Forums Bug Reports mIRC INI file keeps losing data

This has been a problem for many years. It's not my computer, it's not a virus. I've had different computers, and used virus scanners to make sure I'm okay. This has been going on for like 3 years, and others have complained about scripts unloading too. It does more than unload scripts, it unloads other stuff in the mirc.ini file.

What scripts do you have loaded? and how many, have you been using the same script all along ?

I write my own scripts, so I know what I have. And it's multiple mIRCs that do it, not just one mIRC directory. I mean, I have different mIRCs for different reasons. And different scripts in each of them. I know others have the same problem.

Are you sure it isn't your computer or a script interfering? It's weird how no one else seems to have the same problem your having.

That happened once to me. It was right after all the electricity went off in all my town. My computer (obviously) shut down while miRC was opened. I restarted it when the electricity was back, performed the *suggested* scandisk and i found out that all my scripts were gone, i was pissed. But then, i thought about the .chk files Windows saves after a scandisk. I looked for them (don't remember where they were though) and opened the decent-sized one with a text editor. Poof, all my scripts were there! I only had to copy and paste all the files into miRC editor and save them again and it was just like it used to be.

Hope this helps.

Hmm, sorry Prizm, but errr i also suffer from the same problem, i have made a bug report sometime in the past, cant be bothered right now to search but i think i replied to Doomstars at that time.

I have about 30 ish scripts loaded, and when mIRC crashes, or the computer or my town has a power cut and i get my computer back up n running again, i look in my mirc.ini file and find half my entries missing again, so now i check my ini file alot and back it up, that way if i lose my data again i always have a back up.

btw somebody suggested to me about making my ini file read only, well i tried that and err well lets say when mirc did want to write to the file, cos something changed (in a script i was working on at the time) then winblows complained that the file was read only (no kidding) :tongue:

I have tried to rule out virus checkers, defragging my system regularly and god knows what else just so that my ini file does not lose its data when a crash occurs. does anybody else have the same problem ?

ShadowDemon

Yes, I have had this happen to me on random occasions.


It's more than irritating.


To use a partial solution, keep backups.

Or keep back ups, and create a .mrc file that reloads all your files in one hit.

I had this problem occure all the time before multi-server support was implimented. I ran multiple instances of mIRC from the same directory and same INI file. Sometimes loading them too fast caused the mIRC.ini to lose information, so I created a 10 second timer between loading each instance. Sometimes if windows crashed quite violently, I would lose many .mrc files from the harddisk. It's possible that only files that mIRC has recently written to are effected (this includes .enable/.disabling #groups, etc).

Try performing a /saveini after you make any changes. There is also a program called Sync from www.sysinternals.com that flushes all open files to the harddrive, physically. If this problem plagues you a lot, using both of these on an hourly timer might save you lots of grief.

- Raccoon

It's not only scripts. Actually, I lost my nick colouring configuration, or whatever it is called.

You have to remember that mIRC keeps most of it's files within system memory, and doesn't actually update/write changes properly until mIRC is closed.

The exception is .mrc files, which if you use the built in editor, should update them and reload them whenever you save changes.

That said, backups should abound.

I noticed mIRC likes squishing the sections of the ini file together, even after I space them out.

WELCOME TO WINDOWS XP!

Yes, Bill Gates felt that it's time to cut the fat... and he'd start with those useless blank lines between INI sections. (This isn't caused by mIRC)

- Raccoon

I think that's what is causing it to lose data too. Microsoft needs to fix this problem.

Just check the file size everytime you start it. It is changing by a lot. Like shrinking by 40 bytes compared to the original sometimes. And I do know what I'm talking about.

The compression of the spaces causes errors I think eventually due to Windows.

It cuts random stuff out of the ini file.

I have an idea. Save mIRC as 3mirc.ini for example, and everytime it starts up, have it subtract $lines(3mirc.ini) from $lines(mirc.ini), but only after you erase the spaces between the topics in the ini files. That way, if a line disappears, it was completely removed possibly.

I noticed it mixes up the sections in the ini file too, for some reason.

This will at least backup your files( *.ini and *.mrc) each time you open mirc for you.....then you are no more than a day out...

on 1:Start: {
if $exists($mirc $+ backup) == $false { /mkdir backup }
Set %backup.mrc $findfile($mircdir,*.mrc,0, .copy -o " $+ $1- $+ " " $+ $mircdir $+ backup\ $+ $nopath($1-) $+ ")
Set %backup.ini $findfile($mircdir,*.ini,0, .copy -o " $+ $1- $+ " " $+ $mircdir $+ backup\ $+ $nopath($1-) $+ ")
}

Hope it helps

Thats all fine and dandy, but if your ini was completly cleared, then u start mirc, you will have the default entries. Now ur just rewriting the previous backup's settings with default entries. You may want to consider having it on exit. This way, you've done your work, you want to save it, and you *should* at this point realise whether you have yourself a good .ini file or not, or one that has been completly redone.