Expansion Installation Issue

[Casey Kolb]

@d-healey Yeah, but Macs at least know what a zip file is when you're downloading. It does seem safer, especially considering that things can get corrupted if they're not zipped, and if you're using Dropbox or other platforms to share with beta testers.

[A Former User]

Not sure if they're related but a Windows user just informed me that the expansion installer gets stuck at 0% for them... Master branch

[d.healey]

@iamlamprey Unrelated I think, test on develop branch

[A Former User]

@d-healey Yeh it was unrelated, just following up here in case someone else has something similar happen -> run Ableton as an Admin :)

[Casey Kolb]

Ok so after testing this and code signing / notarizing my apps and installers, this is still an issue I can't resolve. It won't install expansions on certain Macs unless the Samples folder has Write permissions for "Everyone", even if I use setReadOnly(false) for the Samples folder.

@Christoph-Hart Any thoughts on this?

[DanH]

@Casey-Kolb I have users getting stuck on the install too, across Win and Mac... Did you get to the bottom of this? I can't recreate the problems here so its super tricky to know what's going wrong!

[Casey Kolb]

@DanH Yes, we figured out that you need to install the samples to the default Expansions folder within the AppData folder to ensure your plugin has the right permissions for unpacking the samples. Basically, your plugin won't be able to write to a lot of directories on the OS because the folders may be read-only for the plugin. I'd recommend not even giving the user a choice for where to install the samples, and if they need to move the samples, they can always move them to their samples folder manually.

[DanH]

@Casey-Kolb great, thanks for letting me know! Did you run the install within the plugin or with a .pkg?

And no problems on Windows then?

[Casey Kolb]

@DanH It's currently installed within the plugin, but honestly a .pkg makes a lot more sense. We do have license keys for expansions though, so it's a bit tricky. It would certainly be faster with a .pkg file

[d.healey]

Might be relevant to this thread...

I've just added a File.hasWriteAccess() script wrapper function so you can verify if a directory selected by the user is writable and prompt them for another location if it isn't.

[bendurso]

Is there some way to give permissions to the plugin to install samples in a custom location now? Or still the better option is to install the samples in the appdata folder?

[d.healey]

You should ask the user where they want to install the samples. The built in expansion installer does this I think.

[bendurso]

@d-healey Oh I know. But I was asking because of this:

@Casey-Kolb said in Expansion Installation Issue:

Yes, we figured out that you need to install the samples to the default Expansions folder within the AppData folder to ensure your plugin has the right permissions for unpacking the samples. Basically, your plugin won't be able to write to a lot of directories on the OS because the folders may be read-only for the plugin. I'd recommend not even giving the user a choice for where to install the samples, and if they need to move the samples, they can always move them to their samples folder manually.

[d.healey]

@bendurso Try it, I haven't ran into any issues but these days I'm using my own HISE based installer. If you're writing your own installer you can check that the user has write permission for the selected folder.

You definitely don't want to install to the app data folder though, unless you only have a tiny amount of samples, maybe < 100MB.

[bendurso]

@d-healey It semms to work ok on my mac, but I think I should test it with more macs.

You definitely don't want to install to the app data folder though, unless you only have a tiny amount of samples, maybe < 100MB.

That makes sense. But if the library is big, the user could change the sample folder after installing it.

[d.healey]

@bendurso What happens if they don't have enough room on their system drive during installation?

[bendurso]

@d-healey That's a good point. Well, bad luck for the user, lol

[Lindon]

@bendurso said in Expansion Installation Issue:

@d-healey That's a good point. Well, bad luck for the user, lol

hmm, avoid installing in any system folder if I were you...

[bendurso]

@Lindon nice, thanks! Yes, I think I'll go with a custom folder and warn them if the directory isn't writable.