Feko doesn't start up

Altair Forum User

Hello, everyone!

I have a problem with starting Feko on my laptop. I made everything that was described in install manual. Put licensed file to security folder. 
But when I want to start up with double clicking it doesn't work, nothing happened. What shall I do to make it work?  Maybe anyone faced this problem?

I have Windows 8.1.

JIF

Hello Nikita,

This is rather strange and I have not seen something similar being logged by any other users. Without any indication of what is causing the error, I don't think anyone would be able to help you. So, lets try to get more information...

• When you say that FEKO does not start (nothing happens), are you referring to CADFEKO? Does it work when you start POSTFEKO or EDITFEKO? Or do they all simply not start?
• The installation should have created a shortcut in your application menu called the FEKO terminal (it is located at the same place as the shortcuts for CADFEKO, POSTFEKO, etc.) If you run the FEKO terminal, does it work and is the text in the terminal green?
• Assuming the FEKO terminal strated without any problems, start CADFEKO (run cadfeko) from the terminal. Does this work? If not, do you see any output in the terminal that could indicate what the problem is?
• If you run prefeko, does that work (run the command, without quotes: 'prefeko x --version')?

Once you have followed the steps above, I hope we can track down the problem on your machine and get it running as soon as possible.

Regards

JIF

Altair Forum User

Well, POSTFEKO,CADFEKO,EDITFEKO  does not start (nothing happens). When I use Feko terminal text in terminal is red and I can't type anything.

JIF

Hi
The red terminal text is actually indicating an error. What is the contents of the terminal text?

My guess is that there is something wrong with the contents of the file called FEKOenvironmentFromSetup.lua (located in the 'feko' folder in your installation). Could you please send me:

1. The contents of the terminal so that I can see the error message.
2. The FEKOenvironmentFromSetup.lua file.

 

Altair Forum User

Hello!
Yeah, you absolutely right. I attached both files of FEKOenviroment and error screenshot!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Unable to find an attachment - read this blog

JIF

Hi

I don't see anything wrong with one of those files. I suspect that %APPDATA% resolves to a directory that has unicode characters (just a guess) and unicode characters are not supported. To confirm this, please open a normal terminal (run cmd to open a terminal in windows) and display the contents of %APPDATA% by executing the following:
echo %APPDATA%

 

If that is the problem, the only solution I can think of is to store your user settings in some other folder that does not have unicode characters in it. As an initial test, you could try changing the line that sets FEKO_USER_HOME__SETUP to the line below (in FEKOenvironmentFromSetup.lua). Obviously you don't want to store your user settings in a temporary directory, but it should be fine to test if the application start after making the change.

setEnv([[FEKO_USER_HOME__SETUP]], [[C:\Temp2\feko\14.0_]]..getEnv([[FEKO_INSTALLPATH_HASH__SETUP]]), true);

 

Let me know if this change worked.

 

Altair Forum User

Yeah, it works. Thank U so much!!!/emoticons/default_wink.png' srcset='/emoticons/wink@2x.png 2x' title=';)' width='20' />

JIF

Hi
I'm glad I could help. I'll also add this incident on our issue tracker to push up the priority of supporting unicode characters.

 

One last thing - I would not use the temp folder as your permanent location for the user settings. Rather create a folder somewhere on your computer that is more permanent, but has write access and does not contain unicode characters (thus, no ö or ú or any of those characters - standard ASCII only).

 

All the best with your simulations!

Altair Forum User

Thank U!!!/emoticons/default_smile.png' srcset='/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x' title=':)' width='20' />