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FME options and multiple versions of FME not playing nicely with each other

  • 23 October 2019
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ebygomm
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I have 3 versions of FME on my machine, 32 bit 2018 and 2019 and 64 bit 2018, installed in separate directories.

There are a couple of oddities I've experienced when changing FME options,

1) In FME 2019 I removed the Run workspace button to keep only the Rerun entire workspace button which has resulted in the loss of the run workspace button in 2018

2) If i try and set my preferred python interpreter in 2019, the settings are not saved. If I set it in 2018 they are saved, but I don't have the option to choose python 3.7+, only 3.6+, I can change in the workspace (if i remember)

5 replies

jovitaatsafe
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Hi @ebygomm,

Thanks for bringing this up! As far as I know, these are mostly global parameters. For the first one, it's kind of like setting how you want FME to look, what windows you want open, and where they're snapped to. The customizable toolbar menu is one of those and I think the global parameters assume that you'd want your workbench to look consistent across installs, or as much as it can.

For the second issue, with the workbench setting for the python interpreter, FME does its best to keep the one you chose within its support capacity, but like you pointed out it's limited to what its supported in. So FME 2018 can only select python interpreters it supports, and FME 2019 can't enable 2018 to select a python interpreter that it doesn't support. So I think these behaviors that you've mentioned are maybe awkward but expected.

Ideally, how would you want these parameters to function? Perhaps I can create an idea or story for consideration? And on this thread, thought it might be worth mentioning our new FME Explorer Program for user experience testing if that might be of interest to you or anyone else.

ebygomm
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Userlevel 1
Badge +21

Hi @ebygomm,

Thanks for bringing this up! As far as I know, these are mostly global parameters. For the first one, it's kind of like setting how you want FME to look, what windows you want open, and where they're snapped to. The customizable toolbar menu is one of those and I think the global parameters assume that you'd want your workbench to look consistent across installs, or as much as it can.

For the second issue, with the workbench setting for the python interpreter, FME does its best to keep the one you chose within its support capacity, but like you pointed out it's limited to what its supported in. So FME 2018 can only select python interpreters it supports, and FME 2019 can't enable 2018 to select a python interpreter that it doesn't support. So I think these behaviors that you've mentioned are maybe awkward but expected.

Ideally, how would you want these parameters to function? Perhaps I can create an idea or story for consideration? And on this thread, thought it might be worth mentioning our new FME Explorer Program for user experience testing if that might be of interest to you or anyone else.

I don't have the option to set the preferred python interpreter in 2019 at all. Whatever i choose in the options is not retained, the only way i can change the preferred python interpreter is to open up 2018 and change the preferred option there. This means I can never set the preferred option for 2019 to be 3.7+ Are you saying this is expected behaviour?

jovitaatsafe
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Userlevel 1
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I don't have the option to set the preferred python interpreter in 2019 at all. Whatever i choose in the options is not retained, the only way i can change the preferred python interpreter is to open up 2018 and change the preferred option there. This means I can never set the preferred option for 2019 to be 3.7+ Are you saying this is expected behaviour?

I'm not sure I'm understanding the problem fully perhaps, would you be able to explain why you aren't able to set the preferred python interpreter for 2019 at all? Does the 2018 preference override 2019 even if 2019 was the most recently set?

I can't seem to get the same behavior that you described on mine or a colleague's computer, where the 2018 preferred python interpreter changes the 2019 one. One thing that might be worth checking out is in the Registry Editor: Computer\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Safe Software Inc.\\Feature Manipulation Engine\\Python as the preferred python interpreter is set by user. I can check in with a developer on the difference between the PythonPreferredVersion and PythonPreferredVersion64. For me, 2018 (64bit) changes the first, and 2019 changes the second.

One possible workaround is to set FME 2018 to 3.6+ and in the 2019 version, even if it says 3.6+, it will load Python 3.7 if you run it and take a look at the translation log. As my colleague explained it, it's 3.6 plus, so 3.6 is the minimum version it loads and FME will pick the newest available. Since the preferred python setting is only applied when opening new workspaces and downloading packages, does this workaround potentially work for you?

ebygomm
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Userlevel 1
Badge +21

I'm not sure I'm understanding the problem fully perhaps, would you be able to explain why you aren't able to set the preferred python interpreter for 2019 at all? Does the 2018 preference override 2019 even if 2019 was the most recently set?

I can't seem to get the same behavior that you described on mine or a colleague's computer, where the 2018 preferred python interpreter changes the 2019 one. One thing that might be worth checking out is in the Registry Editor: Computer\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Safe Software Inc.\\Feature Manipulation Engine\\Python as the preferred python interpreter is set by user. I can check in with a developer on the difference between the PythonPreferredVersion and PythonPreferredVersion64. For me, 2018 (64bit) changes the first, and 2019 changes the second.

One possible workaround is to set FME 2018 to 3.6+ and in the 2019 version, even if it says 3.6+, it will load Python 3.7 if you run it and take a look at the translation log. As my colleague explained it, it's 3.6 plus, so 3.6 is the minimum version it loads and FME will pick the newest available. Since the preferred python setting is only applied when opening new workspaces and downloading packages, does this workaround potentially work for you?

Whatever is picked in 2019 is simply not set. You pick an option, but if you close the options and immediately go back to the options again, the preferred option is not retained.

jovitaatsafe
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Userlevel 1
Badge +11

Whatever is picked in 2019 is simply not set. You pick an option, but if you close the options and immediately go back to the options again, the preferred option is not retained.

May I ask what version/build of FME 2019 you're using? That part definitely doesn't sound like something that I would expect to happen

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