Hi all,
As you might know, a recent bug in Kdenlive's git master caused major data
loss to some users. I am deeply sorry about it and would like to provide
some details about what happened, why and what we did and plan about it.
1- what happened:
In Kdenlive, we sometimes manage a lot of temporary data. As I was working
on a new feature (timeline preview), it generated lots of temporary
rendered videos. So at some point, this data needs to be deleted. To do
this, I used a standard Qt class, QDir. However, if for some reason QDir is
not correctly initialized or an operation fails, it defaults to your home
directory. You can guess the end. As with many bugs, the error did not
trigger everytime, so when I tried it before committing, I did not realize
the possible problem.
2 - how could such stupid code be committed:
One of the reason it was committed is that I have been working too much in
the last weeks. Working on Kdenlive is great, but at some point I went too
far. Combined with my day job, I did not sleep enough and committed this
stupid mistake.
3 - what about the future, is it safe to use Kdenlive ?
As soon as I realized the extend of the problem, I commented out the
problematic code and deleted the PPA packages. Git master is safe now, as
is current kdenlive-master PPA built from the 26th of May :
kdenlive - 4:16.07.70+git201605260633~ubuntu16.04.1
Causing data loss on our users deeply affected me, and I think it should
also be a big reminder for everyone that using a daily built development
version from git is not safe, and that you must backup your data!
I will put a big warning now on the development version, and will discuss
with Vincent about possible changes in our PPA/development policy to help
prevent such problems.
I will also of course revise our temporary data handling to make sure such
a mistake does not happen twice.
So again, I send my sincere apologies and hope we can continue to move
forward in the next months.
_______________________________________________
kdenlive mailing list
[email protected]
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kdenlive
