CKAN stops working immediately after launch with no code or anything

[RDambrosio016]

Background

CKAN Version:
bruce? 1.24.0 i think

KSP Version:
1.3.1 heavily modded

Operating System:
windows 10

Have you made any manual changes to your GameData folder (i.e., not via CKAN)?
yep its modded but i have tried moving my ksp folder out of steam and letting steam download a fresh one and tried to run ckan on that but that doesnt work too

Affected mods and mod versions:
ehhhhhhh ???????
all of them i guess

Problem

What steps did you take in CKAN?
put it into my ksp directory (1.3.1) (heavily modded)

launch it

What did you expect to happen?
launch normally lol

What happened instead?

ckan stops working immediately after launching it from inside the ksp directory, ive tried deleting the ckan folder but that doesnt do anything

IMMEDIATELY a windows error pops up saying "ckan has stopped working" then says close program

Screenshots:

CKAN error codes (if applicable):

[HebaruSan]

Which version of .NET do you have?

[RDambrosio016]

i have the latest one, 4.7.1 i think its the name

[RDambrosio016]

also one detail i forgot to add, i dont know if it makes a difference but i edited my paging file size to fix 100 disk usage

[HebaruSan]

OK, so far I'm not able to reproduce this. I tried putting the EXE in my GameData folder as you seem to have from the screenshot, and it launched normally. To solve this we'll need enough information for other people to be able to make it happen.

Can you detail exactly what you mean about the paging file size?

[RDambrosio016]

here it is, ill also give you a screenshot of the mods

[HebaruSan]

OK, thanks, I don't think that's the cause.

Can you please try running ckan ksp list in a cmd window and let us know what it says? You may have to "cd" to the directory where you saved ckan.exe for this to work.

[RDambrosio016]

[HebaruSan]

You need to "cd" to the directory where you saved ckan.exe for that to work.

[RDambrosio016]

oh so C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program/ckan
is that what it means?
sorry i dont know a lot about this

[HebaruSan]

Let's say you saved ckan.exe to your c:\Users\caval\Desktop folder. Then you could run:

cd Desktop
ckan ksp list

[RDambrosio016]

ok

[RDambrosio016]

[HebaruSan]

Thanks, that looks normal. How about this? It's the next thing the GUI tries to do when it starts up:

cd Desktop
ckan scan
ckan list

If the same problem happens, this might give us more information about it.

[RDambrosio016]

[RDambrosio016]

crashes when i do
ckan list too

[RDambrosio016]

the program doesnt like me

[HebaruSan]

OK, that helps to narrow down where the problem might be. Try this to hopefully get more output before it crashes:

cd Desktop
ckan scan --debug

[RDambrosio016]

[HebaruSan]

Aha, so it crashes when it tries to load this file!

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Kerbal Space Program\CKAN\registry.json

Can you please check whether that file exists? If so, try moving it to another folder. This would allow CKAN to attempt to recreate the file automatically next time it runs, and it would also allow us to inspect the file later to see what's wrong with it.

If it doesn't exist, then it may be a permissions problem with the containing CKAN folder.

[RDambrosio016]

nope it doesnt exist

[HebaruSan]

Is your disk full? CKAN needs to be able to create a 6 MB file in that folder, and it would not be able to continue if that fails.

[RDambrosio016]

no i have 1 tb left

[RDambrosio016]

nope

[RDambrosio016]

and nothing in downloads either

[RDambrosio016]

i guess this is a more complex problem than usual

[HebaruSan]

i guess this is a more complex problem than usual

Well it's certainly more obscure, as we typically get a stack trace. Something on your PC is stopping CKAN from creating a file, and we have to basically guess what it is.

Can you check your antivirus software to see if it has any log entries related to this file?

[RDambrosio016]

i dont have one, the windows default thing is pretty good

[RDambrosio016]

ill try adding ckan to my exclusions on windows defender but i dont know if it will make a difference

[RDambrosio016]

yeah no it doesnt seem like it does anything, i also tried running ckan as admin but that doesnt work either

[RDambrosio016]

[RDambrosio016]

one is allowed threats and one is quarantined threats

[HebaruSan]

@duckthecuck, if you can download this test version, there are now more debug messages around the point where you're having this problem. Could you please try running it with ckan scan --debug again and share the output?

[RDambrosio016]

oh wait my bad it was called ckan(3) so it didnt recognize it xD
these are the outputs

C:\Users\caval>cd desktop

C:\Users\caval\Desktop>ckan scan --debug
177 [1] INFO CKAN.CmdLine.CommonOptions (null) - Debug logging enabled
253 [1] DEBUG CKAN.KSP (null) - Checking if KSP is in my exe dir: C:\Users\caval\Desktop
270 [1] DEBUG CKAN.RegistryManager (null) - Preparing to load registry at c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN
271 [1] DEBUG CKAN.RegistryManager (null) - Checking for stale lock file at c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN\registry.locked
271 [1] DEBUG CKAN.RegistryManager (null) - Trying to create lock file: c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN\registry.locked
271 [1] DEBUG CKAN.RegistryManager (null) - Lock file created: c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN\registry.locked
272 [1] DEBUG CKAN.RegistryManager (null) - Trying to load registry from c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN\registry.json
273 [1] INFO CKAN.RegistryManager (null) - Creating new CKAN registry at c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN\registry.json

[HebaruSan]

And it "stopped working" right after that? Weird! That would narrow it down to this:

https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/blob/9343ddd2643d3cb17dfffa16d73c3c72b5f3da09/Core/Registry/RegistryManager.cs#L336

... since Save prints a message on its first line. Unfortunately that line doesn't do anything that could crash. I guess we could add more debugging statements to Registry.Empty...

[RDambrosio016]

yep it crashes like normal after it runs that

[RDambrosio016]

this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack except windows dyed the hay the same color as the needle

[politas]

@duckthecuck, have you ever run CKAN with administrative privileges? To be clear, I am NOT asking you to try this. If you have done it in the past, it could be relevant.

[RDambrosio016]

sorry for the late reply, yes i have tried after it stopped working a couple of times

[RDambrosio016]

ive "runned it as administrator"

[RDambrosio016]

so, what could be wrong with it?

[politas]

Not sure, but see if you can run CKAN on a fresh copy of KSP with no /CKAN folder and no mods installed.

[RDambrosio016]

I have tried that, getting a fresh copy of ksp on my pc, putting a new download of ckan in it and running it but it does the same exact thing

[politas]

Does it actually create a CKAN/registry.json file in the KSP instance?
What does ckan ksp list return?

[RDambrosio016]

nope it doesnt, here is what ckan ksp list returns:

Creating c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN/downloads
Creating c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program/CKAN/history
Name  Version     Default  Path
----  ----------  -------  ------------------------------------------------------------------
auto  1.3.1.1891  No       c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program

[RDambrosio016]

keep in mind this is on a realism overhaul folder but it returns the same stuff on a fresh install

[RDambrosio016]

and yeah it just doesnt create it at all

[politas]

Ok, so that's your original Steam copy of KSP. Now if you could copy that directory (c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program) to somewhere under your user directory in order to be free of weird Windows permissions issues, then run:
ckan ksp add new <path/of/copy>

And then launch CKAN. That should give you a Select KSP install dialog. Choose the "new" install and see if that works.

[RDambrosio016]

im not sure if i understand :), would u like me to take a new folder of ksp, move it to desktop or somewhere free of steam, and then run the command?

[RDambrosio016]

C:\Users\caval>cd desktop

C:\Users\caval\Desktop>ckan ksp add new <C:\Users\caval\Desktop\Kerbal Space Program>
The syntax of the command is incorrect.

:(

[RDambrosio016]

C:\Users\caval\Desktop>ckan ksp add new
add <name> <path> - argument missing, perhaps you forgot it?

i think its missing something, huh

[HebaruSan]

Don't use less-than and greater-than symbols ("<" and ">") in the command. Those do special things in a cmd window and will confuse it. Try quotes intead:

ckan ksp add new "C:\Users\caval\Desktop\Kerbal Space Program"

[RDambrosio016]

lmao sorry

[RDambrosio016]

[RDambrosio016]

i forgot to mension, this is the test version you gave me in a previous comment

[HebaruSan]

This honestly looks like a case of not having .NET installed. How did you confirm that you had it?

Oh, please get rid of the test version and install the latest release to make sure you have the newest changes. The test version is a bit old by now, which isn't likely to matter, but better safe than sorry.

[RDambrosio016]

ok, i have installed the latest .net, is there any way to see if it is installed?

[RDambrosio016]

yeah no even with latest on a new 1.4 download it crashes

[RDambrosio016]

i do have .net installed

[RDambrosio016]

cant download astronomers visual pack for rss cause ckan bronk feelsbadman, hope windows stops beign a cuck

[politas]

After that last incoherent message, I'm tempted to just close this issue

[RDambrosio016]

yikes this is old