(Fixed) End process not flexible

[David]

Using 1.6.1 on OS X 10.6.8

I have just finished recovering a disk with ddrescueGUI and it has done a brilliant job.

However, I found the end process not very flexible. When it finished, it put up a dialogue saying all data had been recovered. Maybe this could be worded better because not all data was actually recovered. (I was thinking that was impressive!!)

However, this dialogue box is modal, ie, it did not allow me to go to the main window to find out how much data had been recovered. :-(

When I clicked Ok, up came another dialogue with three options: reset, mount and quit. The first would have obliterated the records of what had been done. The second I did not want to do because none of the filesystems were Mac native. And the third just quit the program.

A simple solution here would be to make the dialogues non-modal so I could still interact with the main window.

But I am not even sure that the dialogue is needed. The three options could easily appear in the main window or as menu items. Ideally, they would be greyed out until the recovery had finished.

Another issue concerns saving the log file. It asked me if I wanted to save it. I said yes and it put up a dialogue asking for the name. I typed in a name and set the location, but after it finished, I could not find the file anywhere. It was rather weird asking for a file name to save the log since it has to be specified before starting.

Anyway, just a couple of niggles in what was a fairly simple and successful process. Thanks.

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Hi,

Okay thanks, I shall look into these issues. The log that you save at the end is the GUI's log, not the recovery log. I will change the semantics for that dialogue.

Could you tell me how much was recovered then please? I'm not sure what went wrong in that case.

I'm glad it worked for you,

Hamish

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Hi,

Okay, after some more investigation, it seems that the whole contents of you disk should have been read, otherwise that message wouldn't have been displayed. Are you sure that the data hadn't been read?

I the next release, I will add a line to show how much data was recovered in that dialog, would that together with the other fix above fix your problem? :)

Hamish

[David (davidmorr)]

As far as I can tell, the whole disk was recovered. However, I could not see the summary results, showing how many errors there were and how much data was lost. This can be very useful information to give an idea how bad the disk was, and whether it is worth spending more time trying to recover it.

Displaying the relevant information in that dialogue would certainly help.

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Hi,

Okay, I shall do that in the next release.

Hamish

> On 27 Oct 2016, at 13:41, David <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> As far as I can tell, the whole disk was recovered. However, I could not
> see the summary results, showing how many errors there were and how much
> data was lost. This can be very useful information to give an idea how
> bad the disk was, and whether it is worth spending more time trying to
> recover it.
>
> Displaying the relevant information in that dialogue would certainly
> help.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a bug assignee.
> Matching subscriptions: hamishmb
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1635408
>
> Title:
> End process not flexible
>
> Status in DDRescue-GUI:
> Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> Using 1.6.1 on OS X 10.6.8
>
> I have just finished recovering a disk with ddrescueGUI and it has
> done a brilliant job.
>
> However, I found the end process not very flexible. When it finished,
> it put up a dialogue saying all data had been recovered. Maybe this
> could be worded better because not all data was actually recovered. (I
> was thinking that was impressive!!)
>
> However, this dialogue box is modal, ie, it did not allow me to go to
> the main window to find out how much data had been recovered. :-(
>
> When I clicked Ok, up came another dialogue with three options: reset,
> mount and quit. The first would have obliterated the records of what
> had been done. The second I did not want to do because none of the
> filesystems were Mac native. And the third just quit the program.
>
> A simple solution here would be to make the dialogues non-modal so I
> could still interact with the main window.
>
> But I am not even sure that the dialogue is needed. The three options
> could easily appear in the main window or as menu items. Ideally, they
> would be greyed out until the recovery had finished.
>
> Another issue concerns saving the log file. It asked me if I wanted to
> save it. I said yes and it put up a dialogue asking for the name. I
> typed in a name and set the location, but after it finished, I could
> not find the file anywhere. It was rather weird asking for a file name
> to save the log since it has to be specified before starting.
>
> Anyway, just a couple of niggles in what was a fairly simple and
> successful process. Thanks.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ddrescue-gui/+bug/1635408/+subscriptions

[David (davidmorr)]

I said in my original comment that I could not find the log file that I was asked in I wanted to save. I have now run ddrescueGUI again, and the same things happened. Only this time, I saved the log file with a distinct name. The file does not exist in the directory I saved it to, and Spotlight cannot find it anywhere on the disk.

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Hmm, okay, I'm not sure how this would happen because that part of the program is very simple, but I'll look at it. Are you sure the disk you saved it to is reliable? I did once have a weird SD card that appeared to work but ignored all writes without erroring, which meant weird things like what happened here kept happening to me, could it be something like that?

Hamish

[David (davidmorr)]

It was saved to a folder on the startup disk of the Mac, so should be
reliable. The only thing I can think of is that it has overwritten the
existing ddrecue log file, ie, not used the new name I gave it.

However, given that the log file from ddrescue is already there, does
this log file actually contain anything new?

On 18/11/16 8:28 , Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty wrote:
> Hmm, okay, I'm not sure how this would happen because that part of the
> program is very simple, but I'll look at it. Are you sure the disk you
> saved it to is reliable? I did once have a weird SD card that appeared
> to work but ignored all writes without erroring, which meant weird
> things like what happened here kept happening to me, could it be
> something like that?
>
> Hamish
>
> ** Changed in: ddrescue-gui
> Milestone: None => 1.6.1
>
> ** Changed in: ddrescue-gui
> Importance: Low => Medium
>

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

The log file that you save at the end is the DDRescue-GUI's log file and contains debugging information for DDRescue-GUI, not recovery information. The log file you specify before starting the recovery is ddrescue's log file, which is used to keep track of the recovery. If you overwrote ddrescue's log file with the GUI's log file as you suspect, it means you can no longer resume you r recovery from where you left off. Sorry about that, those semantics really need fixing!

Hamish

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Semantics fix committed to git repository.

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Showing recovered data on Finished Window committed to git repository.

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb)]

Fixed in v1.7