I7/Linux - problem running stories in Inform

Jaek · June 6, 2010, 3:34am

I’m having a small problem with the Linux build of Inform 7 (5Z71) running on Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. I’m not sure if this is already known but I’ve not been able to find anything about this.

If I have more than one Inform project open, I am unable to “run” the story file in any of them within Inform. The story compiles fine, but the Game tab remains blank (grey) as if the interpreter isn’t attempting to run.

If I only have one project open then it runs fine, and if I already have a story running and open another project then the first will stay running (though subsequent ones won’t run).

This isn’t a show-stopping problem but does take away some of the convenience for running a second story file to test things out. I can still just run the output.z5 file from the Build directory though.

Edit: Here are some steps which should make this more clear…

Open Project 1
Run Project 1 (story runs)
Open Project 2
Run Project 1 again (story still runs)
Run Project 2 (story will not run)
Run Project 1 again (story will not run)
Close Project 2
Run Project 1 again (story runs)

If anyone has heard of this before and know of a solution, any pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

lunasspecto · June 6, 2010, 6:49pm

I have this problem too, and I know of no solution. I have some other issues, too. Inform 7 tends to become slower and slower as I use it, for example, and it gets to be so that I have to wait a couple minutes after writing a sentence for it to appear in the source pane. And sometimes when I compile I get an error message telling me that translating the source failed for unknown reasons, and that I shouldn’t see that message even if my source text was “complete gibberish.” Simply compiling again usually works, though. I wonder if any of these problems have anything to do with the current package having been made for an earlier version of Ubuntu.

At this point, though, I’m hesitant to report these issues, because I know the next version of Inform 7 is undergoing finishing touches.

emshort · June 6, 2010, 7:01pm

I think I recall mention of some Linux slowdown problems, and that the IDE maintainer was looking into them.

There’s no harm in reporting these problems, though – the IDEs can be updated separately from the main build of Inform, so it’s not the case that this will necessarily hold up the imminent release.

bcressey · June 6, 2010, 7:39pm

If you launch Inform 7 from a Terminal window, it should print error messages there. Can you give that a try and see if anything useful appears? It won’t solve the problem but it may help pinpoint the issue.

lunasspecto · June 6, 2010, 7:41pm

Tried it just now. No messages in the terminal.

lunasspecto · June 6, 2010, 7:44pm

Uh, hang on. After I closed Inform 7, a bunch of stuff came up in the terminal.

This was after a few failed attempts to compile and run:

[code]lunasspecto@lunasspecto-laptop:~$ gnome-inform7

(gnome-inform7:2783): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_text_buffer_delete_mark: assertion `GTK_IS_TEXT_MARK (mark)’ failed

** (gnome-inform7:2783): CRITICAL **: gtk_terp_get_running: assertion `GTK_IS_TERP(terp)’ failed

(gnome-inform7:2783): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed

(gnome-inform7:2783): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: instance of invalid non-instantiatable type `’

(gnome-inform7:2783): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_emit_valist: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)’ failed

** (gnome-inform7:2783): CRITICAL **: gtk_terp_get_running: assertion `GTK_IS_TERP(terp)’ failed

** (gnome-inform7:2783): CRITICAL **: gtk_terp_get_running: assertion `GTK_IS_TERP(terp)’ failed[/code]

Jaek · June 6, 2010, 10:02pm

I was having a similar slowdown problem after a couple of minutes when cutting and pasting text, but turning off “use elastic tabstops” in the intelligence tab of the preferences fixed it for me.

I don’t get any messages when attempting to run the multiple stories, but I do get a similar set of error messages to the ones Kazuki posted when I quit Inform, and I’ve also noticed that the process doesn’t terminate in this case. When running just one story it exits cleanly with no messages and terminates properly.

Should we formally report them through the I7 site somewhere or are these posts sufficient?

emshort · June 6, 2010, 11:54pm

The best approach to reporting IDE bugs is to contact the IDE authors by email. In this case that would be Philip Chimento: pchimento at users dot sourceforge dot net .

farvardin · June 7, 2010, 2:08am

I have this too on Linux, I just think it’s just the Inform 7 IDE using an old version of Gargoyle/Garglk, I had this from the beginning (I mean from when it was using garglk), just click “stop” on the running story you don’t use right now and you’ll be able to run a second story.
Maybe it’ll be different in the new release?

Jaek · June 7, 2010, 11:10am

That does the trick, thanks!

I’ll see about sending a bug report to Philip.