Where is the filebot command-line tool?

[pjac]

Hi,

Summary: I cannot run filebot from the command line, and very old settings are being retained after uninstalling/reinstalling.

I have the Windows Store version installed. I used to have the non-Store version, but uninstalled it when I switched months ago. Filebot is not in my list of installed programs, and there are no Filebot folders under "c:\Program Files\" or "c:\Program Files (x86)\".

I cannot run the app from the command line. From other forum posts, it looks like it is meant to magically work by adding itself to the path. Filebot is not in my %path%:

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C:\Users\peter>echo %path%
C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitvise SSH Client;C:\Program Files\EmEditor;C:\Program Files\nodejs\;C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\.dnx\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft DNX\Dnvm\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Emulator Manager\1.0\;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\Client SDK\ODBC\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\;C:\Users\peter\AppData\Roaming\npm;%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;

If I manually go to the WindowsApps folder, I find "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PointPlanck.FileBot_4.7.8.0_x64__49ex9gnthnt12", which contains filebot.exe. When I run "filebot -version" I get:

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C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PointPlanck.FileBot_4.7.8.0_x64__49ex9gnthnt12>filebot -version
FileBot 4.7.8 (r4842) / Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.8.0_121 / Windows 10 10.0 (amd64)

If I run sysinfo, I get:

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C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PointPlanck.FileBot_4.7.8.0_x64__49ex9gnthnt12>filebot -script fn:sysinfo
FileBot 4.7.8 (r4842)
JNA Native: 5.1.0
MediaInfo: 0.7.92.1
7-Zip-JBinding: 9.20
Chromaprint: 1.4.2
Extended Attributes: OK
Unicode Filesystem: OK
Script Bundle: 2017-03-24 (r490)
Groovy: 2.4.8
JRE: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.8.0_121
JVM: 64-bit Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
CPU/MEM: 8 Core / 3 GB Max Memory / 23 MB Used Memory
OS: Windows 10 (amd64)
Package: APPX
Data: C:\Users\peter\AppData\Roaming\FileBot
Done ?(?????)?

I have Java 8 (1.8.0_121) installed:

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C:\Users\peter>java -version
java version "1.8.0_121"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.121-b13, mixed mode)

I have noticed that old settings are retained after uninstalling and reinstalling (specifically, rename presets are present from a while ago - my newer presets have gone).

I have also tried the Windows Apps 'reset' option under "Settings->System->Apps & Features->Filebot->Advanced Options".

Is there any way to do a complete wipe of Filebot? I.e. can you provide a list of locations to check to remove files? After uninstalled, I have made sure that the Roaming folder with Data in it ("C:\Users\peter\AppData\Roaming\FileBot") has been deleted, that there are no Filebot folders under "c:\Program Files\" or "c:\Program Files (x86)\", and that the version in the WindowsApps folder ("C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PointPlanck.FileBot_4.7.8.0_x64__49ex9gnthnt12") has been deleted.

Kind regards,

Peter.

[pjac]

Also, I am running the latest non-Insider release of Windows 10 Pro - build 14393 (aka v.1607) - with all updates applied.

[rednoah]

You're accessing the raw files of the package and run it as if it was a legacy application bypassing the Windows Store sandbox entirely. This is normally impossible because the WindowsApps folder should be locked down and inaccessible. I presume you have manually unlocked that folder. Now you know why it's locked.

It's not the same as starting filebot via the well-defined APPX interfaces (i.e. tile and command). For example, a legacy applications have direct access to the registry, while APPX applications get their own sandboxed registry. That explains why you have two sets of settings.

Have you had a look at the %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps folder yet? That's where the commands for Windows Store applications are linked. When calling filebot, it should be calling the filebot.exe that is in that folder, and that in turn will do some Windows 10 magic and run FileBot as sandboxed APPX application.

Notably, when I do echo %PATH% I don't see any %VARIABLES% in the output. Most likely, %USERPROFILE% is not resolved to \path\to\your\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps so the filebot command is not in the %PATH% and thus can't be found.

[pjac]

Hi,

I did indeed manually unlock it - mostly as I had no idea that the "\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps" thing existed Handy to know for the future!

Thanks for spotting the %USERPROFILE% thing. Weirdly, it is set as an environment variable:

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C:\Users\peter>echo %USERPROFILE%
C:\Users\peter

For some reason, PATH is not using it. No idea why, and no obvious solutions online. If you have any ideas, that would be super handy! All I have come up with is deleing my user and profile, and creating a new one - which I really don't want to do.

In the meantime, I have gone to Control Panel and manually changed the PATH (and TEMP, TMP - which also used %USERPROFILE%) environment variables to use the actual path rather than using %USERPROFILE%. I can now call filebot from the command line.

I still get old format presets (from the non-Windows Store version that was uninstalled) retained, though. Any idea where they could be coming from?

Kind regards,

Peter.

[rednoah]

The non-Windows Store version stores settings in the registry. The Windows Store version does the same, HOWEVER the Windows runtime will redirect all registry access into it's private application-specific registry hive. Hence, Store and non-Store application cannot possibly access each others settings.

If you are getting the non-Store settings, then you are somehow accidentally running the non-Store version.

Many users get confused when they have installed both Windows Store version and the legacy package. You can easily check by running the sysinfo script via the built-in Groovy console. See FAQ for details.

[pjac]

The sysinfo from the Windows Store version launched from my Start Menu (done by pressing F5 to open Groovy Pad, and then F5 again to run the command "runScript 'sysinfo'") is:

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FileBot 4.7.8 (r4842)
JNA Native: 5.1.0
MediaInfo: 0.7.92.1
7-Zip-JBinding: 9.20
Chromaprint: 1.4.2
Extended Attributes: OK
Unicode Filesystem: OK
Script Bundle: 2017-03-24 (r490)
Groovy: 2.4.8
JRE: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.8.0_121
JVM: 64-bit Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
CPU/MEM: 8 Core / 3 GB Max Memory / 32 MB Used Memory
OS: Windows 10 (amd64)
Package: APPX
Data: C:\Users\peter\AppData\Roaming\FileBot

When run from the command line:

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C:\Users\peter>filebot -script fn:sysinfo
FileBot 4.7.8 (r4842)
JNA Native: 5.1.0
MediaInfo: 0.7.92.1
7-Zip-JBinding: 9.20
Chromaprint: 1.4.2
Extended Attributes: OK
Unicode Filesystem: OK
Script Bundle: 2017-03-24 (r490)
Groovy: 2.4.8
JRE: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.8.0_121
JVM: 64-bit Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
CPU/MEM: 8 Core / 3 GB Max Memory / 23 MB Used Memory
OS: Windows 10 (amd64)
Package: APPX
Data: C:\Users\peter\AppData\Roaming\FileBot
Done ?(?????)?

There is no version of FileBot installed other than the Windows Store app. The only other version I have is the portable version in my Downloads folder in a ZIP file, but that is version 4.7.5 whereas the results above show version 4.7.8.

[rednoah]

That is indeed strange.

If you open the registry, then you can delete all the preferences stored by the legacy version here:

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs

Windows may give the Store version a combined view of the registry, where read operations may come from the real registry, but write operations are always written to the application-specific registry.

[pjac]

Yup, that did it.

The old presets are all gone, and the only one remaining is the new one I made earlier today. I even got the "how to use Filebot" popup.

Many thanks!

Peter.

[rednoah]

I see! That's very interesting. I didn't know that the Windows Store sandbox merges existing values with the application-specific registry. Thanks for clearing that up!

[rednoah]

There's been more reports. Looks like the NodeJS installer screws up the %PATH% when adding itself.

@see viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4288&p=27625#p27625