Installation DELETED ALL FILES in install folder

[ZoeySamples]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Describe the bug

I wanted to try installing the program to a different location because it was detecting the wrong version of foobar2000. I put it in my music folder, not realizing it was going to delete every single file in it. I lost 17,000 files. I ran Windows File Recovery and got 5,200 back, but all of my library didn't make it. 9,000+ songs are gone and wiped from the disk.

Reproduction Steps

1. Run installation file
2. Select custom location to install program
3. Deletes everything in the folder, including all sub-directories

Expected behavior

I expected the program to install all the necessary files in the folder I specified, without deleting any of my files.

Screenshots

Device Info

• Music Presence version: 2.3.4
• Operating system and version: Windows 10

Additional context

No response

[ungive]

Firstly, I'm very sorry you lost these files because of the Music Presence installer. I do want to say though, for anything that is of value to you on a digital storage medium, I urge you to make backups in the future! Data loss can happen for all sorts of reasons.

The reason this happened is that the installer runs all uninstallers it can find for already installed versions of Music Presence, but it also completely removes the directory that is selected for installation for the case that the auto-updater in the app installed a new version, which does not come with an uninstaller. This is the code:

# Otherwise make sure to remove the installation directory manually. This is
# necessary if the latest version was installed by the application via automatic
# updates, which do not ship with an uninstaller.
RMDir /r "$INSTDIR"

I think the best solution would be to create a "Music Presence" subdirectory and install it in that, if the user chose a different directory. I'll implement this in the next version!

[fem-al-e]

I believe that Hanlon's razor applies here; @ungive has most likely not written MP this way out of malice.
Nevertheless, it is my belief that no consumer software, let alone any non-critical/entertainment application, should ever be (thoughtlessly) using RMDir, even within its own scope.

Most other applications check whether a directory is empty before installing; while often annoying, it prevents this kind of accidental massive data loss.
I highly urge you to implement a check of this nature - not only for the installation, but also for uninstall process and especially for the update procedure.

[ZoeySamples]

Agreed - it would be a lot safer to check if the folder is empty, and make a subdirectory instead of deleting all contents. For such a simple mistake on my end, it had huge consequences.

If the program needs to check for previous installations that lack an uninstaller, maybe there's some way to check for appropriate files by name or file type or something. Instead of deleting everything, maybe it would know which files are Music Presence related, and just delete those.

As an aside, I didn't assume this was done out of malice, which is why I made a post here. I figured it was a design aspect that was done for a reason, but that certain cases hadn't been considered. I did manage to get all my music back through a recovery program, from my external HDD, and from my iPod. It was somewhat time consuming, but perhaps a blessing in disguise because my library is super tidy now haha.

[ungive]

but also for uninstall process

I'm fairly certain that the built-in NSIS uninstaller only removes the files it installed and no additional ones.

and especially for the update procedure.

Updates are always installed inside %LOCALAPPDATA%\Music Presence, so there will be never be any data loss during an update, even when installing it into a different direcetory. At some point there will be a portable version, I'll definitely keep in mind that Music Presence might be located in sensitive locations then!

If the program needs to check for previous installations that lack an uninstaller, maybe there's some way to check for appropriate files by name or file type or something. Instead of deleting everything, maybe it would know which files are Music Presence related, and just delete those.

I will add a check to only remove all files when the directory is the default installation directory inside AppData and otherwise resort to creating a "Music Presence" directory and install it there (I hope that's possible with NSIS), without deleting anything (except the Music Presence directory, if it already exists, I'd say).

As an aside, I didn't assume this was done out of malice, which is why I made a post here. I figured it was a design aspect that was done for a reason, but that certain cases hadn't been considered.

Yeah, I never tested it for installation into a different directory. That's my bad. 😅

I did manage to get all my music back through a recovery program, from my external HDD, and from my iPod. It was somewhat time consuming, but perhaps a blessing in disguise because my library is super tidy now haha.

I'm very glad to hear that!