Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED

[janrif]

v6.7.3329.35

In fact, Vivaldi was not running during installation of new stable version. Vivaldi.exe was downloaded & opened from "Download" directory.

If I go back to an earlier version, Vivaldi doesn't recognize my profile & wants me to start all over again. Each of my versions is in their own folder.

So now what?

[Pathduck]

@janrif That's a strange way of installing the browser. No wonder you run into trouble...

Are those Standalone install folders, or do you rename the Application folder?
And if you rename it - do you actually run the browser from the versioned folder? This is very bad, don't do this.
And are you sure the browser was not running - i.e. no vivaldi.exe showing in the Task Manager details view?

I have seen that error at times, usually when I've been messing with versions or rolling back versions and trying to overwrite a newer version. Something you should never do of course.

Way I've solved it (as I remember) was to go into Regedit and delete the following key:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Vivaldi
Then doing the install again from the installer.

Other than that, there should be a log file in %TEMP% usually in
c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp
named vivaldi_installer.log

[janrif]

@Pathduck said in Unable to install ........Again:

@janrif That's a strange way of installing the browser. No wonder you run into trouble...

I don't understasnd what you mean by either comment.

Are those Standalone install folders, or do you rename the Application folder?

Yes, those are standalone folders; I do not rename the Application folder.

And if you rename it - do you actually run the browser from the versioned folder? This is very bad, don't do this.

I run the actual installed .exe from the versioned folder.

And are you sure the browser was not running - i.e. no vivaldi.exe showing in the Task Manager details view?

Yes. No sign of 'Vivaldi.exe'

I have seen that error at times, usually when I've been messing with versions or rolling back versions and trying to overwrite a newer version. Something you should never do of course.

I don't which is why I keep each version in their respected folder.

Way I've solved it (as I remember) was to go into Regedit and delete the following key:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Vivaldi

OK, thanks. I will try that.

Then doing the install again from the installer.

OK

Other than that, there should be a log file in %TEMP% usually in
c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp
named vivaldi_installer.log

Did you want me to upload that file to the forum?

[janrif]

@Pathduck Up & Running v6.7.3329.35. Whew! Thanks, again.

[Pathduck]

@janrif said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

@janrif That's a strange way of installing the browser. No wonder you run into trouble...

I don't understasnd what you mean by either comment.

What I meant was that the normal way of installing a per-user install is accepting the defaults and getting:
c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application <-- Binaries
c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data <-- Profile/config

For a Standalone install, there's no need to use AppData at all, it can be installed anywhere your user has write permissions.

A Standalone install has its User Data located next to the Application folder.
So if you're installing these as Standalones in versioned folders, you should have:
c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\<version>\Application
c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\<version>\User Data
That begs the question - how do you ensure your settings in User Data is migrated each time to the new version?

And what's under these versioned folder? Just the binaries, i.e. vivaldi.exe? Or User Data as well?

Basically, my point is if you're doing non-standard things you'd better be aware that this might mess things up, it's not a supported way of doing things and you need to be technical enough to understand how to fix it.

[Dancer18]

@Pathduck said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

Basically, my point is if you're doing non-standard things you'd better be aware that this might mess things up, it's not a supported way of doing things and you need to be technical enough to understand how to fix it.

I totally agree. However, sometimes one might not even aware of being beside of standard things...
The problem is that we all have different views, thoughts and thought processes that can lead to damage if a standard way isn't understood well enough.

[janrif]

@Dancer18 @Pathduck Very helpful information.

It should be obvious by now that I'm not technical enough, so my goal is to create as fool proof a setup as possible. I didn't want to install a newer version over an older version as I imagined would happen if I just accepted the default installation. That's my reasoning for the separate version folders.

What I didn't do was include 'User Data' & 'User CSS' in each version folder. I guess I would have to migrate both files manually if I wanted to keep everything together & in working order.

In the event of a failure in a new version (as has happened), I could just return to the former version folder until the fix was in. When v6.7x was published, it had something going on that caused Vivaldi to simply disappear on start up. After several attempts at reloading, everything got screwed up so I cleaned the registry of all Vivaldi values & started again. I'd like to avoid that scenario again if at all possible.

@Dancer18 You make an excellent point. There should be official, recommended, instructions for installation. Of course, it remains the user's choice if they have other ideas. I am certainly open to new ideas and depend on experts like yourselves to point me in the right direction. Thank you. both, for your guidance.

[Pathduck]

@janrif said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

What I didn't do was include 'User Data' & 'User CSS' in each version folder. I guess I would have to migrate both files manually if I wanted to keep everything together & in working order.

Then what's the content of the versioned folders? Please list the files there.
I still don't understand how this is supposed to work with also you not either renaming the Application folder or copying your User Data over.

When you do advanced stuff like this, juggling folders around and taking the big chance of profile breakage on rolling back your version, you need to know what you're doing. If you don't - stick to the defaults.

There should be official, recommended, instructions for installation.

There is:
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/install-the-vivaldi-browser/
Anything outside these instructions is basically not a supported configuration.

[janrif]

@Pathduck said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

Then what's the content of the versioned folders? Please list the files there.

This is what they looked like b4 the two 'user' files

I used the advanced setting from installer to create standalones

[Pathduck]

@janrif The folder above that is what I asked about, the content of the folder with the version in the name.

[janrif]

@Pathduck said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

@janrif The folder above that is what I asked about, the content of the folder with the version in the name.

So, is what I did a workable solution?

[Pathduck]

@janrif No it's not.

[janrif]

@Pathduck said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

@janrif No it's not.

So what is a better solution to keep versions separated?

[Dancer18]

@janrif said in Unable to install ........Again <-- RESOLVED:

So what is a better solution to keep versions separated?

Only use 1 (ONE!) version: Vivaldi STABLE!

That is what I'm doing. In the past I also run 1 (ONE!) snapshot.
Both are seperated easily and automatically:
Stable is in folder "vivaldi" while Snapshot is in folder "vivaldi snapshot".

[Pathduck]

@janrif You don't. You upgrade the browser installed as Per User in AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application like everyone else.

You can have:

• ONE Per User install located in AppData\Local\Vivaldi
• OR
• ONE All Users install located in Program Files\Vivaldi

Both of the above will use the same User Data dir at AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data

If you need separate versions for testing - Use Standalone installs. That's the ONLY supported way of separating versions.

And DO NOT install Standalones in AppData\Local\Vivaldi - it will only confuse you more. Install Standalones somewhere logical, like your Documents folder or even C:\Vivaldi or even better - on a different partition like D:\bin\Vivaldi-test like I do.

Then migrate your User Data between Standalone folders if you absolutely need to for TESTING PURPOSES ONLY, I recommend to not do this as migrating data between versions is bound to break unless you know what you're doing.

Also, what you're showing me is clearly NOT Standalone installs - they're missing the file indicating a Standalone install. This is how a Standalone install looks on the file system (Windows, some file listings removed for clarity):

Vivaldi
├── Application
│   ├── 6.7.3329.31
│   ├── stp.viv <-- indicates a Standalone install
│   └── vivaldi.exe <-- Vivaldi executable
└── User Data
    └── Default <-- Your default profile

If stp.viv is not there, like for you, that's NOT a Standalone install no matter how much you insist you installed it as such. Also if you go to Help > About and look at the Command Line, it will include the argument:
--vivaldi-standalone

The reason it "works" for you (until it no longer does) is that the Per User install (as this clearly is) doesn't "really" care where it's running from (its working dir), it just finds your User Data and profile in AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data.

The problem comes when you try to upgrade and the installer has no clue why the standard AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application folder is missing because you've been renaming folders and moving them around.

[janrif]

@Pathduck Great information // instructions. Thanks for the effort & your time.

[Pathduck]

@janrif For clarity and closure, please post the full output of Help > About from your current Vivaldi version. It's just text, copy and paste in a code block.

[janrif]

@Pathduck Don't know how to do text block but here is the info

Vivaldi	6.8.3364.3 (Official Build) (64-bit) 
Revision	88b3c2846a43c9762b1eb094ed2a1a387b4f515f
OS	Windows 11 Version 24H2 (Build 26120.670)
JavaScript	V8 12.4.254.18
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Command Line	"C:\Users\Jan\AppData\Local\Vivaldi Snapshot\Application\vivaldi.exe" --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --save-page-as-mhtml
Executable Path	C:\Users\Jan\AppData\Local\Vivaldi Snapshot\Application\vivaldi.exe
Profile Path	C:\Users\Jan\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default
Variations Seed Type	Null
Active Variations	5e3a236d-4113a79e

That version was the latest Snapshot which I installed in its own folder. (Vivaldi Snapshot)

Local
| -> Vivaldi
| -> Vivaldi Snapshot

I decided to return return to Stable Version (in Vivaldi folder) so I opened the .exe of the last stable. It loaded except for:

16:08:51.043 error [Mail - startup] Error: The requested version (2030) is less than the existing version (2050).
VersionError: The requested version (2030) is less than the existing version (2050).
VersionError: The requested version (2030) is less than the existing version (2050).
VersionError: The requested version (2030) is less than the existing version (2050).
at Re.rejectionMapper (chrome-extension://mpognobbkildjkofajifpdfhcoklimli/background-common-bundle.js:1:1173136)
at Ue (chrome-extension://mpognobbkildjkofajifpdfhcoklimli/background-common-bundle.js:1:1111109)
at IDBOpenDBRequest.<anonymous> (chrome-extension://mpognobbkildjkofajifpdfhcoklimli/background-common-bundle.js:1:1140731)
at IDBOpenDBRequest.<anonymous> (chrome-extension://mpognobbkildjkofajifpdfhcoklimli/background-common-bundle.js:1:1112958)

I guess Vivaldi upgraded Mail to ver 2050 in the Stable User Data file so I'm stuck in Snapshot until I can install a new Stable version w Mail version. This is maddening. Grrrrrr

[Pathduck]

@janrif

Command Line "C:\Users\Jan\AppData\Local\Vivaldi Snapshot\Application\vivaldi.exe" --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --save-page-as-mhtml

This is NOT a Standalone install and you've renamed the installation folder which you were explicitly told was a bad idea.
This will likely lead to exactly the same error on install as started this mess...
And when @Dancer18 talked about different directories - it was referring to Linux where user data for Snapshot and Stable are completely separate.

I decided to return return to Stable Version (in Vivaldi folder)

I believe you've been told several times to stick to Stable if you're not prepared to deal with issues and bugs?

I guess Vivaldi upgraded Mail to ver 2050 in the Stable User Data file so I'm stuck in Snapshot until I can install a new Stable version w Mail version.

This is the price you pay when you keep messing around with versions and downgrading your profile.

This is maddening. Grrrrrr

What's maddening is you clearly unable to listen to and take advice given you for your own good and instead keeping up messing with stuff you don't understand at all.

No-one is going to hold your hand and give "advice" on how to swap user data between versions, because it's not going to work and will break your profile. And especially as you keep doing your own thing, moving folders around and renaming them, and then coming to the forum complaining that Vivaldi keeps breaking.

My advice at this point is basically to just uninstall Vivaldi, clean the registry, delete all in AppData\Vivaldi, install Stable Per User, DON'T touch the install files, and set up all your stuff again including mail. Them's the breaks for messing with stuff.

[janrif]

@Pathduck As always I appreciate the support you've provided but what I don't appreciate is the 'tone' of your response (which you have done before but I decided not to say anything then). It's like you are spanking me verbally; talking down to me, treating me as one would with an errant child, and I'd like you to stop it.

If you are frustrated or annoyed by my questions, just don't respond. There are other moderators who may be less stressed and might jump in on occasion to help me out.

As far as what I've been 'told'; I understand everything I've been told and following directions, I installed the Snapshot as described in a different branch of the Local directory to keep things separate.

The fact that this separation hasn't happened is puzzling so I have to try something else because -- although you suggest that I stick with the Stable Version -- and only the Stable version -- is not going to work for me all the time as I want the intellectual freedom to try a Snapshot now and then without distressing the Stable installation.

I know this is possible and -- although grateful for your help -- I would rather enjoy a collegial relationship with the forum members, moderators and developers whenever possible. I've been around a looooong time, on more forums than I care to think about; always supporting independent developers anyway I could and I have always been, and will continue to be, polite with others. I hope you have a pleasant evening.