DTOcean Installation Solution

Sporadic Installation Issues Reported

Following the release of DTOcean (see DTOcean: An Introduction) a significant number of users reported issues with the installer crashing. This occurred after the main code installer had finished, when the hydrodynamic data installer fails to find the chosen installation directory.

Missing Registry Key

The symptom of this error is clear. The hydrodynamic data installer is looking for a registry key that contains the installation directory. This key should be written by a small script which is executed at the termination of the first installer. The registry key that should be written is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DTOcean, subkey INSTALL_DIR, however it is evident that this key was not written for those suffering this bug.

Uncertain Causes

It is currently not clear why the post-install script is not working for some systems whilst working for others. Some possibilities include:

• The script is failing. This could be from the commands not being recognised on certain systems (or within certain shells).
• The user does not have sufficient rights to either run the script or write to the registry
• Anti-virus software is blocking the execution of the script.

Without some logging from the script to see why it failed to execute properly, it’s hard to accurately diagnose the problem. To this end, I created an issue for Anaconda Constructor here.

Temporary Solution

As the post-install script is not working in all cases, to solve this issue the user must write the installation directory to the registry prior to installing DTOcean.

To facilitate this, I have written a batch script which, when executed, will prompt the user to enter the chosen directory.

The script can be downloaded using this link. Once extracted, double click the dtocean_pre_install.bat script and follow the prompts, as shown in the image above.

Note, that the directory entered in the pre-install script must match exactly the directory entered into the installer. Also, the installation directory must not exist prior to beginning the installation. If the directory exists following a failed installation, either attempt to uninstall or delete it manually.

This solution should allow the current version of DTOcean (1.0) to be installed while a more robust fix is developed for future releases.

Notes

• The top image is courtesy of Sterling Olson of Sandia National Labs
• Follow the related issue on Github: DTOcean/dtocean-issues#3
• Join the DTOcean mailing list