PPM broken after installing ActivePerl 5.10.1 b1006

Today I uninstalled ActivePerl 5.8.9, then installed 5.10.1 build 1006.
Every time that I open PPM now, the PPM status bar shows "Install Area:
user", and PPM's MDI freezes until exited. When the Edit > Preferences menu
item is selected, an error message appears: "Install area 'user' does not
exist at C:/Perl/lib/ActivePerl/PPM/Client.pm line 215." Selecting Edit >
Preferences again brings up the preferences dialog, but it's stuck on the
"Areas" tab and won't allow any changes to the Install Area settings. The
"Areas" tab shows the "site" and "perl" areas, which are the only
installation areas I've ever used.

Is there some way to change the Install Area setting to "site" outside of
PPM, so that PPM will start with a correct Install Area setting and function
correctly?

Thank you,

-Brian


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RE: PPM broken after installing ActivePerl 5.10.1 b1006

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009, Brian H. Oak wrote:
> Today I uninstalled ActivePerl 5.8.9, then installed 5.10.1 build
> 1006. Every time that I open PPM now, the PPM status bar shows
> "Install Area: user", and PPM's MDI freezes until exited. When the
> Edit > Preferences menu item is selected, an error message appears:
> "Install area 'user' does not exist at
> C:/Perl/lib/ActivePerl/PPM/Client.pm line 215." Selecting Edit >
> Preferences again brings up the preferences dialog, but it's stuck on
> the "Areas" tab and won't allow any changes to the Install Area
> settings. The "Areas" tab shows the "site" and "perl" areas, which are
> the only installation areas I've ever used.
>
> Is there some way to change the Install Area setting to "site" outside
> of PPM, so that PPM will start with a correct Install Area setting and
> function correctly?

I have no idea why PPM is hanging just because an install area doesn't
exist, so I would be interested in getting enough information to be able
to reproduce this.

As for install areas, they are derived from the contents of @INC. So
beyond the builtin 'perl' and 'site' areas you can have other areas when
you add libraries via PERL5LIB environment variables, or via the
sitecustomize.pl script.

PPM will normally select the first writeable directory from the list
in @INC as the default install area. This is normally 'site' if you
haven't added any other directories.

So what does `perl -V` say about your @INC settings? Is there a non-existing
X:\foo\bar\user directory in there? This would still not explain the behavior
though, as PPM should just skip the non-existing directory (it is after all
not writeable by you) and select the next one.

Therefore the only other thing I can think of is that you installed
ActivePerl 5.10 on top of the old 5.8 directory without manually removing
the C:\Perl tree after uninstalling 5.8. This shouldn't really be necessary,
but it seems that sometimes the MSI installer will not install a new file
if there is some old content still around.

Cheers,
-Jan


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RE: PPM broken after installing ActivePerl 5.10.1 b1006

>From `perl -V`:
@INC:
C:/Perl/site/lib
C:/Perl/lib
.

C:\>perl -V:PERL5LIB
PERL5LIB='UNKNOWN';

sitecustomize.pl only contains one line:
# empty sitecustomize.pl file


After looking at the variable information above, I'm even more puzzled now
as to how PPM is fixating on a nonexistant 'user' Install Area. Your
description of how PPM is supposed to choose a default directory only adds
to the puzzle.

Before I even posted this issue to the list, I ran into a lot of problems
after trying to install 5.10 after only uninstalling 5.8 automatically. So
I uninstalled 5.10, wiped C:\Perl (after creating a backup), and reinstalled
5.10. I rebooted the computer between each major step. I have done this
three times now, but PPM still comes up looking for 'user', throwing the
same error, and freezing.

Thank you,

-Brian


-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Dubois [mailto:jand@activestate.com]
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 17:02
To: 'Brian H. Oak'; activeperl@listserv.ActiveState.com
Subject: RE: PPM broken after installing ActivePerl 5.10.1 b1006

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009, Brian H. Oak wrote:
> Today I uninstalled ActivePerl 5.8.9, then installed 5.10.1 build
> 1006. Every time that I open PPM now, the PPM status bar shows
> "Install Area: user", and PPM's MDI freezes until exited. When the
> Edit > Preferences menu item is selected, an error message appears:
> "Install area 'user' does not exist at
> C:/Perl/lib/ActivePerl/PPM/Client.pm line 215." Selecting Edit >
> Preferences again brings up the preferences dialog, but it's stuck on
> the "Areas" tab and won't allow any changes to the Install Area
> settings. The "Areas" tab shows the "site" and "perl" areas, which are
> the only installation areas I've ever used.
>
> Is there some way to change the Install Area setting to "site" outside
> of PPM, so that PPM will start with a correct Install Area setting and
> function correctly?

I have no idea why PPM is hanging just because an install area doesn't
exist, so I would be interested in getting enough information to be able
to reproduce this.

As for install areas, they are derived from the contents of @INC. So
beyond the builtin 'perl' and 'site' areas you can have other areas when
you add libraries via PERL5LIB environment variables, or via the
sitecustomize.pl script.

PPM will normally select the first writeable directory from the list
in @INC as the default install area. This is normally 'site' if you
haven't added any other directories.

So what does `perl -V` say about your @INC settings? Is there a
non-existing
X:\foo\bar\user directory in there? This would still not explain the
behavior
though, as PPM should just skip the non-existing directory (it is after all
not writeable by you) and select the next one.

Therefore the only other thing I can think of is that you installed
ActivePerl 5.10 on top of the old 5.8 directory without manually removing
the C:\Perl tree after uninstalling 5.8. This shouldn't really be
necessary,
but it seems that sometimes the MSI installer will not install a new file
if there is some old content still around.

Cheers,
-Jan


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