New user - quits every time I enter Keyboard Maestro string

miscellane

Hello, sorry if this isn't the place to report bugs and problems, I'm happy to move this once shown where to put it. I downloaded the trial of The Archive today, and wow, it's the most exciting development in plain text notetaking I've ever seen! I created a Keyboard Maestro string to enter the current date and time (ddtt = 201804232030), but whenever I enter this string to a new note title, the app quits. Every. time. Very frustrating! Does anyone know why this might be happening?

ctietze

This place is fine, thanks for reporting the issue! Can you share the keyboard maestro snippet completely?

If the app crashes and not just quits, please email me the crash report from Console.app.

miscellane

Sure: %ICUDateTime%yyyyMMddHHmm%

"The Archive quit unexpectedly. Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more detailed information and send a report to Apple."

Basil

When @ctietze asked to "share the keyboard maestro snippet completely", he very likely meant that it would be great if you could share the whole KM macro that is causing the crash, and not just the string/variable that the macro is inserting. Additionally, it would be very useful if you could briefly describe the steps that lead to the bug. For instance, something like:

1. Create a new note with ⌘N
2. Double click the new "Untitled" note to edit its title
3. Invoke the KM macro by typing ",,snip" --> crash

To share the whole macro as an image:

• Select the macro in Keyboard Maestro and then do Edit->Copy as->Image in the menu bar
• Then open Preview and do File->New from Clipboard
• Then save the image to a file that you can then attach to a forum post

Sharing macros as images allows people to see right away what your macro is doing, without requiring them to install anything. This is why you should always share (at least) an image.

In situations such as this one, when it might be important for people to use your exact macro to try to reproduce the bug, it is useful to also share the actual macro code:

• Select the macro in Keyboard Maestro and then do File->Export Macros... to save it as a file
• Then right-click the ".kmmacros" file and pick Compress "Macro Name.kmmacros" from the context menu to create a zip file (this step is required because the forum software here does not accept ".kmmacros" files as attachments)

miscellane

@Basil, thank you for the detailed instructions, I will do my best to follow them and supply the most helpful data.

Doing the following causes The Archive to quit every time for me:

1. Create a new note with ⌘L to access the Omnibar
2. Invoke the KM macro by typing the string ddtt or dd-tt -> quit

Note that the strings for either date or time on their own (ddd or ttt - see attached images) do not cause the app to quit.
I have attached zip files of the .kmmacros that cause the app to quit, as well as images of those macros.

ctietze

Great work @Basil, thank you for explaining I'll keep this post handy for later.

@miscellane: The macros look innocent enough to me. Please email me the full crash logs from within Console.app (you can use Spotlight to launch it) that is located below the "User Reports" group to the left. File names should start with "thearchive" or similar.

miscellane

No problem @ctietze, email sent.

ctietze

For posterity, here's the issue: on macOS 10.11, quick typing in the Omnibar can update the text editor too quickly for markup to catch up. This produces a crash. In the case of Keyboard Maestro macros, it can help to change the result from "Insert by Typing" to "Insert by Pasting" to avoid triggering 1 search request and editor update per typed character in quick succession.

miscellane

Unfortunately The Archive is not usable for me at this stage, hopefully it will be after @ctietze is able to implement a fix for the fast typing issue. I do type fast and wish to be able to continue doing so, however the app is crashing on me almost every time I type quickly at the moment. I'll keep an eye on things and look forward to the improvements to come.

Nhaps

I think you should include "delays" on macros to avoid crashes.