Section 17 - RISC OS Select Issues

With the arrival of RISC OS Select & Adjust, a few things have changed in the structure of RISC OS. This page aims to detail some of the changes and explain some possible problems that Ant Suite users may encounter.

This section covers some of the most common messages seen when using the ANT Internet Suite. Click on the initial character below to jump to that part of the list, then click on the text of the error message to find the solution.

Q17.1)	When I run the Ant Suite I get an error saying "IfConfig: loopback: bad value"
Q17.2)	After installing Select 3, I get the error message "Can't open file 'InetDBase:!InetNews~' for writing." whenever I perform a news transfer.
Q17.3)	After doing the changes detailed in the previous question (17.2) I still get the same error.
Q17.4)	Since installing Select I can no longer drag the Fresco URL bar in order to paste the URL.

Q17.1) When I run the Ant Suite I get an error saying "IfConfig: loopback: bad value"

This error occurs if you reload the Ant Suite after having done a 'Quit->All' after having previously loaded it on RISC OS 4.29
The reason for this error is that when the Ant Suite was originally written there was no uniform internet stack or Boot sequence, thus it was designed to be self-contained and load its own internet modules when required. When you select Quit->All it will kill various modules, including 'Internet' and 'Resolver', which are now part of RISC OS Select.
The error is easy to fix, simply by commenting out two lines in the !InetSuite.Internet.Files.KillStack file. However, this file is generated automatically by the Ant Suite Configuration utility so you will need to edit the original 'master' file and then load the configuration and click 'Save' (no need to change anything), which will rewrite a new KillStack file.

The file you need to edit is inside the InetSuite Apps directory, called Apps.!InetConfg.Resources.UK.KillStack (you may also need to edit the respective line in the KillStackA file, depending if you use AUN or not).

Find the following lines;

RMKill Resolver IF Inet$Access = 0 AND Inet$LanMan = 0 then RMIfThere RMKill Internet

You can comment them out, simply by adding a | character at the beginning of the line, but I'd recommend editing the lines as below, which will work on Select and non Select machines.

You need to check for the existence of the Select modules and only RMKill them if a previous version is detected. The more experienced user can do this by deleting the RMKill Resolver and adding the following lines in its place:-

| Modified for Select usage by P.Vigay - 25/5/2002 Set Inet$Select 1 RMEnsure Resolver 0.75 SetEval Inet$Select 0 If Inet$Select = 0 Then RMIfThere RMKill Resolver Set Inet$Select 1 RMEnsure Internet 5.37 SetEval Inet$Select 0
then amend the IF Inet$Access = 0 AND Inet$LanMan = 0 then RMIfThere RMKill Internet line thus,
IF Inet$Access = 0 AND Inet$LanMan = 0 AND Inet$Select = 0 then RMIfThere RMKill Internet

Add the following line to the end of the 'tidy up' section at the end of the file.
UnSet Inet$Select

If you don't fancy editing the Apps.!InetConfg.Resources.UK.KillStack file yourself, you can download a modified version here (1264 bytes).

Q17.2) After installing Select 3, I get the error message "Can't open file 'InetDBase:!InetNews~' for writing." whenever I perform a news transfer.

RISC OS Select introduces a new system variable for writing to files via a $path system variable. Instead of using InetDBase$Path, it now uses InetDBase$Write - which is undefined by the AntSuite itself, therefore points to a default value setup by the RISC OS boot sequence - which is not where !InetNews is stored.
You can easily fix this by adding a suitable variable declaration to the InetSuite !Boot and !Run files.
Load !InetSuite.!Boot into a text editor and locate the

If "<InetDBase$Path>" = "" then Set InetDBase$Path Inet:Files. line.
Now add the following line immediately after it;

If "<InetDBase$Write>" = "" then Set InetDBase$Write Inet:Files.

Save the file and then load !InetSuite.!Run into a text editor. Locate the
Set InetDBase$Path Inet:Files. line.
Now add the following line immediately after it;

Set InetDBase$Write Inet:Files.

Save the file. Quit and reload the Ant Suite and the problem should be fixed next time you transfer news.

Q17.3) After doing the changes detailed in the previous question (17.2) I still get the same error.

If you've upgraded to a newer version of Select or to Adjust, you may find that the changes above don't work. This is because RISCOS Ltd changed the operation of the $Write variables between OS versions.
You need to remove the trailing . from the lines you added, thus;
Load !InetSuite.!Boot into a text editor and locate the

If "<InetDBase$Path>" = "" then Set InetDBase$Path Inet:Files. line.
Now add the following line immediately after it;

If "<InetDBase$Write>" = "" then Set InetDBase$Write Inet:Files

Save the file and then load !InetSuite.!Run into a text editor. Locate the
Set InetDBase$Path Inet:Files. line.
Now add the following line immediately after it;

Set InetDBase$Write Inet:Files

Save the file. Quit and reload the Ant Suite and the problem should be fixed next time you transfer news.

Q17.4) Since installing Select I can no longer drag the Fresco URL bar in order to paste the URL.

This is due to RISC OS Select adding the facility to cut and paste within icons. When you drag the URL bar in Fresco, RISC OS thinks you want to drag the contents of the icon and thus doesn't drag the whole bar as it did previously.

The easiest way to overcome this is to hold SHIFT down when you do the drag. This should carry out the drag in the original fashion.

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Last edit: 10th Apr 2016 at 1:56pm
(2937 days ago)

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