4.5 -> 4.6.1 Losing Machine Definition/Crash

[rachael7 74]

I'm trying to upgrade from 4.5 to 4.6.1.  In addition to my UM2+, I also have a custom machine based on a Wanhao I3 Plus.  I modified the physical machine with an all-metal hotend that has multiple nozzle choices, so I modified the Wanhao I3 Plus machine and extruder definitions to give me the nozzle size dropdown.  I also had to add the nozzle variant files to make that work.  It's working as expected in 4.5.  When I upgraded to 4.6.1, on first run, I got the attached error messages about my extruder and variant definitions, and it went back to the basic machine definition with no nozzle dropdown.  I attempted a second upgrade method, by uninstalling, reinstalling, and manually copying over my machine definition, extruder definition, and variants, before starting Cura.  This caused Cura to crash when I tried to run it.  What is the proper procedure to migrate a custom machine from Cura 4.5 to 4.6.1?  Has something in the machine definitions changed between versions that is preventing the import of my custom machine?  Could the problem be that I modified the original 4.5 definition files for the Wanhao I3 Plus, rather than duplicating them to a new machine?  Thanks for any assistance!

Edited April 30, 2020 by rachael7

[Thegladster 2]

Yes. When upgrading to a new Cura, if you were on the previous Cura after it was uninstalled (you still had Cura open after you uninstalled it), you went back on to Cura. When looking at your profile, you see black rectangles everywhere (or that's what happened to me) and when it updated, you saw that the files on the previous Cura were corrupted and you have to create a new profile. Next time, you should save your profiles before updating.

[rachael7 74]

I resolved this issue. The problem did turn out to be that I modified the machine definition files included with Cura, rather than creating a new set of machine definition files. When I upgraded, part of what I did got overwritten and that created the conflict that was causing me all the trouble. So lesson learned - don't modify the JSON files supplied with Cura. Instead, copy the contents to a new file and define a new printer type. Once I did that, everything worked fine.

[Thegladster 2]

Ok. That same thing happened to me, but I just created a new profile and went on with it. 😄

[rachael7 74]

Just to keep it clear for anyone who reads this later, it wasn't an issue with a profile. Those are easy enough to deal with by exporting and importing. This had to do with a custom machine definition, which cannot be exported or saved, and recreating it involves creating/editing JSON files in the program directory. Not trying to dig at you at all - I appreciate the help - it's just that this is a different issue and I don't want anyone to get confused about it. Thanks!

[Thegladster 2]

Ah, ok.

 

You learn something new every day! 😄

[Miech 0]

I love Cura, for me it's the only (still free) software that I can use to the fullest to make my parts. But..... I'm having trouble with each Cura update.... There seems to be no intuitive or automatic way to migrate the printer settings from the previous release to the latest release of Cura. Before I installed Cura 4.6.1, I was using 4.5. Used the Manage Backups to create a backup of the latest settings (what's inside those backups anyway?). Then installed Cura 4.6.1. After installation and startup I was asked to choose a printer, just choose the custom FFF printer. Then went to Manage Backups and selected the backup that I created in Cura 4.5. A messagebox appears and tells it has to close Cura before the backups can be restored. Cura closes and after that, there's no way you can tell if the process has finished succesfully; you have to start Cura 4.6.1 only to discover something has gone terribly wrong (see picture). It seems I have to start all over again with defining a new printer and its settings, start- and end-gcodes, importing materials, extruders, importing other stuff etc.

 

For the next release of Cura it would be very nice to have an automatic, stable procedure that migrates all printer-definitions, extruder definitions, material definitions, filament definitions, slicing parameters, etc from the previous version of Cura to the latest. It would also be a great addition to be able to select only parts (only materials, of extruders) from the backup you created earlier. Now there's no way to see what's inside the backup-zips; logging in into the Ultimaker Cloud doesn't show me anything.

 

Somebody can help me with restoring the settings?

[rachael7 74]

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened to me.  I don't know how you defined your printer, if you were using one of the ones built into Cura or if it was totally custom.  My issue happened because I modified the files for one of the ones included with Cura and that caused an issue on the upgrade.  If you are doing your own machine definition files, I strongly recommend you make your own name, unrelated to any that come with Cura, and keep a copy of the definition files outside of Cura in case you need to manually restore them after an update.  I appreciate that this software was meant to work with the Ultimaker machines, but the fact that it doesn't handle updates well is a serious issue.  It doesn't even remove the old version.  It also doesn't handle machines well at all.  If you have saved a workspace and that printer doesn't import properly to the new version, even if you recreate the printer in the new version, you can't open the saved file because it specifies a non-existent printer.  Serious weakness!

[ntomkin 0]

I'm going to be a little less forgiving to this situation than the trend here. Not all of us have standard printers. Given that this is a maker community, a lot of people make their printers, and spend hours and hours getting to a good configuration with Cura. Randomly wiping out profiles is comically bad design. I have a backup, so I'm lucky, but I don't think the software should bank on people exporting their profiles for each and every change. I think they meant to have a prompt that says "You have an old version of a Cura profile, time to update!" but instead they just delete them all and claim they are "corrupt."

 

The most recent update was pretty naggy, and claimed a lot of "security" updates were necessary, or something to that effect - and yet, they didn't consider that this would be an issue? Can I get a job here? I would love to ship software where I didn't have to worry about old profiles...

Edited January 17, 2021 by ntomkin