5 replies to this topic

[Jan Erik]

I to day wanted to update my December 08 Autopatcher for Win2k SP4.
It seemed to work well, but when I wanted to run it, I got an error message:

"Autopatcher is confused ...

It appears that the error ocurred while Autopatcher was trying to get a
file's MD5 hash.

Where: mdlReleaseIntegrity.getMD5HashFromFile()
Error code: Ox5: Invalid procedure call or argument"

So my December 08 Autopatcher was ruined ...

Luckily, I had a backup of October 08 Autpatcher, so I copied that out and updated it.
This one I had updated to December 08 without problems.

The same thing happened again!

Updating Autopatcher for WinXP did, however, work well.

PLEASE FIX!!

Edited by Jan Erik, 21 January 2009 - 09:46 PM.

[_def_x_]

Hi Jan Erik...

I can confirm the issue with 2K SP4 and I'm sure it will be taken care of soon.

-> "So my December 08 Autopatcher was ruined ..."
Not true, it likely is the latest 2K rti file has a wrong md5 for a given file and the rti needs an edit. AutoPatcher
wont load a module that doesn't pass - this is a good thing. The development team will look into it I'm sure.

The rest of your post puzzles me a bit and I wonder if you completely understand how APUP and AutoPatcher work?

AutoPatcher is meant to be updated regularly using APUP. If you have ran apup.exe in your 2K folder in the last 24 hrs,
you are updated with the latest files AutoPatcher has available to it. I know it may be a pain but the exe files are in the
folder, and just because AutoPatcher is giving you fits, you could still use the "Run" command to update your system
until the 2K issue is sorted out. If you haven't updated your PC in 3 months this could be rough. Normally it would only
be a few updates that need installation and this is easily done using "Run".

If, on the other hand APUP is giving you errors, then you need to be cautious with updating manually but it likely will
only be one file so simply avoid it and install the rest. In reality, you, like the rest of us have become spoiled with how
nice and easy AutoPatcher is for updating our computers and don't fancy the idea of using Microsoft Update - I agree.

But, comments like "PLEASE FIX!" are like yelling at the guys who do this for free for you and me, and if you would like
them to stay motivated I might suggest a better way of asking for help.

It is perfectly reasonable to archive an update say to an "iso" or "zip" to have a backup but the idea is to always have a
"working" AutoPatcher folder that is up-to-date, this is done by using APUP. You shouldn't have to re download - maybe
I'm not understanding your use of APUP and AutoPatcher.

One thing is for sure, you don't want to go months between updates on your AutoPatcher module, the scripts clean up
your folder structure as well as download new files, apup.exe is the tool thta runs the scripts.

Basically, I have just run APUP on my 2K module, it passes and looks good. Once the AutoPatcher issue is fixed, I will
re-run APUP, it will download the fixed rti (or whatever the problem), and AutoPatcher will load the 2K module without
issue - I hope this helps - sorry for the length I just don't know how to be short and to the point.

Mike

[James]

This issue has now been fixed.

gUiTaR_mIkE, on Jan 22 2009, 05:40 AM, said:

... -> "So my December 08 Autopatcher was ruined ..."
Not true, it likely is the latest 2K rti file has a wrong md5 for a given file and the rti needs an edit. AutoPatcher wont load a module that doesn't pass - this is a good thing. The development team will look into it I'm sure.

Almost exactly right, Mike! Due to a bug in the RTI file generation, the RTI file actually contained extra bytes that should not have been there. Understandably, autopatcher.exe did not know what to do with the extra bytes and so produced a Yikes! error dialog.

You are also correct in saying that the December (and also January) Autopatcher releases have not been "ruined".

A new RTI file has been uploaded and all that is needed now is to run APUP again.

gUiTaR_mIkE, on Jan 22 2009, 05:40 AM, said:

One thing is for sure, you don't want to go months between updates on your AutoPatcher module, the scripts clean up
your folder structure as well as download new files

Exactly! With the Conficker/Downadup worm spreading like wildfire you need to keep your computer up-to-date. APUP is designed to add and delete folders and files, but it will not update releases that are ancient history. See the APUP FAQ.


--

[_def_x_]

I re ran APUP on my 2K SP4 module and updated the rti with "no change" - still get Yikes!

The latest script, _2k_enu_0901b, seems to have the correct md5 for both the new "rti" and
the 7z, they both check.

I tried one last time by deleting the new rti and let APUP download it again - same result, rti passes
hash fine but doesn't remedy the Yikes!.

I'm not sure what exactly /devmode does but AutoPatcher doesn't budge when you hit Ignore, you simply
have to exit the program.

Mike

[James]

I will investigate this further, but I do not know what the new problem is, because I have run AutoPatcher on two separate Windows 2000 systems and for me it now works perfectly on both of them.

If anyone else is having the same difficulty, with autopatcher.exe stopping with a Yikes! error, you can work around the problem by:-
deleting the file 2k_sp4_enu.rti in the APUP folder.

Autopatcher will then be able to run, but the release will be shown as "Unofficial".

--

[Jan Erik]

Thanks!
You guys are really doing a great job! I didn’t mean to yell, I just felt annoyed that I thought my Autopatcher for December 2008 would be ruined. In fact I just confirmed that it now updated well and is OK.

I just finished reinstallation of Win2kSP4 in my laptop, which had been unused since October, and that is why I didn’t update Autopatcher in the meantime. But I did download actual updates from other sources, anyway, and Autopatcher confirmed that there is nothing new to install.

In my Desktop I have XP and have updated the Autopatcher for it without any problems.

Like everyone else I was very disappointed when the old Autopatcher had to be stopped and like everyone else I think that you did a really great work of creating a new Autopatcher, being one of the best things you can find in the Internet!

Jan Erik

Edited by Jan Erik, 23 January 2009 - 08:44 AM.