I am developing an application using Apex 5 version. While installing a plugin called excel2collection from apex-plugin.com to shared components, the whole application is replaced with the plugin and now I don't see any pages or regions, it is replaced with same application number with different name. I couldn't figure out what went wrong.
The plugin download (it helps to reference the source - excel2collections on apex-plugin.com) contains a demo application (f101.sql) and the actual plugin. The plugin is a process type plugin, so it can not overwrite an application. You probably installed the demo application and replaced your own application with it.
First of all that should serve to warn you to be careful with what you do and install.
To get back your own application you only have a few options now.
Try to flashback your application through the export. Edit the
application, then go to Export/Import, choose Export. On the export
page, use the "As of" field to attempt to export the application as
it was x minutes ago (minutes!!).
It helps to read the help though, as you may run into a limitation.
Help on "As of" item on "Export" page:
Specify a time in minutes to go to back to for your export. This
option enables you to go back in time in your application, perhaps to
get back a deleted object. This utility uses the dbms_flashback
package. The timestamp to SCN (system change number) mapping is
refreshed approximately every 5 minutes, so you may have to wait that
long to get to the version you are looking for. The time undo
information is retained by the startup parameter undo_retention
(default 3 hrs), but this only influences the size of the undo
tablespace. While two databases may have the same undo_retention
parameter, you can go back much further in time on the database with
less transactions since the transactions are not filling the undo
tablespace, forcing older data to be archived.
If you cannot flashback far enough (or not at all...)...
Install a backup of your application. Maybe you took a recent export
of it.
roll back the database. Ask the DBA to restore the database to a
hopefully recent backup.
If none of these are an option you're out of luck and nothing can be done. Rebuild and pay attention in the future.
Related
We have a very strange issue. We have a large CF application that was originally written in CF9, upgraded to CF2016, then onto CF2021. There is a invoicing job that runs as a scheduled task everyday. This invoicing job does many steps (creates, checks, and pays) invoices. There are many components (functions) that are used during this process. We went live with this new server in late November of 2021 and since we have done that, the invoicing job has had issues about 4 or 5 times so far.
The errors I am seeing are usually something like:
Could not find the ColdFusion component or interface components/distributor.distribcontroller.
I say usually, because even the "missing" component changes and they are different each time.
I have checked every component for errors, so that should not be it and most days this invoice job runs fine.
CF2021 is running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, 4 CPU.4GB ram. other than this invoice job, application is fine (users never experience missing components)
I also do not use mappings, I have a custom mechanism where I set the compent path in a cfm file and use the "request" structure like: <cfset request.components.distributor = 'components/distributor'> in a file that gets included in the Application.cfc - its may not be ideal, but it is just the was it was build years ago and too much work to change it. (i think).
Any ideas? Any help would be appreciated.
I have a custom mechanism
Feels like a red flag. Especially since it uses the request structure.
How many CFCs are you dealing with? Would it be worth looking at WireBox to handle CFC configuration and creation? Might be overkill for the current issue, but worth looking into.
https://wirebox.ortusbooks.com/
Are you caching component paths? It may be that unchecking the component cache could address this issue.
You might post this issue over on the CFML Slack workspace. Some of the Adobe CF Engineers hang out there.
https://cfml.slack.com/
Signup: https://cfml-slack.herokuapp.com/
This question already exists, but it is over one year old now and a lot has probably happened if the documentation is a good judge. There is no documented path to migrate from current redmine (2.1) to chiliproject for example.
Chiliproject is a fork of redmine, but I am unable to decide wherever I should migrate or not. There is no clear path as to how I should do the migrations and how much functionality I might loose.
Is there a way to compare the differences between the two projects? Is it worth to spend the time investigating the migration path?
If you have migrated what is your experience?
I searched StackOverflow for the "redmine vs. chiliproject" question because I am having a lot of trouble with installing plugins of any kind on the newest chiliproject version.
Usually, it looks like everything is working fine until you try to update the settings for the plugin (for example, install the Contact Form plugin and try to change something on http://SERVER:3000/settings?tab=contact_form), the debug log shows that the changes were made in the database, but they changes are never loaded back to the plugin page.
I have not been ale to find any documentation on potential changes to the plugin architecture in ChiliProject that would cause this. The plugin page does not list many plugins that are known to work with ChiliProject 3 either.
TL;DR: If you think that you will have any desire to use any existing plugins to extend the functionality of the program you choose, go with Redmine.
I would love to hear ideas on how to best move code from development server to production server.
A list of gotcha's, don't do this list would be helpful.
Any tools to help automate the steps of.
Make backups of existing code, given these list of files
Record the Deployment of these files from dev to production
Allow easier rollback if deployment or app fails in any way...
I have never worked at a company that had a deployment process, other than a very manual, ftp files from dev to production.
What have you done in your companies, departments, etc?
Thank you...
Yes, I am a coldfusion programmer, but files are files, and this should be language agnostic question.
OK, I'll bite. There's the technology aspect of this problem, which other answers have already covered. But the real issue is a process problem. Where the real focus should be ensuring a meaningful software development life cycle (SDLC) - planning, development, validation, and deployment. I'll cover each in turn. What you want is a repeatable activity at each phase.
Planning
Articulating and recording what's to be delivered. Often tickets or user stories are enough. Sometimes you do more, like a written requirements document, that a customer signs off on, that's translated into various artifacts such as written use cases - ultimately what you want though is something recorded in an electronic system where you can associate changes to code with it. Which leads me to...
Development
Remember that electronic system? Good. Now when you make changes to code (you're committing to source control right?) you associate those change with something in this electronic system - typically tickets. I like Trac, but have also heard good things about Atlassian's suite. This gives you traceability. So you can assert what's been done and how. Then you can use this system and source control to create a build - all the bits needed for whatever's changed - and tag that build in source control - that's your list of what's changed. Even better, have a build contain everything, so that it's standalone entity that can easily be deployed on it's own. The build is then delivered for...
Validation
Perhaps the most important step that many shops ignore - at their own peril. Defects found in production are exponentially more expensive to fix then when they're discovered earlier in the process. And validation is often the only step where this occurs in many shops - so make sure yours does it.
This should not be done by the programmer! That's like the fox watching the hen house. And whoever is doing is should be following some sort of plan. We use Test Link. This means each build is validated the same way, so you can identify regression bugs. And, this build should be deployed in the same way as you would into production.
If all goes well (we usually need a minimum of 3 builds) the build is validated. And this goes to...
Deployment
This should be a non-event, because you're taking a validated build following the same steps as you did in testing. Could be first it hits a staging server, where there's an automated copying process, but the point being is that is shouldn't be an issue at this point, because you validated with the same process.
Conclusion
In terms of knowing what's where, what you really want is a logical way to group changes together. This is where the idea of a build comes in. It's really the unit that should segue between steps in the SDLC. If you already have that, then the ability to understand the state of a given system becomes trivial.
Check out Ant or Maven - these are build and deployment tools used in the Java world which can help you copy / ftp files, backup and even check out code from SVN.
You can automate your deployment steps using these tools, for example Ant will allow you declare a set of tasks as part of your deployment. So you could, for example:
Check out a revision using SVNAnt or similar to a directory
Copy (and perhaps zip first) these files to a backup directory
FTP all the files to your web server(s)
Create a report to email to the team illustrating the deployment
Really you can do almost anything you wish to put time into using Ant. Maven is a little more strucutred (and newer) and you can see a discussion of the differences here.
Hope that helps!
In a nutshell...
You should start with some source control solution - probably Subversion or Git. Once that's in place you can create a script that generates a clean build of your source code and deploys it to your production server(s).
You could do this with a simple batch script or use something like Ant for more control. Here is a simple example of a batch file using Subversion:
svn copy svn://path/to/your/project/trunk -r HEAD svn://path/to/your/project/tags/%version%
svn checkout svn://path/to/your/project/trunk -r HEAD //path/to/target/directory
Ant makes it easy to do things like automatically run unit tests and sync directories. For example:
<sync todir="//path/to/target/directory" includeEmptyDirs="true" overwrite="true">
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
<exclude name="**/*.svn"/>
<exclude name="**/test/"/>
</fileset>
</sync>
This is really just a starting point. A next step might be a continuous integration solution like Hudson. I would also recommend reading "Pragmatic Project Automation: How to Build, Deploy, and Monitor Java Applications".
One ColdFusion specific gotcha is to make sure you clear the Application scope when required (to update any singleton components). A common approach here is to use a URL parameter that causes onRequestStart() to call onApplicationStart(). You may also have to clear the trusted cache.
We use a system called AnthillPro: http://www.anthillpro.com
It's commercial software, but it allows us to completely automate our deployment process across multiple servers and operating systems (We currently use it for both ColdFusion and Java, but it can be used for most languages. It has a ton of 3rd party integrations:
http://www.anthillpro.com/html/products/anthillpro/tool-integrations.html
We would like to be able to create intermediate releases of our software that would time-bomb or expire after a certain fixed time or number of uses that would not easily be manipulated. We are using Visual C++ with mixed native and managed assemblies.
I imagine we may need to rely on a registry tag but this seems to be insecure.
Can anyone offer some advice on how to do this?
I was working on a "trial-ware" solution a while back and it used a combination of registry keys, information stored in a flat-file at a certain position surrounded with junk data, and then also had an option to reach out to a webservice that would verify it back with the software creators.
However, as FrustratedWithFormsDesigner stated, there is no 100% fool-proof way to do this. There is always a way that a hacker can get around whatever precautions you put in place.
If you are using a database for the application, then it might be better to store a install (datetime) and a numberofusers (int) and then make code that checks those fields when the program is starting / loading / initing. If they are past a certain number or time (this could also be in the db) then exit the program.
This is very hard if not impossible to do in a foolproof way. In any event, there's nothing to stop somebody removing and reinstalling the software (you do support that, right?).
If you cannot limit the function of these intermediate releases (a much better incentive for people to move to official bits), it might be more trouble than it's worth to implement such a scheme.
Set a variable to a specific date in the program then every time the program is run access the system date and check if that date is equal to or greater than the specified date. If true then start the expiry process and display a message or alert panel to the user.
Have the binary download a tiny bit of code on startup from one of your servers.
Keep track of the activation counter on the server, when the counter reaches the limit, return a piece of code that displays the 'sorry!' message.
You could deploy it as a ClickOnce application with a certificate that expires at a certain date. If I recall correctly, the app will err on startup after that date.
A couple caveats:
The only option for the user may be to uninstall the app, which is a jerk move.
You will end up maintaining a ton of different deployments.
It will be a shock to the user as it will just happen without warning.
Can anyone list the steps needed to programatically install an application on Windows. Aside from copying the files where they need to be, what are the additional steps needed so that your app will be a first-class citizen in Windows (i.e. show up in the programs list, uninstall list...etc.)
I tried to google this, but had no luck.
BTW: This is for an unmanaged c++ application (developed in Qt), so I'd rather not involve the .net framework if I don't have to.
I highly recommend NSIS. Open Source, very active development, and it's hard to match/beat its extensibility.
To add your program to the Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features) list, add the following reg keys:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\PROGRAM_NAME]
"DisplayName"="PROGRAM_NAME"
"Publisher"="COMPANY_NAME"
"UninstallString"="PATH_TO_UNINSTALL_PROGRAM"
"DisplayIcon"="PATH_TO_ICON_FILE"
"DisplayVersion"="VERSION"
"InstallLocation"="PATH_TO_INSTALLATION_LOCATION"
I think the theme to the answers you'll see here is that you should use an installation program and that you should not write the installer yourself. Use one of the many installer-makers, such as Inno Setup, InstallSheild, or anything else someone recommends.
If you try to write the installer yourself, you'll probably do it wrong. This isn't a slight against you personally. It's just that there are a lot of little details that an installer should consider, and a lot of things that can go wrong, and if you want to write the installer yourself, you're just going to have to get all those things right. That means lots of research and lots of testing on your part. Save yourself the trouble.
Besides copying files, installation tasks vary quite a bit depending on what your program needs. Maybe you need to put an icon on the Start menu; an installer tool should have a way to make that happen very easily, automatically filling in the install location that the customer chose earlier in the installation, and maybe even choosing the right local language for the shortcut's label.
You might need to create registry entries, such as for file associations or licensing. Your installer tool should already have an easy way to specify what keys and values to create or modify.
You might need to register a COM server. That's a common enough action that your installer tool probably has a way of specifying that as part of the post-file-copy operation.
If there are some actions that your chosen installer tool doesn't already provide for, the tool will probably offer a way to add custom actions, perhaps through a scripting language, or perhaps through linking external code from a DLL you would write that gets included with your installer. Custom actions might include downloading an update from a specific Web site, sending e-mail, or taking an inventory of what other products from your company are already installed.
A couple of final things that an installer tool should provide are ways to apply upgrades to an existing installation, and a way to uninstall the program, undoing all those installation tasks (deleting files, restoring backups, unregistering COM servers, etc.).
I've used Inno Setup to package my software for C++. It's very simple compared to heavy duty solutions such at InstallShield. Everything can be contained in a single setup.exe without creating all these crazy batch scripts and so on.
Check it out here: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
It sounds like you need to check out the Windows Installer system. If you need the nitty-gritty, see the official documentation. For news, read the installer team's blog. Finally, since you're a programmer, you probably want to build the installer as a programmer would. WiX 3.0 is my tool of choice - open source code, from Microsoft to boot. Start with this tutorial on WiX. It's good.
The GUI for innosetup (highly recommended) is Istool
You can also use the MSI installer built into Visual Studio, it's a steeper learning curve (ie is a pain) but is useful if you are installing software in a corporate environment.
To have your program show up in the Start program menu,
You would need to create folder
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs
and added a short cut to the program you want to launch.
(If you want your application be listed
directly in the Start menu, or in the programs submenu,
you would put your short cut in the respective directory)
To programically create a short cut you can use IShellLink
(See MSDN article).
Since you want to uninstall, that gets a lot more involved because you don't want to simply go deleting DLLs or other common files without checking dependencies.
I would recommend using a setup/installation generator, especially nowadays with Vista being so persnickety, it is getting rather complicated to roll your own installation
if you need anything more than a single executable and a start menu shortcut.
I have been using Paquet Builder setup generator for several years now.
(The registered version includes uninstall).
You've already got the main steps. One you left out is to install on the Start Menu and provide an option to create a desktop and/or quick launch icon.
I would encourage you to look into using a setup program, as suggested by Jeremy.