Unexpected consequences of a closed-source toolchain

[hirez]

The most useful tool I have found for keeping an offline copy of an LJ + comments is the mildly-obviously named 'LJArchive'. It also manages to provide a fairly rapid full text search of entries + comments, which is really very useful indeed.

As far as I can tell (-> . <- this far) it's written in M$ C#, has been abandoned by the author and hasn't worked for some number of months due to $Random-XML-error which appears to be inside the comment-parsing code.

I was going to chunter on about this being unfixable b/c it would require spending ££ on the relevant part of the M$ toolchain, but it seems that the 'Express' version is free for the download (and presumably in exchange for all sorts of details that M$ can use to sell me things).

So instead of whining about it, I'd better bag yon thingy and see if the code is amenable to tinkering by a Unix Curmudgeon.

Comments

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Hm. Looking at mithering elsewhere, it seems that a LJ code-update b0rked something, they knew what it was and they were going to fix it. Perhaps the fix was yon pop-up...

If (massive if) I get the thing working, I'll no doubt jabber about it. Although the last time something similar happened, it turned out my fixing was entirely redundant and gave me a migraine.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the fix was yon pop-up...

That would explain it :(

I really should remember that utilities like this are often things whose innards one can poke if one wants. It just never occurs to me. I don't know why not.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Gah. On trying it just now, I got a wee box telling me my session had been dropped. I suspect comment-export is one of the things they drop first while under DDoS.