Question

Hi, I am getting an error when I try to use the "More topic actions" button on certain topics.

It seems to be related to "grep"

Here is the actual Error Text:

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TWiki detected an internal error - please check your TWiki logs and webserver logs for more information.

c:path~1path -E -i -l -H -- %TOKEN|U% %FILES|F% Grep for '%META:TOPICPARENT[{].*name=\"(RasEngineering\.)?GrepWtfSandbox\".*[}]%' returned error

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This happens on only two of my 6 webs - coincidentally, I think that they were webs which were created and then renamed using the "Rename/Move" action.

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I am running TWiki version TWiki-4.2.0-rc2, Mon, 10 Dec 2007, build 15958, Plugin API version 1.2

Environment

-- MarkAKelley - 15 Apr 2008

Answer

Check if the paths to grep and egrep in configure point to the executables. Note this is an expert setting in the configure screen.

-- ArthurClemens - 15 Apr 2008

I checked these settings, and they appear to be correct. Moreover, this should result in similar failure on all webs in a site, correct? I am experiencing the problem on two out of six webs...

-- MarkAKelley - 16 Apr 2008

I remember now encountering this error because of wrong file permissions.

-- ArthurClemens - 16 Apr 2008

AHA! File permissions on what, specifically? The TWiki data files?

-- MarkAKelley - 16 Apr 2008

Check if all files in data are read/writable by the webserver.

-- ArthurClemens - 18 Apr 2008

I opened up the permissions on all files under the "twiki" structure - "Authenticated Users" now have Full Control. Still no luck :^(

Could this be an RCS problem?

-- MarkAKelley - 21 Apr 2008

This smells like a bug bug. We need to be able to reproduce it. Could you please:

• File a bug report (link provided in sidebar), and
• Find the page that causes the issue
• Append a raw=debug to the URL of that page (hit enter)
• Paste the first line to the bug topic. The first line with META:TOPICPARENT (when you paste, delete the leading and trailing percent sign since TWiki would interpret this as meta data)
• Let us also know what the old web name and new renamed web names are.

-- PeterThoeny - 23 Apr 2008

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Well, setting the RCS SearchAlgorithm to the 'PurePerl' implementation instead of the default 'Forking" algorithm fixed the problem...

I went ahead and filed a bug report anyway, here: http://develop.twiki.org/~twiki4/cgi-bin/view/Bugs/Item5564

The new web name is RasEngineering - I am not sure what it's original name was; as I renamed the web very soon after it was created (which is now several months ago). I should also add that TWiki did not exhibit this problem until fairly recently - I used "More Topic Actions" for quite a while with no problems, then BAM!

-- MarkAKelley - 23 Apr 2008

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Closing this question after more than 30 days of inactivity. Feel free to re-open if needed.

-- PeterThoeny - 03 Jun 2008

ok, I did some investigation into this - and I have solved some of the issues, but at least one cannot be solved.

Basically, Windows has a very braindead approach to quotes, square brackets and pipe symbols - if you make a twiki SEARCH that contains an odd number of " characters, I have not found a reliable way to escape them so that execing grep does not fail.

I've fixed (for 4.2.1) several other cases, including the use of [^] - but PurePerl or NativeSearchContrib are more reliable.

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Aug 2008

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