktop cpu using a projector…but not dual monitors on the same machine.

I realize that at some point this may end with, "you really need to call tech support..." but I appreciate the effort and information from all involved.

[Nigel Pearce]

you really need to call tech support

[Nigel Pearce]

;)




Can you attach the following files from bbutlers Activstudio 3 folder...

as3settings3.ini
asprofilepath3.ini

I'll see if there is anything in them that might be causing the problem.

[swvalley]

Thanks Nigel,
I have embedded the files in the attached flipchart.

Sean

[swvalley]

An updated based on Nigel's interest in the INI files.

I opened the "bad" ASSettings.ini and compared it side by side with my file of the same name. There were references to the mapped drive for all three of the users profiles (original, first attempt to fix and second attempt). I also noted a variety of other differences between my working profile and the teacher’s non-working profile.

So, I took my settings and copied them into the teacher's ASSettings file, and converted all of the mapped drive settings from my mapped drive to the teachers’s mapped drive. I then pasted this new file into the teacher’s U:drive. When I tested it yesterday it did not work, but I did NOT restart the computer because she had other files open.

Today, I tested it on a board at the admin building and it worked. So I remotely accessed the teacher's presentation station and tested it, and it worked!

While the symptoms are gone, I don't feel comfortable that the disease has been eradicated. Any information on the settings that may shed light as to how this happened would be extremely beneficial!

[Nigel Pearce]

It would help if you could also provide me a copy of the working settings files.

[Nigel Pearce]

Further information which may explain the cause of the original problem at the top of this thread. (We're talking Windows only here).

Today I experienced a similar situation whereby Studio would run for one user but would lock up for another user (logged onto the same computer).

The problem was traced to a corrupt file: 'ASSettings3.ini' (in My Documents\Activstudio 3). Studio got locked up permanently trying to load settings and from the users perspective it never got past the splash screen.

So I thought that deleting this file would resolve the problem. But no.

Further investigation showed the real cause was a duplicate ASSettings3.ini located in the users temp folder here:

c:\documents and settings\username\local settings\temp\

So in this instance, in addition to clearing out the files in the folder "My Documents\Activstudio3" I also removed all the files from the users 'temp' folder.

This fixed the problem.

Hopefully this may help.