Re: Please report this problem to the public mailing list...

[cyg Simple <cygsimple@gmail.com>]

On 1/24/2017 3:27 PM, Brian Inglis wrote:
> On 2017-01-24 12:53, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> On Jan 24 20:50, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>> On Jan 24 10:32, cyg Simple wrote:
>>>> On 1/24/2017 10:21 AM, Nellis, Kenneth (Conduent) wrote:
>>>>> We have received several postings of people responding to the
>>>>> Cygwin-generated message: WARNING: ... Please report this
>>>>> problem to the public mailing list cygwin@cygwin.com.
>>>>> I wonder how many places such messages are present in the
>>>>> Cygwin code. Just throwing out an idea here to help people help
>>>>> themselves...
>>>>> Consider all such messages carrying an error code and referred
>>>>> to a Cygwin web page that contained links to separate pages for
>>>>> each error code, and those pages, then, would contain the
>>>>> latest information as to how to recover from the respective
>>>>> errors.
>>>> Great idea.  I can see this
>>>>> Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
>>>> being referenced instead of the mail list which the person may
>>>> not be subscribed to. Care to present a patch to the web page?
>>>> And we need a patch to the text parts of Cygwin to point to the
>>>> web page.
>>> If somebody cares to write a patch for a new FAQ entry, I change
>>> the Cygwin source to point it out.
>>> On second thought, Cygwin should probably simple tell the user to
>>> update the outdated Cygwin installation instead.
>> Oh, wait.  The current text already *is*:
>> Cygwin WARNING:
>> Couldn't compute FAST_CWD pointer. This typically occurs if you're
>> using an older Cygwin version on a newer Windows. Please update to
>> the latest available Cygwin version from https://cygwin.com/. If the
>> problem persists, please see https://cygwin.com/problems.html
>> However, this doesn't help with very old and 3PP installations.
> 
> Seems to me most of those messages are generated by third party apps 
> installing a(n old) version of Cygwin without any update instructions, 
> or consideration that while *their* app may not need updated when the 
> system is patched, Cygwin may (*cough* "Windows" BitKeeper *cough*). 
> Users should be suspicious when a vendor app tells them to report 
> problems to "some other folks" who are not the vendor: they should 
> take it as a warning that the vendor disclaims all responsibility 
> for their own choice of infrastructure, and call up and blast the 
> vendor's management! ;^>
> 

Maybe the warning should point out the full path to the cygwin1.dll file
having the issue?  Of course this won't solve prior versions but then we
can't do that regardless of the patch.

-- 
cyg Simple

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