Can we talk about Prefs/Amiga Input?

Can we talk about Prefs/Amiga Input?

What is causing the damage of Amiga Input EnvArc:Sys/AmigaInput/ files every now and then? This has been a problem since 2004!

The files don't even survive with write protection!?

The solution is to delete the files in above dir and re-configure your joystick/joypad.

Easy yeah, but why is it still like this give or take 16 years later?

@khayoz

Probably a known bug which hasn't been released to the poor suckers not being in the NDA beta group for the same amount of time

@Raziel
Or, what is probably truer: no one does anything with amiga input because of no time and no resources. If there were a lot of fixes to amigainput, then that for sure was said somewhere. And I as a beta tester do not remember any kind of significant work being done in amigainput of late.

@khayoz
When it comes to amigaos4 components released with amigaos4, then better take as a rule that nothing will be fixed, but if anything will be fixed, it will be never released. By this, you will not have any kind of disappointment. Take it like "what you have now, you will have like it forever". Then you will not go into the trap as many others before called "I hope for ..... why it didn't happen".

There many bugs which never fixed for the last 10-15 years. Even sometimes just some simple ones. Don't waste your energy on hope. If any kind of update will be released, it will be a surprise for you. But don't wait that anything will be fixed in OS itself.

@kas1e

Yeah, however it's always good to report in detail any of that issue in Hyperion forum in order to let betatester opening a ticket, atleast things will not be forgotten, and if, by any luck (in the future) new development will come, then they know exactly what need to be fixed/improved

@kas1e

What you are saying is basically there is no hope whatsoever to get an update/bugfixes to AmigaOS4...as long as another party buys the rights and IP off of Hyperion and invests time/money/man power to more or less start from the point we were 10-15 years ago towards an update of AmigaOS4.

Stuck...better switch to Linux then...i'll probably won't live long enough to see the day

@kas1e

Do Hyperion have the source code to that part of the OS, maybe that’s also owned by some unpaid contractor.

They have been bleeding money to the legal cases.

@kas1e
This is pretty much how I look at OS4 as well. FEu1 is the last version of the OS, and any development that will happen in the future is going to be third party.
On the bright side there won't be any more breaking changes (e.g. integrating P96 into graphics.library), and people can even make binary patches/replacements for components, like they did with OS3.

@BSzili

How much pessimism.. just checking the various public crashlogs posted recently by betatesters to see that varoius components were updated since latest upd1 of the os ... sure nothing revolutionary but pratically all recent os4 updates was like this

I'm not really a pessimist, these are simply my observations. As kas1e said, even when there's some development, I'll never be released to the general public. It is what it is.
There are still things that can be done with 3rd party development, as shown by AeonKit. To be fair they also had some issues with releasing updates, but at least they do get released eventually.

@kas1e
"When it comes to amigaos4 components released with amigaos4, then better take as a rule that nothing will be fixed, but if anything will be fixed, it will be never released. By this, you will not have any kind of disappointment. Take it like "what you have now, you will have like it forever"

Where do I sign up for betatesting/updating the OS? ;)

@LiveForIt
"Do Hyperion have the source code to that part of the OS, maybe that’s also owned by some unpaid contractor."

Good question and maybe part of the answer, we maybe have to find the person and pay up.


@BSzili
"This is pretty much how I look at OS4 as well. FEu1 is the last version of the OS, and any development that will happen in the future is going to be third party.
On the bright side there won't be any more breaking changes (e.g. integrating P96 into graphics.library), and people can even make binary patches/replacements for components, like they did with OS3."

Sad but probably true, the OS is already scattered with 3:rd party devs
and thats pretty normal OS dev wise, not just on Amiga OS.

Maybe we need an official page for hunting down developers
who did contribute to Amiga OS4 in the past and didn't get paid and lost interest in the OS.
And pay them once and for all for what they contributed.


But let's wait and see what the Judge says first and we take it from there.

@Raziel
Quote:
There no "better to switch" anymore. Everyone uses any os he likes. I use windows most of the time while doing work for amigaos4 as well. Even, if I understand reality, I like Amigaos4. And even if there will be no update anymore, it didn't change anything. Latest GCC there, AEon works on updates, 3d party users/devs do things. More than enough to have fun.

If starting to find an "I will switch to if ....", then sure, better to switch years ago :)

@samo79
Quote:

Not BSzili, not me are pessimists. We are well-informed optimists with reality checks :) How many years already passed since issues with window.class and listbrowser.class which was fixed immediately, but get stuck in hands of Hyperion for those years? There no excuses for that. So better to not lose energy on "whys".

@khayoz
Quote:
Believe us we tried in the last 10 years all sorts of things. Everything ends up with Hyperion do what they want to do as the owners. They dedicated who will have access to be developer, beta tester, when, how, when release update or not release update, etc. "There no democracy" (c)". That is bad from one side, but good from another: when you got an update, it at least of good quality, with all tasty installers, changelogs, and stuff. And we there can't play any role in hiring any developers for work on os4 components. Only for 3d party development. Which as I say also not bad, OS can be as it now and everything still ok.

More realistically, is that AEON will hire some developer, who will make an AmigaInput replacement if they will have manpower too. As there also not many developers, even if they will be paid.

@all
If anyone wishes, let's collect amiga input issues and I can add it to Hyperion's Bugzilla. Not sure how much sense it will mean, but why not. Are there any normal reproducible test cases for crashes and stuff?

Personally, I have very frequent crashes with AmigaInput prefs that mean I can go through maybe one set of mapping to lowlevel.library before it crashes, requiring a reboot before I can try again. Sometimes it's a case of the crash happening even on the first attempt at mapping, then you reboot, try a game to see if it has mapped correctly, and if not, try again (with the required reboot).

It's not helped by a lack of possibility to map to keys either - AmigaInputAnyware has some showstopping bugs for years too, and the author hasn't shown any interest in fixing it. A sad state of affairs for anyone interested in playing any games on OS4.

@Daedalus
As chances that any developers will take care of it are low, we need all bugreports be VERY easy to reproduce. What i mean, not "i have issues when", but something like:

To reproduce you need:

1). start prefs:amigainput
2). do that
3). do that
4). do that
5). crash , there is crashlog.

If bug reports will be of such kind, then there is at least low chance. The better and full description, the higher chances.

@kas1e

Indeed, as a developer myself I know what makes a good bug report; that wasn't it, that was more just a confirmation of the sorry state it's been in for a long time. My bug reports, including crash logs and exact steps to reproduce the issue have all been sent in many years ago, and many OS updates ago, but sadly AmigaInput hasn't been fixed in any of the updates that were released, up to 4.1FE update 1. I can only presume that AmigaInput is too far down the priorities list, and with current development at a standstill and other more important parts awaiting updates too, there seems little point in resubmitting the same bug every so often. But if I have time over the next few weeks, maybe I'll post it on the Hyperion forum, here or somewhere else, just in case someone happens to be passing with the means, desire and time to update it.

@Daedalus

When using AmigaInutAnywhere, you can get a crash in side AmigaInput with R3 = NULL,

The bug happens if you unplug the Gamepad, while your playing a game and then plug it back in.

Whatever that is using AmigaInput is not informed about the device being unplugged. and whatever that is using AmigaInput does not know the device is pluged back in.

The Amiga Input Anywhere does obtain gamepad so “Amiga Input” should not be allowed to expunge gamepad, my guess is that “Amiga Input / USB class” ignores that something is using it, and expunge it while its being used.

So nothing to fix in AmigaInputAnywhere, bug is else where.
when if Amiga Input is updated, only then can it be something for me to do, but until then nothing can be done.

if AmigaInputAnywhere can't find gamepad it means normally you have not configured "Amiga Input", calibrated and disable "PCI" in Amiga Input, the PCI gamepad driver is known to crash and burn. Can’t really do anything about that.. I guess it does not check if PCI stuff is pluged in, maybe or something is not right.

You will get a pop message, you can only press OK on, saying you must use "Amiga Input" to configure your gamepads / joysticks, so you should have got the message.

AmigaInputAnywhere can't find device that is not configured.

@Daedalus
I at least can check if your bugreports are in bugzilla at all. Are you report them on hyperion's forum and they was confirmed / writen to bugzilla ?

@LiveForIt
Thanks, I understand the mechanisms of how it works, but I was talking specifically about AmigaInputAnyware not doing what it's supposed to, even when everything else is set up correctly. That would be a work-around to use a pad without having to remap it to lowlevel.library for some games that allow keyboard control.

The specific issue I'm referring to is this one: https://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7739


@kas1e
It's years ago now (early in the 4.1 cycle), but I don't remember ever getting a confirmation. It would've been reported on the Hyperion forum I expect, but a lot of people were reporting similar issues at the time as well so even if you can't find my report, there should be plenty of others in there too.