I start PL/SQL developer always with "desktop"-parameter.

If I close the programm and restart it again then the order of the windows in the Window list is not the same!

s. Window List - sort order?

Version 8.0.0.1480

We'll check it out.

Hi Marco,

I can confirm the problem of an unsorted list still exists for me too.

Where is the windows list sort order stored now? In the project desktop file?
What action causes it to get stored? Saving a project? Closing a project?

I guess the Window menu command "save layout" has nothing to do with the window list sort order, just with the position of the window list itself.

Perhaps this will help: I have always minimum three PL/SQL Developer windows opened, all started with differen "desktop" parameter (DEV, TEST, PROD).

Hi Marco,

any news on this issue? When will this finally be fixed now?
It's quite annoying to again and again resort windows list items.
Could you answer my previous questions?

We hope to have a fix for 8.0.1. I will let you know when we have a preliminary fix.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think I had this problem before. Now in 8.0.1 beta (1496), the sort order of my window list changes after restarting PLD. It seems to be depending on which window has focus when you close PLD: it is this window that will be the first in the list after restart. Is this a bug or a new feature?

BTW, I'm not using projects or a desktop-parameter.

Here is some comments from me. When PL/SQL Dev started from crash and I selected option to restore the session backup, I found the same situation with sorting. It's constantly problem since version 7.

We'll check it out.

Version 8.0.1.1498

Big disappointment: windows are still re-sorted after the restart.

Version 8.0.1.1502

Disappointed here as well: still not working.

I think this issue is really annoying to a lot of users.
Any idea when we don't have to deal with ever changing windows sort order?

Can you explain what exactly goes wrong? I think this should all be fixed now.

Hi Marco,
I guess I just forgot to save the project in my test. It really seems to be fine now. I guess this fix can also be added in the relevant "PL/SQL Developer - News". I couldn't find it there in any fixed issues list.

Version 8.0.1.1502

Hi Marco,

I still have some random issues regarding messed up windows sort orders. I would guess it happens now in less than 5% of closing pl/sql-developer projects and opening them again. In that case it seems to go back to the former behavior, coming up in a sort order that I sure never had stored the project at any time. I have a feeling that it happens more often when memory gets scarce and lots of other applications are open at the same time.

• What can I check out in order for you to help finding the cause?
• Where does the window sort order actually get stored now?
• What are the relevant conditions that cause a windows sort order to get stored again?
  i.e. Does a Project-Save in any case store the windows sort order too or just when it thinks it has to?
• What relevant settings do you need to know, that could possibly affect the described behavior?

Next to the saved project file there is a .dsk file (with desktop info). All opened files are listed with a ChildListIndex entry that determines the sorted location in the Window List.

I'm not sure why loading this goes wrong on occasion, but we'll try to find a cause.

Hi Marco,
this morning one project was messed up again. I noticed that the .dsk file doesn't get saved after reorganizing windows list sort order when saving the project then, it only gets updated once I close PSD. It might help to update .dsk file in any case after a windows sort order reorg when saving projects too. It might be that PSD could not close this project in a clean way last Friday, when I used it last time. I could send you the before (messed-up)/after (resorted) versions of the PSD screenshots and the corresponding PSD .dsk files, if that is useful to you.

Good point, we can make sure the dsk file is saved always. We'll work on this and send you a pre-release.

Thank you. This still doesn't explain though, why it gets messed-up in the first place. At the time of the messed-up-window-list .dsk timestamp the windows-list was sure not showing the messed-up sort order in PSD either, that I found when reopening the project. Once I sort it and it once gets saved successfully sorted, i.e. when reopening the project it shows up sorted, it should never mess itself up, no matter when it gets saved in the .dsk later on again, unless of course, I mess up the sort order myself, which I sure would remember.

If the sort order is "messed" up, I can only imagine it returns to the unsorted list, which is the order in which the windows are displayed. Otherwise, it must be you messing things up .

Can you test this version and let me know if it works better for you?

plsqldev801.1504.exe

Thank you, I just downloaded and installed it.
When I save the project, PSD seems to save the .dsk file now whenever I had changed the windows list order before and doesn't save it, when windows list order has remained the same since last saving the project. This seems to be reasonable.
I'll keep an eye on any sort order mess-ups and will let you know about the result.
How does it work with Window-Save Layout? I can't see any timestamp update in the user.prefs nor in .dsk nor in .prj file, when I use that menu option. Where does PSD store its Window Layout and when?
Is it maybe still implemented the same as Project-Save was before, just saving when PSD gets closed?

The "Window Save Layout" is stored in the registry, either when selecting the menu item, or when the application is closed (when the save desktop preference is set).

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Allround Automations\PL/SQL Developer\Desktop

Thank for your feedback. I think the original problem can be considered solved now. I haven't had any occurrence of the problem with Version 8.0.1.1504 anymore. I'd suggest you make this release generally available.

Looks like this problem occasionally occurs again in the latest version 8.0.1.1510. It seems to behave like in 8.0.1.1502 again. Please get this fixed soon.

What exactly goes wrong with 8.0.3.1510?

I'd say the description I gave about 8.0.1.1502 on January 22 applies again:

[quote]I still have some random issues regarding messed up windows sort orders. I would guess it happens now in less than 5% of closing pl/sql-developer projects and opening them again. In that case it seems to go back to the former behavior, coming up in a sort order that I sure never had stored the project at any time. I have a feeling that it happens more often when memory gets scarce and lots of other applications are open at the same time.[/quote]

We'll check it out.

Maybe this helps in checking it out: When PSD had crashed before and I open via Crash Recovery the next time, window list items will always come up in an order I never had saved them before.

Okay, thanks.

Please get this fixed soon and once for all! Just two days in a row now when opening my PSD project I had to resort my window list items, because PSD seemed to think it's a good idea to put least recently used items last in windows list again.

If I were you I'd be more worried about PSD crashing all the time

It's not only happening when PSD crashes. A crash just quite certainly messes the windows list order up. That posting was meant as a help for development to sort out this problem.

Again and again I encounter my windows list messed up after restarting PSD. Any idea when this problem will be fixed and my Sisyphus task of having to reorder them manually all the time will cease?

Is there any fix included for this problem in the latest version 8.0.4.1514 ?

No, unfortunately we cannot reproduce any issue with the sort order.

So far I haven't had an issue with it in 8.0.4.1514, I'll let you know if it happens again. If that's the case, would it be feasible to create a diagnostic version that can tell you what exactly goes wrong in my case?

If the problem is reproducible for you, that should be possible.

I'm having the same problem, and I agree that it is annoying, since I have up to 10 Package windows open.

By the look of it, after restarting PLD the windows seem to open in the order in which the were opened/created and not in the last sort order.

Explicitly issuing 'Save Layout' does not help.

At first I thought this may be caused while opening PLD installed on Windows 7 from a virtual XP machine, but installing PLD within the VM gives the same results.

Version 8.0.3.1510

I have just had this problem occur again in the latest PSD version 8.0.4.1514. So I think if developers have no idea what is causing this, we really need a diagnostic version to gather the necessary info for fixing.
To me it seems to really be a memory issue. In the latest occurrence I tried to open a PSD project while lots of applications where already open. It then only managed to open a few of the windows of the PSD project that I tried to open. So then I closed this whole PSD instance again, closed some more applications to free up the required memory for PSD and then tried opening the same PSD project again. Now all my PSD project windows were in wrong order, even though the project was never saved in between.
I guess when memory is scarce PSD, should rather fail to open altogether and never save anything in that status while risking to mess things up. Hope this helps in fixing this problem soon!

In the past I've seen a similar issue where when the system was running low on resources (usually "desktop heap" space) PSD would crash and fail to correctly save preferences, causing preferences to be reset. I haven't seen this problem in a good while, though.

It happened this morning again. For some reason the problem is more likely to happen on Mondays it seems. There was no PSD crash neither during Fridays close of this PSD project nor while opening it again this morning. Resources were sure sort of scarce during closing as well as during opening, however like most other applications PSD should be able to deal with that gracefully and not mess things up randomly.
Please suggest the next steps about how to finally get this issue sorted out.

To Marco van der Linden:
I guess it would be a good idea for you to upgrade to the latest version of PSD as well, just to be sure we're really talking about the same effect with the same version here.

We'll continue to look into this.

Just had the problem again. I get it at least once a week.
Is there any timeline regarding a fix or a further diagnosis for this problem?

Upgraded to 8.0.4.1514, but the problem still exists. Having over 10 windows open and reordering them (even given them labels preceded by numbers). After closing and reopening PSD windows are sorted randomly.

Same here, have to resort about every other day.

No mercy even on ones birthday: PSD forces you to resort again and again - no matter what.

Just got two project windows sort orders all messed up again! Thank you PSD!

Almost daily my PSD windows list sort order gets messed up.

What is done about this issue?
What about the diagnostic version that I brought up in discussion here on June 23?
How else can I help PSD development to fix this issue once and for all?

In the current version 9.0.6.1665 this problem is still causing trouble. Especially when PL/SQL Developer crashes and I use an automatically saved version, my Window list order is completely messed up.

Will this problem finally be resolved in the upcoming version 10?

Version 10.0.1.1694

VERY big disappointment: windows are still re-sorted after the restart.

Window where I started SQL-select at last is always at bottom in the window-list after restart of PLSQL-Developer.

Yes, I have noticed this too. Happens especially when resources get scarce. It's sad that this problem is still ongoing after all these years and releases.

My workaround is to create a sorted list in a project sub-group. This one you can then completely close and reopen, which opens them in the same order as listed there then. However sometimes this list looses its order for some reason too, less frequently though than the windows list.

This messed up window list sort order problem exists as well in the latest version v12.0.2.1818. I managed to create a test case.
The problem always seems to occur when the list of items in the window list gets long enough so that you need to scroll and when you change the order of the windows in the window list then. The same behaviour can be reproduced as well with v11.0.6.1776.
I will send the test case details with screen shots via e-mail.

Were you able to reproduce the problem using my test case? What is the current status of this problem now?

Marco, could you please respond?!
After all this is really an ancient problem waiting so long to be finally fixed. This is also why this thread has the 2nd most views of all.

Marco???