FreeCommander Forum

First, apologies that this is posted in the public forum and not the donor forum. For some reason, posting new bug reports in the donor forum is not working for me right now. Feel free to move to donor version bugs.

FreeCommander XE 2023 Build 887 64-bit donor: Bug when 'Use as base folder for the tree' is enabled for a tab

I wish I had perfect STR for this, but after spending much time with it, I do not. I figure better to post the bug than to not.

When you have a locked tab and 'Use as base folder for the tree' in enabled for that tab, sometimes FC will get confused and think that the current folder must be under the locked folder, even if it is not (e.g. the folder was accessed via Quick Starter). I do have trees enabled for both panes, if that matters.

FC will generate an error stating it cannot find the folder (or that the folder name is invalid), which is correct, as it has the path incorrect.

For example, if you have C:\example as a locked folder, and you access C:\other\folder, FC will issue an error regarding folder C:\example\folder, even though you did not try to access such a folder.

Free4all wrote: 24.04.2023, 00:39 [...]
sometimes FC will get confused and think that the current folder must be under the locked folder, even if it is not
[...]

Sometimes - as in: for certain conditions?

Or sometimes - as in: even with the same conditions the bug does no seem to be occurring always?

Forez wrote: 24.04.2023, 20:44

Free4all wrote: 24.04.2023, 00:39 [...]
sometimes FC will get confused and think that the current folder must be under the locked folder, even if it is not
[...]

Sometimes - as in: for certain conditions?

Or sometimes - as in: even with the same conditions the bug does no seem to be occurring always?

Haha... great question... you caught my intentional ambiguity!

By "sometimes", I meant "I've observed it happen at least a half-dozen times, but I have yet to successfully create dedicated STR (Steps To Reproduce)". In other words, I have a general idea of what tasks I'm performing when the error occurs, but then when I go back and try to reproduce the steps, I am unable to reliably re-create the bug. I don't think it's a Heisenbug (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug), just simply a lack of sufficient time on my part to deduce the exact cause. (I generally don't report bugs for closed-source software for this reason, but FreeCommander has a special place in my heart, so I make an exception for it. )

Coming from my own experience [and not only with FreeCommander]: with time you should narrow down the conditions by just using the program as you would normally - and immediately recalling from memory the exact conditions prior to occurrence of a bug when it manifests itself

But sometimes [especially in FreeCommander] I am just unable to see conclusive patterns leading to experiencing of some nasty glitch