Problems after installing Ruby In Steel for Visual Studio 2008

[rkarner]

Our company (Husky) has been using Ruby In Steel for a while now.  Yesterday I tried to upgrade my machine to (Windows XP Pro) to the version of Ruby In Steel for VS 2008 (01.02.0375).   Everything seemed to go smoothly with the installation except for the following problem:

When I open a ruby file that I want to run and press CTRL F5 the ruby console area does not show any output.  When I run the file in debug mode (F5) I can put breakpoints in and I hit the breakpoints but still no output in the console window.  When I push the button to run IRB the window opens but I don't get the IRB prompt and my commands are not accepted.  I can however shell out to the command prompt and my ruby file will run and I see the expected output.  From that prompt I can also get into IRB and it works as expected.

Other people in our group did the same upgrade and everything worked ok.  I also tried installing the VS 2005 version (I have VS 2005 and VS 2008 installed on the same box) and it had the same problem.  I also tried installing the previous version of Ruby In Steel that used to work and it also had the same problem.

Any idea what the problem might be?

[Dermot]

Strange ...

Which version of Ruby do you have? Also, where is it installed on your machine?

In addition, have a look in the Output (General) window to see if there are any diagnostic messages. You should see something like this (debug):

Starting process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe'
  arguments '/C ""C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger\debug.bat" "c:\Program Files\ruby\bin\ruby.exe"  -I"C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger" -r"C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger\steelcylon.rb" "C:\Temp\Ruby5\Ruby5\rubyfile.rb" "'

or (no debug)

Starting process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe'
  arguments '/C ""c:\Program Files\ruby\bin\ruby.exe"  -r"C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger\sync.rb" "C:\Temp\Ruby5\Ruby5\rubyfile.rb" "'

Also, try a very simple program:

puts "hello"

to see if it's your program that's causing the trouble.

Dermot

[rkarner]

I am running ruby version 1.8.6 installed to c:\Program Files\ruby folder.

Here is output from the text from the output window I get.  The last one is just a 1 line program puts "Hello" and still no console output.  If I go to command prompt and run the same program I get the expected output.

IntelliSense library base.rbp read
IntelliSense library rails.rbp read
Starting process 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe'
  arguments '/C ""C:\Program Files\ruby\bin\ruby.exe"  -r"C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger\sync.rb" -I"C:\Program Files\ruby\lib" "D:\BOLTFS\HmiReArchitecture\Dev\Trunk\ProductionSystem\DslLib\ts_All.rb" "'
Starting process 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe'
  arguments '/C ""C:\Program Files\ruby\bin\ruby.exe"  -r"C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger\sync.rb" -I"C:\Program Files\ruby\lib" "D:\BOLTFS\HmiReArchitecture\Dev\Trunk\ProductionSystem\DslLib\ts_All.rb" "'
Starting process 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe'
  arguments '/C ""C:\Program Files\ruby\bin\ruby.exe"  -r"C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Debugger\sync.rb" -I"C:\Program Files\ruby\lib" "D:\BOLTFS\HmiReArchitecture\Dev\Trunk\ProductionSystem\DslLib\TestRka.rb" "'

[Dermot]

We've had a think (we've not seen this one before) ...

The fact that you can hit breakpoints shows that the communication channels (pipes) between Ruby and the IDE are working. Data is being sent back to the IDE and interpreted correctly. It seems that the data from Ruby is not being displayed or is not visible in the consoles for some reason.

It's possible that the color schemes might be screwed up in the consoles (that is you are getting black text on a black background). First see if the IRB console color scheme is ok. Open Tools|Options|Font and Colors and select 'IRB Console' from the 'Show settings for:' drop down. Set the forground to white text and the background to black. Bring up the IRB console and type some text. Type CTRL-A to select it. Does that display anything?

Another test is just to type some text in the Ruby Console window. You should see it reflected back even though it wont do anything. After typing something, type CTRL-A to select all the text and try pasting it into Notepad. If the text was there but invisible, you should see it.

Dermot

[rkarner]

I checked the colour scheme and everthing looks ok.

I can type text in both the IRB console and the Ruby console windows. 

Text appears in correct colours but still no output from F5 or CTRL F5

[Dermot]

OK. It looks as if the console system is working correctly, but I'd like to confirm that. So, can you open the file:

C:\Program Files\SapphireSteel Software\Ruby In Steel\v1.0\Ruby\Debugger\steelcylon.rb

in Notepad (or whatever) and change line 68 from

 @debug = false

to

 @debug = true

save the file and start to debug a Ruby progam. You should see a whole load of text in the console window.

Can you do that and get back to me with the result?

Thanks

Dermot

[rkarner]

I tried what you suggested.  The line number for me with @debug = false was 62 instead of 68??

I still get no text in the console window...

Thanks,

Richard

[rkarner]

I just noticed that if I have that debug flag set to True I no longer hit my breakpoints.  As soon as I turn flag back to false I start hitting them again...

Thanks,

Richard

[Dermot]

sorry, line 62.

Did you put

@debug = true

that is lowercase 'true' ('True' wont work)?

Dermot

[rkarner]

Yes it was true lowercase

After making that change I did not see any output to console window and I no longer hit my breakpoint (I have one line program puts "hello").  As soon as I set @debug back to false I start hitting my breakpoint again.

Richard

[Dermot]

Well that seems to narrow it down to the console write function. I have no idea why that should fail, though. I've also no idea why it should just be your machine that's having the trouble - the only common thing seems to be the operating system. I'll have to send you a special diagnostic version with tracing turned on. Before, I do that, write a simple program that just does a 'gets':

x = gets

This will cause the program to block until you type some text followed by a line feed at the console. If the input side of the console is working, the program should terminate. If the input isn't getting through from the console, the program will hang. Let me know what happens.

Do you want the diagnostic version for VS 2005 or VS 2008?

Dermot

[rkarner]

I would like the diagnostic version for VS2008 version.

I tried this test and it looks like input side is working.  The program blocks until I type something in and hit enter, then program finishes running.  I tried this with a two line program with 2 breakpoints and hit the second line only after I hit the enter key (as expected).

Richard

[Dermot]

Sorry for the delay - I some FTP trouble uploading it. It's ready to download now.

Contact me via e-mail (use the link  to get the contacts page http://www.sapphiresteel.com/spip.php?page=contacts

I'll send you more instructions (e-mail) on how to download the software and activate the tracing.

Dermot

[Dermot]

Resolved.

The problem turned out to be a registry corruption introduced by installing the Windows SDK/MSDN after installing VS.

This had the effect of stopping console writes.

see http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2840817&SiteID=1 for a fix.

Dermot