JW Library Notice: Crashes on Windows Devices

[Tortuga]

JW Library Notice: Crashes on Windows Devices

On Microsoft Windows devices, JW Library may crash after startup when the computer’s date is April 4, 2023. In preparation for using JW Library to play songs at the Memorial, we recommend that you manually set the computer’s date to another date, such as April 5, 2023, and then try to load JW Library. Alternatively, you can download the songs for the Memorial from jw.org and play them using another app, such as VLC. You can also check the Microsoft app store to see if an updated version of JW Library is available that fixes this problem.

 

Why would it crash on the 4th but not any other date?

Edited April 4, 2023 by Tortuga

[MullumMiss]

4 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

JW Library Notice: Crashes on Windows Devices

On Microsoft Windows devices, JW Library may crash after startup when the computer’s date is April 4, 2023. In preparation for using JW Library to play songs at the Memorial, we recommend that you manually set the computer’s date to another date, such as April 5, 2023, and then try to load JW Library. Alternatively, you can download the songs for the Memorial from jw.org and play them using another app, such as VLC. You can also check the Microsoft app store to see if an updated version of JW Library is available that fixes this problem.

 

Why would it crash on the 4th but not any other date?

I wondered why it was crashing on my pc earlier today.  

[Womandriver]

Mine crashed tonight and I got a pop up to send a report so I did.  I re-opened and it worked just fine. 

[Hinata]

1 hour ago, Tortuga said:

JW Library Notice: Crashes on Windows Devices

On Microsoft Windows devices, JW Library may crash after startup when the computer’s date is April 4, 2023. In preparation for using JW Library to play songs at the Memorial, we recommend that you manually set the computer’s date to another date, such as April 5, 2023, and then try to load JW Library. Alternatively, you can download the songs for the Memorial from jw.org and play them using another app, such as VLC. You can also check the Microsoft app store to see if an updated version of JW Library is available that fixes this problem.

 

Why would it crash on the 4th but not any other date?

 

It seems the source of the bug is apparently the Examining the Scriptures—2023 installed on the program, which will display the daily scriptures on the front page. On the memorial date, the daily scripture has a multi-line header that reads: "MEMORIAL DATE, After Sundown, ..." which is not present in any other dates, as they are all single-line headers. I hypothesise this may be causing problems.

 

Made a fresh re-install of JW Library with nothing in it and it worked okay, but the second I installed the daily scripture book, it crashed. The fact that it only crashes on the memorial date suggests that the daily scripture for the memorial is causing the crash problem.
 

[Tortuga]

5 minutes ago, Hinata said:

 

It seems the source of the bug is apparently the Examining the Scriptures—2023 installed on the program, which will display the daily scriptures on the front page. On the memorial date, the daily scripture has a multi-line header that reads: "MEMORIAL DATE, After Sundown, ..." which is not present in any other dates, as they are all single-line headers. I hypothesise this may be causing problems.

 

Made a fresh re-install of JW Library with nothing in it and it worked okay, but the second I installed the daily scripture book, it crashed. The fact that it only crashes on the memorial date suggests that the daily scripture for the memorial is causing the crash problem.
 

That would explain why only that day is affected. Its interesting that didn't create a problem last year. April 15 2022 is formatted the same way.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Tortuga

[MullumMiss]

18 minutes ago, Hinata said:

 

It seems the source of the bug is apparently the Examining the Scriptures—2023 installed on the program, which will display the daily scriptures on the front page. On the memorial date, the daily scripture has a multi-line header that reads: "MEMORIAL DATE, After Sundown, ..." which is not present in any other dates, as they are all single-line headers. I hypothesise this may be causing problems.

 

Made a fresh re-install of JW Library with nothing in it and it worked okay, but the second I installed the daily scripture book, it crashed. The fact that it only crashes on the memorial date suggests that the daily scripture for the memorial is causing the crash problem.
 

I manually changed the date on my pc.  Opened JW Library all ok.  While open I went back in and changed back date and it stayed open no crash.  

I just noted as I opened the app with the adjustment date then the Daily Text was Weds April 5.  So though I changed back pc date as the app was already open it left app date at Weds April 5. Phew…🫣

Edited April 4, 2023 by MullumMiss

[Hinata]

25 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

Its interesting that didn't create a problem last year. April 15 2022 is formatted the same way.

 

I went and tested that too after seeing your comment, and I did find out that the the JW Library indeed crashes even for Memorial dates for 2021, and 2022, too. (March 31, 2021, and April 15, 2022.) I was not able to find such crash bug for other dates, like April 16, 2022.

 

It seems that, sometime after May 2022 and before March 2023, the brothers implemented a change to the coding as to how the daily scriptures work for JW Library. I assume Android and iOS versions of the apps were not affected, since they use different code bases.

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Hinata

[Pabo]

The JWLibrary on the MS Store version is 13.4.62.0 which happens to be the version i am using on my laptop.

 

So it is going to be some trickery performed on the sound desk tonight.

 

Good ol' OnlyM will be the back up.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Pabo

[MullumMiss]

15 minutes ago, Pabo said:

The JWLibrary on the MS Store version is 13.4.62.0 which happens to be the version i am using on my laptop.

 

So it is going to be some trickery performed on the sound desk tonight.

 

Good ol' OnlyM will be the back up.

The suggested work around works.  

[lvj]

If we remove the Daily Scriptures content from our application, can we still avoid crashes on April 4th? Of course, we would have to change the setting to April 5th once.

[Qapla]

I updated to the latest version available on the MS and it fixed the issue - no crashes now.

 

 

[Hinata]

6 hours ago, lvj said:

If we remove the Daily Scriptures content from our application, can we still avoid crashes on April 4th? Of course, we would have to change the setting to April 5th once.

 

That is what I have found at the time, yes, but as Brother John has stated, the issue is now seems to be fixed and thus no longer a concern.

 

[Ross]

Setting the date to April 5th has worked for me, I have also put the songs and images into OnlyM as a backup, just in case.  I hate the pressure of being responsible for AV on memorial night. 🤯

[KF7]

Our kh computer did not have examining the scriptures downloaded.  I tested this am.  No issues found.

[Pabo]

At our memorial, we just used OnlyM for the whole meeting just for the simplicity as the speaker did have two images for his talk. But we instead of having the daily text on the monitors, we had the following picture, so when those on Zoom logged in, they had this on their screen before the memorial started.

 

[Tortuga]

1 hour ago, Pabo said:

At our memorial, we just used OnlyM for the whole meeting just for the simplicity as the speaker did have two images for his talk. But we instead of having the daily text on the monitors, we had the following picture, so when those on Zoom logged in, they had this on their screen before the memorial started.

 

What do you use for the songs?

[Pabo]

1 hour ago, Tortuga said:

What do you use for the songs?

 OnlyM.

 

I just copied the songs from the JWL video folder and inserted them into OnlyM.

 

This is how it would have looked like in OnlyM

 

[Tortuga]

25 minutes ago, Pabo said:

OnlyM.

 

I just copied the songs from the JWL video folder and inserted them into OnlyM.

 

This is how it would have looked like in OnlyM

Thanks. The brothers here use OnlyM but I don't do the Sound so I'm not familiar with it yet.

[Pabo]

The only thing I miss and would like to be reinstalled when using JWL on the sound desk is that you can minimise the image within the app window itself. I usually follow the meeting using the sound desk monitors with JWL, where beforehand you can open the image for it to show it on the second monitor and then you can minimise the image and you can still view at the article on the main app window with the image controls at the bottom left corner. I do miss this ability.

 

They have updated it so that you can now scroll between the images (and videos), as long that you open the image within the article itself. But it does not if you open the image from the "Media" section itself (the video will still minimise though). The "arrow in circle" are the video(s) that you have to click again on the arrow for it to play the video (or song).

 

 

When playing the video from Media section using the minimise option.

 

Full vs Minimised

 

      

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Pabo