Morpho does not start

[rkrug]

macOS Catalena 10.15.3

When starting, I get the following warning, but Morpho continues.

When starting and adding all info for a new profile, I come to where I can login or skip the login. Login does not work, and crashes the app, while skipping also crashes the app.

Only way to get it to work again, is to delete the .morpho directory.

Any suggestions?

Is Morpho still maintained?

[mbjones]

@rkrug development on Morpho inactive (), and we have moved all of our Metadata editing development work to our web-based metadata editor (https://github.com/NCEAS/metacatui). We use MetacatUI and R for all contributions to the KNB Data Repository and to the Arctic Data Center that we manage. We no longer have the resources to maintain Morpho, as it was originally developed in the late 90's and active development wound down in 2016. That said, lots of people are still successfully using Morpho, and it is an open source application, so we encourage contributions in terms of bug fixes and patches. But note that Morpho does not support the EML 2.2.0 release that recently came out, and it is unlikely to do so unless somebody steps up to add that functionality.

The specific problem you reference appears to be a bug in detecting the java version, and is likely minor. But someone would need to track down the source of the issue. Pull requests are welcome. Morpho generates a file in the installation directory named stderr.log that contains a more detailed log of error messages that can be helpful when tracking down problems like this, especially if you increase the debugging level in the settings pane.

Can you describe your or your group's use of Morpho? I've wanted to get a better sense of how much it is being used and whether there is sufficient interest in Morpho to update it and determine a new maintenance trajectory. I'm happy to have a discussion about future directions.

[rkrug]

@mbjones Thanks for your quick response.

Ups - overlooked the badge.

The message is irritating, but not the real problem. The problem is, that Morpho crashes after confirming that message - so I can't set the debug level. I assume, that this is caused by the used java version to new, but I do not think I will investigate further at the moment.

At the moment Morpho quits at after confirmation of the dialog and there is no error log in the .morpho directory.

I am just investigating if we want to use Morpho - so there is no need for updates at the moment.

The use of R is interesting, and we might consider this - I assume R (the EML package) is used to export the metadata to EML format?

[mbjones]

@rkrug I just added that badge to clarify, so you didn't miss anything!

you can change the debugging level in the configuration file, ~/.morpho/config.xml. Change the value of the debug property from 30 to 55 or so to get more detailed output (<debug_level>55</debug_level>). The error log is not in the .morpho directory -- its in the same directory as the installed application. So, on my Mac it is located at /Applications/morpho-1.11.0/stderr.log.

And yes, the R EML package is really helpful with automating metadata generation when it is repetitive, or if you have an automated data stream. MetacatUI and Morpho are much better for one-off editing of metadata prose. We often start editing in one of those apps, then take the generated EML and add to it using the R packages, and then update it on the KNB using the R dataone and datapack packages.

[rkrug]

OK - found them both. Set it to 55. This is the error log:

Error setting URL StreamHandler!
Determining net status ...
 - unable to open network connection to Metacat
doPing() called - network available?? - false
Current ClassLoader is: jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader
Parser created is: org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl
Current ClassLoader is: jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader
Parser created is: org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl
Setting username to dn: uid=http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7490-0066,o=unaffiliated,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org
the last id from metacat ===== null
the data dir is ===== /Users/rainer/.morpho/profiles/dmdScheme/data/dmdscheme
The max docid in local file system for scope dmdscheme is 0
Final Last id is null
Current ClassLoader is: jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader
Parser created is: org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl
Setting username to dn: uid=http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7490-0066,o=unaffiliated,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org
the last id from metacat ===== null
the data dir is ===== /Users/rainer/.morpho/profiles/dmdScheme/data/dmdscheme
The max docid in local file system for scope dmdscheme is 0
Final Last id is null
Creating GUIAction: Login/Logout... edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@fbd1f6
Creating GUIAction: New profile... edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@3a52dba3
Creating GUIAction: Switch profile... edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@b3ca52e
Creating GUIAction: Remove profile... edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@1ff4931d
Creating GUIAction: Set preferences... edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@510f3d34
Creating GUIAction: Exit edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@b2c9a9c
Creating GUIAction: About... edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.GUIAction@544fa968
java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.framework.MorphoGuideCommand.<init>(MorphoGuideCommand.java:57)
    at edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.Morpho.initializeActions(Morpho.java:1519)
    at edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.Morpho.main(Morpho.java:1082)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.desktop/javax.swing.ImageIcon.<init>(ImageIcon.java:217)
    at edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.UISettings.getAsImage(UISettings.java:648)
    at edu.ucsb.nceas.morpho.util.UISettings.<clinit>(UISettings.java:384)
    ... 3 more

[rkrug]

And yes, the R EML package is really helpful with automating metadata generation when it is repetitive, or if you have an automated data stream. MetacatUI and Morpho are much better for one-off editing of metadata prose. We often start editing in one of those apps, then take the generated EML and add to it using the R packages, and then update it on the KNB using the R dataone and datapack packages.

Thanks for that info about the packages you use and how you use them. I will likely come back with some more questions.