Barca 2.5 Clipboard Bug

[Shark]

If I use Ctrl+C to copy something to clipboard there is about 25% chance I get this error message dialog:

Title: Barca 2
Message: Cannot open clipboard.

The text is going to the clipboard.

The message is extremely annoying, working on 100 mails results in 25 messages that have to be clicked away.

Barca 2.0 had this problem, but it occured once a day, not every few emails.

[Tomas]

One of possible causes might be that there is some other program in conflict with Barca.
Particularly if you have some clipboard extender, notetaking program working with clipboard, etc.
Try closing all other programs running, and testing whether it helped, some chances are that it could give us a pointer where to start digging if the issue will disappear.

[Shark]

Is Barca written in Delphi? I was thinking so because I encountered the same problem years ago in my apps, buch much less often.

I solved it by placing all clipboard operations in try except blocks and preventing the dialogs.

e.g.

try
myClip.SetTextBuf(p);
except
end;

The point is that the error dialog is simply wrong (it has surely some cause, but most probably something negligible like a not closed handle).

Barca pops out these errors, but no functionality is lost, all copy, pastes and cuts are always working.

I'm also sure a conflict with a different app is happening (as you suggested), but the point is that Barca is spamming the error dialogs, not any other app (and with spamming I mean up to 10 dialogs a minute).

[Tomas]

Is Barca written in Delphi?

Yes, it is written in some version of Delphi, not sure which.
You raised good point, that sounds very probable, particularly if the clipboard is working and error message is still raised.

[Shark]

I've discovered today that the problem only happens if I use ctrl x c v, not if I use the menu. The dialogs drive me crazy. I'm almost at the point of abandoning barca.



As clipboard manager I use ClipControl:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/clipcontrol

[Shark]

I've tried another Clipboard manager (CLCL 1.1.1) and Barca still gives errors. With no Clipboard manager running there are no Barca errors.

[Shark]

I know the source of the problem. If the Barca coder is interesting in fixing this bug I can provide the source code. PM me.

[Shark]

Here is the correct Delphi code to copy a text to clipboard:

Code: Select all

function lu_PutTextToClipboard(s:string):boolean;
begin
  Result := False;
  try
     while not Result do
     begin
          if OpenClipboard(Application.Handle) then
          begin
               Result := True;
               Clipboard.AsText := s;
               CloseClipboard;
          end
          else Sleep(5);
     end;
  except
  end;
end;

I'm sure Barca writes directly to the Clipboard without checking with OpenClipboard() first if the Clipboard is free to access (Clipboard is not Thread safe!). This causes a bunch of problems with Clipboard Managers.

[irix]

This problem still exsists in Pocomail 4.8.0.4400

[Shark]

Yes, it does still exist. The problem is that the Pocomail/Barca Coder assumed the Clipboard Object is instance handled, but there is only one global Clipboard object for all Windows applications. If you access the Clipboard there may be a failure if another program accesses it at the same time. You have to check for such failure and repeat the clipboard operation. Pocomail/Barca displays an ugly error message instead.

[rthamper]

The bug is a regular occurring "feature" of Pocomail 4 for me even now. I use Clipmate as a "clipboard extender", and I suspect that's what's conflicting with the Pocomail code.

I hope that after all this time that Pocosystems will finally come up with a fix that works.