Jim, You shouldn't have to apologize for ANYTHING! We all owe you a huge debt for all of the time and effort you put in to your utility programs and databases. Thank you.
73, Mike W0VTT -----Original Message----- From: DX4WIN [mailto:dx4win-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Jim Reisert AD1C Sent: Thursday, 06 April, 2017 18:07 To: DX4WIN Reflector Cc: iz5...@gmail.com; wa3...@arrl.net; OZ0J Joe; Joe Reisert Subject: [Dx4win] DX4WIN Data Updater: UPDATE\dx4win.php is not a JSON fileerror Hi Folks, I finally figured out what's causing this error from the DX4WIN Data Updater. Only a few people have reported seeing it: UPDATE\dx4win.php is not a JSON file It means exactly what it says it means. Because it happened to me today, I was able to diagnose the problem. It's a long-ish story, but the executive summary is: 1. The Updater is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. 2. If you saw this error, you will not see it again. Leo, IZ5FSA maintains the 425 DX News calendar: http://www.425dxn.org/index.php?op=wcal He makes a version of this calendar available that can be used by DX4WIN. In the past, the calendar he provided was text-based. It looked something like this: 13/02/2016 00:00:00,21/02/2016 23:59:59,V31YN: Belize 13/02/2016 00:00:00,23/02/2016 23:59:59,5V7TH: Togo 13/02/2016 00:00:00,24/02/2016 23:59:59,XW4XR: Laos After the Updater downloaded the calendar, the user had to manually import it into DX4WIN. I believe the name was something like calendar.txt. Somewhere along the line, the name of the downloaded file became dx4win.php, but it was still in text format. Remember this for later. In early 2016, Leo began offering the calendar in JSON format. It was first used by version 8.01 of the DX4WIN Data Updater: "JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML." The calendar in JSON format was downloaded into a file called calendar.php, which was used by the DX4WIN Data Updater to update the calendar inside DX4WIN. The user no longer had to import it into DX4WIN by hand. Recently, Leo moved the calendar from his personal web server to the 425 DX News web server. In this process of this change, the name of the file that the Updater downloaded changed again, this time (back) to dx4win.php. This also resulted in the release of version 9.4 of the DX4WIN Data Updater. Here is where the problem occurs. People who used an earlier version of the DX4WIN Data Updater downloaded a text version of the calendar into a file named dx4win.php, which is stored in the UPDATE directory. Today, the Updater is downloading a file with this same name, but in JSON format, to a temporary directory. The Updater compares the old and new calendars to see if they are different. It compares the newly-downloaded calendar from the temporary directory, with the previous one that is in the UPDATE directory. If you were using an old version of the updater, you may have an old dx4win.php file in text format. So the Updater is trying to compare the new JSON-format calendar with the old TEXT-format calendar. This cause the pop-up error message. When the error occurs, the Updater decides the old calendar in the UPDATE directory is no good, and replaces it with the one it just downloaded. So the error will not occur again. Sorry for the inconvenience. At least I understand the problem now, and know that it is *not* with the 425 DX News website or the Updater. 73 - Jim AD1C -- Jim Reisert AD1C, <jjreis...@alum.mit.edu>, http://www.ad1c.us ______________________________________________________________ DX4WIN mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/dx4win Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:DX4WIN@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ DX4WIN mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/dx4win Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:DX4WIN@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html