Inform crashes on linux when attempting to open my project

Authoring Inform 7
1

Basically what it says in the title. Inform just crashes when attempting to open a project I’ve started on Windows. Also looks like the IDE is not the same version of IDE that is on Windows (looks different and I’m not talking about the widgetset).

I’ve tried version on Flathub (which when starting a new project doesn’t show docs) and the version from the github (which at least shows the docs when starting new project), but both crash when attempting to open my project that I’ve started on Windows.

Again, it seems like it ships with outdated IDE (the old start screen instead of the “Welcome to Inform” screen that is on Windows) and that may be reason for the crash.

2

What kind of output do you get if you invoke it from the command line (so that you can see error reports)?

3

Nothing useful. Something about being unable to load gtk-something… but that also shows up when I start a brand new project which DOESN’T crash the IDE.

I think it may be something related to the differences between the Windows and Linux IDEs. Probably will try running Inform via wine next and see how it goes.

//edit: I’m on openSuSE Tumbleweed, by the way.

4

If I’m recalling correctly, the only crash-on-startup behavior I’ve ever seen occurs when there is a malformed extension file.

You could try temporarily moving all extensions to another folder to see if that lets startup complete. If you were recently working on one or more extensions, you could try just moving those at first.

5

But why it launches correctly if I click “start a new project” then? If extensions were the issue, it would not work either way. Besides, the very same project with the very same set of extensions, had worked on Windows flawlessly.

6

OK, I get it now; I didn’t quite understand the problem you were experiencing.

So… You created a project in the Windows IDE. Now you are trying to open that project in the Linux IDE. The Linux IDE crashes on startup when you try to do that. The Linux IDE does NOT crash on startup if you choose to create a new project.

Since you’ve said nothing about it, presumably the Linux IDE works if you try to compile a short test project in it.

Things to try:

  1. Copy only the story.ni file from the Windows project into the Source folder of a new project created in the Linux IDE. Will the Linux project open correctly?

  2. It’s possible that there’s some issue with Windows vs. Linux end-of-line handling. You could try running the individual files through a converter program.

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7

I didn’t try to compile a new project in Linux. And the problem is likely caused by Linux Inform 7 IDE not being the same as the Windows IDE. As in, it sees something Windows IDE put in but Linux one doesn’t understand or expects something to be there that isn’t being put out by Windows IDE, and I’m not talking about line endings.

Overall, the Linux IDE looks like it’s an old IDE, pre-Inform10.x instead of the new one that’s shipped on Windows.

8

Installed inform via Wine. It opens the project correctly, but crashes once I try to compile it (Go button). Most likely a Wine issue though.

Seems like the problem truly is the IDE with Windows one seemingly being a newer version than the Linux IDE. Someone please recompile the IDE to Linux so we have the most recent IDE on both platforms.

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