Building - additional setup steps required before run/debug? (1 Viewer)

[kevin-f]

Ok, not having any solution for the issue described at https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...art-up-in-time-on-resume.132250/#post-1154390 , I'm now trying to build and debug MP, so that I can try to find the screen where the connection message appears and add some kind of retry functionality. (Having contributed financially to the project - something I hope to do again - it would also be good to be able to contribute as a developer in whatever way.)

After building, MP does not seem ready to run (dlls not found - see below), and I'd like to know if there are some further required steps that I've not found in the how-to-build documentation.

Environment: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Visual Studio 2013, MP 1.12 client already installed and working.

So, I installed all the build prerequisites (except NSIS since I don't want to build an installer) listed at http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_.../Building_MediaPortal_from_source/1_Git_Setup

I cloned the git repo.

The batch file MSBUILD_Rebuild_All_MediaPortal_Release.bat appears to complete ok, though it occasionally emits lines like:

File not found - _BuildReport_Files
Building TV Server...
Error occurred while loading document 'Build_Report_Debug_TvLibrary.xml'.

More importantly, opening the solution in VS2013, building works fine and I can launch stuff.

I can run configuration.exe as described at http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/18_Contribute/4_Development/Debugging and hit 'ok' to accept the defaults.

If I then try to launch MediaPortal in the debugger, it fails with System.DllNotFoundException in GUIFont constructor (eventually getting stuck with a blank screen):
Unable to load DLL 'fontEngine.dll'

This dll along with a number of others can be found in the MP installation dir. Are these dlls targets of the C++ code that's described as "C++ sourced binaries have been removed from the repository as of April, 2013"? Is there some additional step I should be taking after build to allow execution?

As a workaround, if I just copy all the dlls from my MP installation dir to some other dir and then include that in the path, I can launch MP in the debugger ok ... but that's a workaround sure to cause problems, plus some important things still don't work (like I can't open the settings screen).

Can anyone advise as to what I should be doing to build and debug MP? Should it be possible to run/debug straight after build (having run configuration.exe), or does it need some installer-like script?

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[regeszter]

Hi,

Did you build the filters solution?

 

[kevin-f]

Thanks for the reply. I hadn't done so in Visual Studio - because MSBUILD_Rebuild_All_MediaPortal_Release.bat invokes something to do that - but I tried building it in Visual Studio to check, and got an error about vsyasm.props. Google helped me realised that the 'Build prerequisites' page mentioned above that I'd followed seems to need updating to reflect what's required for VS2013. There is information on what you need to do to build with VS2013, but it's hidden away under the details for version 1.11 at http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_.../1.b.x/Development_Changes/Visual_Studio_2013 . Should the main 'Build prerequisites' page have this info? (I don't think I can edit that page - can I?) Anyway, now the dlls are available, and I can launch MP in the debugger and it (basically) works, though I still have some problems to track down (e.g. can't open 'Settings' screen) ... but if needs be, maybe I'll post separately to ask about that.

Thanks.