setup.exe enhancement request, proceed on error after logging error to setup.log

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-06-11 14:52, Keith Christian wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 12:39 PM Brian Inglis wrote:
>> On 2019-06-11 11:19, Achim Gratz wrote:
>>> Keith Christian writes:
>>>> Would the maintainers (Achim?  Jon?) be willing to consider an option
>>>> box log errors to the setup.log file and "Skip non-fatal errors and
>>>> continue?"
>>>
>>> You'd first have to teach setup to distinguish between fatal and
>>> non-fatal errors.  A missing package archive is always fatal as far as
>>> setup is concerned (how did that happen anyway?).
>>
>> A mirror update failure, an unsafe mirror update process, or the latter leading
>> to the former.

> Thanks for the feedback.
>
> Even if a file were missing that might cause issues in a few
> dependency chains, why not allow the install to continue?
>
> Suppose a file was missing halfway through?  Why stop the whole
> install for the sake of a few missing files?  Let the install continue
> for those packages that aren't missing files, write a message to the
> log, and put up a dialog after both the successful installs and the
> rebasing are done.  User clicks OK and uses Cygwin in its current
> state, or she/he restarts the install from a different mirror.  Pick
> up the missing files for the few packages and all done.
>
> This would ultimately save time and effort.
>
> Whatever the case, if a file is missing, setup will have to be run
> again to fix the problems, by pointing to another mirror, etc.
>
> Thanks for listening.

What it ultimately comes down to is this is a group of volunteers.
None of them want to have to try to explain or fix a broken setup on a user's
system caused by a broken mirror: they don't have the time.
So if there is any chance of setup breaking an install, setup will quit before
it does any damage.

Whether setup lets you know in a dialogue box or in a log file, that it upgraded
or failed to upgrade your installation, may depend on your install options.

Personally, I would be very happy if setup popped up the setup log at the end of
the run, if there were any issues. I have done this kind of results display in
Windows and Unix command line and GUI environments for user and developer tools:
launch a log viewer if there was a problem, launch an app if results are good.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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