Hot folder errors with 2.6.01

Hi,

I'm still having lots of problems with the hot folders feature. It worked fine a few versions ago, but the latest updates seem to have broken it for me. I don't know which version worked, since the auto-updater updates it for me. I think it was one of the ones where metadata didn't work anyway.

When a file is added to the hot folder, the folder action works and VideoDrive starts up, converts the file, and adds it to iTunes. So that's all great. Unfortunately, the hot folder script then throws up an OK/Cancel error message, and no more hot folder events will be process until this is cleared, by me clicking OK or Cancel. This means I've got to log on and click OK every time a video is processed, or the next one will fail.

The error window panel reads:
VideoDrive Hot folders could not process videos <filename>
Error: System Events got an error: Can't get window 1 of process "VideoDrive".
Invalid index. (-1719)

As I said, the video mentioned in the error message has actually completed processing and is in iTunes, so everything worked. The problem is VideoDrive won't process any more videos automatically until this error is cleared, so is there any way to supress this error from appearing at all?

I have VideoDrive set to close when it completes an import, could that be it? I've also removed and reinstalled the hot folder script from 2.6.01.

I set VideoDrive to stay open after converting a video, and this seems to have done the trick. It's run through a half dozen files without throwing the hot folder error.

It's not ideal, since this little MacMini has very little RAM and has a lot of other services to run, but at least it's working!

Scratch that, I noticed it had happened again this morning even with VideoDrive set to stay running after conversion. Exactly the same error, and the next two incoming files didn't convert.

It seems to happen less often though, before when VideoDrive was set to quit after conversion it seemed like it was happening after every video. Maybe that's my imagination.

Well, it got annoying enough that I replaced the hot folder script with a really basic version. I've posted it below in case it's useful to anyone else.

I'm guessing the offical script works through applescript "tells" pointed at VideoDrive, and maybe my 2006 MacMini is slow enough that sometimes VideoDrive hangs for long enough that applescript can't locate the VideoDrive window, and throws the error pop-up dialog that freezes all following folder actions until cancellation.

Since I don't want it to queue videos silently for later processing for anything fancy like that, this script just takes the incoming files and uses "open" to chuck them all at VideoDrive, which is set to convert immediately and close afterwards. Errors are logged to system.log instead of a pop-up window.

Works ok for me so far. Although it's frustrating that I bought VideoDrive because I got tired of maintaining a much more complex applescript to import files into iTunes, and now I've started doing the same thing again.... :/

Code:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving addedItems
        set filenameList to ""
        try
                repeat with thisItem in addedItems
                        tell application "Finder"
                                set filename to POSIX path of thisItem as text
                        end tell

                        logConsole("LaunchVideoDrive: Received file: " & filename)
                        set filenameList to filenameList & " " & quoted form of filename
                end repeat

                logConsole("LaunchVideoDrive: Filelist: " & filenameList)
                set shellScript to "open -a /Applications/VideoDrive.app " & filenameList
                do shell script shellScript

        on error errmsg
                logConsole("LaunchVideoDrive: Error: " & errmsg)
        end try

        logConsole("LaunchVideoDrive: Complete.")
end adding folder items to

on logConsole(logMsg)
        set shellCommand to "logger" & space & quoted form of logMsg
        do shell script shellCommand
end log


VideoDrive 2.6.02 will contain several fixes for this issue:
- the error itself is addressed and will not show up anymore at the end of the import process
- in any event that a future error occurs related to hot folders a new dialog window will pop up. It will dismiss itself after 2 minutes because most users do indeed use hot folders in a remote 'server' setting which makes it annoying to manually dismiss the dialog.
- a more detailed error message will be logged in the Console VideoDrive.log (located in the Applications/Utilities folder) for future reference.

you can expect this new version shortly.

That's brilliant, thanks!