MalaLauncher not working

[system01]

After hours and hours of searching for something to load apps on startup without explorer.exe I found TheShanMan's MalaLauncher.

I cant get it to do anything.  The readme says that I might have to put the msvc files in bot the mala folder or the plugins folder; Ive put them in both and no-go.  I dont have anything in the Plugins tab, I dont have any logfiles or errors.  Its as if I did nothing at all.

What Im actually trying to do is start CPWizard in resident mode when I shell to mala.

I tried this with the new mala106be and also 105.

TIA

[TheShanMan]

Just to be sure, there is a file called malalauncher.mplugin in the plugins directory, right?

I've never checked this myself, but I'd guess the mala log file should show something about trying to load the plugin. Does it? If so, could you post what it says here?

Also, you could try putting some other plugin in the plugins directory and see if that plugin loads properly, and let me know about that too (if other plugins don't load then obviously that would be a mala issue, and maybe the mala log file would help with that, or someone else here could).

[dungbeetle46]

you dont need to set anything in mala, just install cpwizard, point all the inputs in cpwizard to your mame directorys.
now start mala
start a game and press p
the cpwizard menu will open
left control or P1 Button1 will select an option and escape will exit back to menu.

[TheShanMan]

He's trying to get cpwizard to start at bootup with mala as the shell. That's why there is something to set up in mala: he wants to use malalauncher to start cpwizard since windows will only do it if explorer is the shell.

[system01]

2008/09/28  09:18:03.53   Info: Starting MaLa 1.0.6.5
2008/09/28  09:18:03.54   Info: Check plugin directory: L:\Theme\plugins
2008/09/28  09:18:03.54   Info: Collecting event plugins (*.mplugin) in L:\Theme\plugins\
2008/09/28  09:18:03.57   Info: Found event plugin MaLaLauncher.mplugin
2008/09/28  09:18:03.57   Error: Could not load plugin: L:\Theme\plugins\MaLaLauncher.mplugin
2008/09/28  09:18:03.59   Info: Found event plugin MatureAlarm.mplugin
2008/09/28  09:18:03.64   Info: Event plugin MatureAlarm.mplugin loaded
2008/09/28  09:18:03.64   Info: Function: PluginName found
2008/09/28  09:18:03.64   Info: Function: PluginCopyright found

Please excuse my retarded paths, this is my test setup.

@dung - I have CPWizard running perfectly.  Im shelling to Mala so windows is unable to start things in the startup folder.  As it stands, I start the machine with MaLa, F4 out and start explorer.exe, start CPW minimized, then restart MaLa.  PITA!

Thx Shan

[TheShanMan]

An awesome tool for tracking problems like this down is called Process Monitor from www.sysinternals.com (it's a free download). If you could download that, and add an "exclude" filter "process name is not mala.exe" (otherwise you're going to log an ungodly amount of file accesses and other stuff). Then start mala and when it is done loading, go back to Process Monitor and turn off Capture Events from the file menu. You will probably have 10,000 or so lines of output (I have 17,000 from the run I just did). Then search for .mplugin. When you get to the malalauncher.mplugin line, look at the subsequent lines. There are probably are some lines regarding the msvc files that don't say SUCCESS. Could you select the whole range of lines starting with the first malalauncher.mplugin line all the way to where it looks like mala is moving on to something else (in my case I see it moves on to trying to load malakeyhook.dll). Copy those selected lines to the clipboard and post them here.

My bet is that the problem you're experiencing will be evident from these lines.

[dungbeetle46]

now I get what your trying to do

just been fooling with this and got it to work fine, I was just wondering if you have the .mplugin file in the plugins folder ie:mala/plugins  or is it where it unzipped to ie:mala/plugins/plugins because it doesnt work there.

[system01]

I think I got far enough, if not, let me know.  Im not good with understanding this stuff.

[loadman]

Just to be sure, there is a file called malalauncher.mplugin in the plugins directory, right?

I've never checked this myself, but I'd guess the mala log file should show something about trying to load the plugin. Does it? If so, could you post what it says here?

Also, you could try putting some other plugin in the plugins directory and see if that plugin loads properly, and let me know about that too (if other plugins don't load then obviously that would be a mala issue, and maybe the mala log file would help with that, or someone else here could).

FYI

When you experienced your 'out of focus' moments in the past.
- Are you using mouse/trackball?
- Did the layout contain videos?

[TheShanMan]

Sorry, I realize now I didn't provide good enough info. If you could re-run the steps I provided, but after it captures all of that data, search for *.mplugin. That should appear on a line that says QueryDirectory. After that, you should find some references to malalauncher.mplugin. This is where mala is loading the plugin. There will be some lines that relate to windows trying to load dll's needed by the plugin, and it is here where I'm suspecting some errors will exist. What I see is mostly SUCCESS lines with a few NAME NOT FOUND lines. Let me provide you with the relevant lines from my run, so you can get a clearer picture of what I'm looking for (though yours will undoubtedly differ somewhat since you're having trouble).

[TheShanMan]

FYI

When you experienced your 'out of focus' moments in the past.
- Are you using mouse/trackball?
- Did the layout contain videos?

Loadman, this would appear to be quite a thread hijack! Did you post to the wrong thread or something? No idea how this relates to this thread.

[system01]

loadman, You fixed it!  Super quick turnaround!

...not really 

[loadman]

FYI

When you experienced your 'out of focus' moments in the past.
- Are you using mouse/trackball?
- Did the layout contain videos?

Loadman, this would appear to be quite a thread hijack! Did you post to the wrong thread or something? No idea how this relates to this thread.

Check out the name badge boy 'Moderator'  
Licensee to Hijack..

(JOKE)

You are probably right. I was just thinking about your plug-in and why MaLa loses focus.

Sorry.  If you could give me some clues on how to get MaLa to loose focus on another thread that would b good. Alternativley I can send you a version of mala with more logging about when it attempts to gain focus so we can figure this one out  

loadman, You fixed it!  Super quick turnaround!
...not really 

What did I fix?

[system01]

OK, heres the entire thing from load to exit.  This is my entire output filtering MaLa 106be.exe.   I looked for your specific line but couldnt quit find it.  Bear with me here...

51960 is where things get loaded, but theres no mention again til the 52633 area.

BTW: I rescanned this again so the number are different.

<edit>  uhhh, didnt attach.

[system01]

loadman, You fixed it!  Super quick turnaround!
...not really 

What did I fix?

oh, did I say TURNaraound?

[TheShanMan]

OK, heres the entire thing from load to exit.  This is my entire output filtering MaLa 106be.exe.   I looked for your specific line but couldnt quit find it.  Bear with me here...

51960 is where things get loaded, but theres no mention again til the 52633 area.

BTW: I rescanned this again so the number are different.

<edit>  uhhh, didnt attach.

Hmmm. Are you sure you grabbed ALL the output? Did you select all the lines? It looks like there should be a lot more. If you did, maybe the filters are set to filter too much. If the output you provided really is all you saw in process monitor, maybe you could save your filters and post that?

Check out the name badge boy 'Moderator'  
Licensee to Hijack..

(JOKE)

You are probably right. I was just thinking about your plug-in and why MaLa loses focus.

Sorry.  If you could give me some clues on how to get MaLa to loose focus on another thread that would b good. Alternativley I can send you a version of mala with more logging about when it attempts to gain focus so we can figure this one out  

I'd be glad to help, but when I experienced the problem (prior to writing my focus plugin, which is an effective workaround for me), it was intermittent and uncommon enough to make it hard to figure out a way to reproduce it, or figure out the cause. If you have a build that will log relevant info, I'd be glad to turn off my plugin and see if I can get it to happen for you. I wouldn't be unhappy if I could stop using my plugin.

[loadman]

I'd be glad to help, but when I experienced the problem (prior to writing my focus plugin, which is an effective workaround for me), it was intermittent and uncommon enough to make it hard to figure out a way to reproduce it, or figure out the cause. If you have a build that will log relevant info, I'd be glad to turn off my plugin and see if I can get it to happen for you. I wouldn't be unhappy if I could stop using my plugin.

Yeah that would be good. 

I have a gut feeling it is Video engine related. I am finding that Delphi video component it is the cause of instability generally for MaLa. That is the first thing that I will replace for Version 2.0 (some time in the future    )

I will let you know when I have a version with heavy logging regarding focus etc. Thanks in advance.

[DP Louie]

I have Mala shelled on my horizontal cab, and it runs CPWiz from a program called RunAsSvc:

http://www.pirmasoft.com/runassvc.php

It's free and it works great, very easy to use, just run it and choose CPWiz (or any other program you want to load at startup) and it runs these as a windows service.  Works great on my cab - it boots to Mala via the shell, and CPWiz is minimized and ready to roll.  No focus issues (knock on wood!).  Give it a try.   

[TheShanMan]

Yep. That is another option (I used to use it in fact). You have to make sure you set the service to interact with desktop.

Back to my plugin though, I would prefer to get this issue figured out and solved, but if you're growing tired of trying to get it to work you could just install Microsoft's redistributable package from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9B2DA534-3E03-4391-8A4D-074B9F2BC1BF&displaylang=en

[system01]

Sorry I didnt get back sooner.  I was going to post from work this morning, but as it turns out it works flawlessly on that machine.

So I did another scan and theres a lot more this time.  Maybe I quit MaLa too fast the first time?

The last mention of mplugins is at 182712, and the last Launcher is mention is at 180747 (In the whole report).

Better?

[TheShanMan]

Very strange. There are no lines there relating to the loading of the msvc dll's that it depends on. It's almost like for some reason it decided not to load the plugin before it even got to that point, though it's totally unclear why.

I'm at a loss and I'm not sure what else to suggest so let's resort to installing the redistributable package from microsoft that I linked before. It basically installs the same dll's (and probably some others as well) in a more globally available way (at which point the extra dll's that my plugin comes with are no longer required within the mala directory). Let me know if that works. Thanks for patiently trying my suggestions!

[system01]

I'm at a loss and I'm not sure what else to suggest so let's resort to installing the redistributable package from microsoft that I linked before. It basically installs the same dll's (and probably some others as well) in a more globally available way (at which point the extra dll's that my plugin comes with are no longer required within the mala directory). Let me know if that works. Thanks for patiently trying my suggestions!

Works perfectly.

If youre bent on getting this resolved, Im more than happy to keep trying.  I just need your patience on sorting through these logs when I dont know what Im looking for.

Thx for all the help.

[TheShanMan]

Glad it's working for you. At this point I'll leave it at that, unless I can think of anything else to try. Thanks for offering though.