AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems?

BrowserUk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Update: Having backed up everything and purged my machine, I retried both builds. The 813 msi still failed, but once I had again cleaned that off manually 815 msi installed clean. Also, AS have reverted from using javascript in their HTMLised docset in 815, so I can again use it with Opera without the annoyances described below.

I can't work out how to get the html for packages I've installed myself to show up in the AS index as they used to, but a clean Perl install is better than what I had.

</update>

Has anyone else had problems installing and/or using the last two AS perl 5.8.7 releases?

In particular,

MSI installs that won't;
Runs through to something like 95 or 98% completion then bellyaches about "a component of the installation gave the wrong return code", and then insists on backing out all the changes.
HTML documentation that uses javascript and frames and is broken.
When you expand an item in the index, the index get redrawn with the expanded item off the top of the frame so you cannot see it.
Produces links in the HTMLized POD that use the IE extended url format that replaces the ':' in pathnames with '|', which other browsers don't understand and flag as a malicious attempt at misdirection.
The Pod2HTML() subroutine that used to be a part of the ActivePerl::DocTools package seems to have gone walk-about.
With the consequence that attempts to build CPAN packages that use EU::MM generated makefiles fail because that subroutine cannot be found.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Comment on AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by Trix606 (Monk) on Jan 23, 2006 at 16:05 UTC
I have AS 5.8.7 815 installed on my XP SP2 machines with no problems. The only time I have had issues is when I did not uninstall the previous version of AS on a machine.	[reply]
Re: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by jkeenan1 (Deacon) on Jan 23, 2006 at 18:30 UTC
I have had no problem using build 813 since installing it at work on June 6, 2005. I've never had to make reference to ActivePerl::DocTools; in fact, I wasn't aware of its existence until you mentioned it. I am familiar with pod2html, the command-line utility which is a wrapper around the core module Pod::Html. I have never had any problem using it on ActivePerl. Jim Keenan	[reply]
Re^2: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jan 23, 2006 at 18:50 UTC
These are commands that are run when trying to build Devel::Cover. Note the last line. c:\Perl\packages\Devel-Cover-0.55>nmake /n Microsoft (R) Program Maintenance Utility Version 7.00.9466 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. rem rem rem rem rem C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Install -e "pm_to_blib({@ARG +V}, 'blib\ lib/Devel/Cover/Report/Text.pm blib\lib\Devel\Cover\Report\Text.pm +lib/Devel/ C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Install -e "pm_to_blib({@ARG +V}, 'blib\ C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e touch pm_to_blib rem cl -c -nologo -Gf -W3 -MD -DNDEBUG -DWIN32 -D_CONSOLE -DNO_ +STRICT -DH C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -l -e "print qq{@ARGV}" "Running Mkboots +trap for D C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "-MExtUtils::Mkbootstrap" -e "Mkbootst +rap('Cover C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e touch Cover.bs C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e chmod 644 Cover.bs link -out:blib\arch\auto\Devel\Cover\Cover.dll -dll -nologo -n +odefaultli C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e chmod 755 blib\arc +h\auto\Dev C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e rm_rf blib\arch\a +uto\Devel\ C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e cp Cover.bs blib\a +rch\auto\D C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e chmod 644 blib\arc +h\auto\Dev rem rem rem C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e rm_f blib\script\ +cover C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e cp cover blib\scri +pt\cover pl2bat.bat blib\script\cover C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e chmod 755 blib\sc +ript\cover C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e rm_f blib\script\ +gcov2perl C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e cp gcov2perl blib\ +script\gco pl2bat.bat blib\script\gcov2perl C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e chmod 755 blib\sc +ript\gcov2 rem C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "-MActivePerl::DocTools" -e "Pod2HTML(in +stalldirs => "site")" rem rem [download] Having reverted to 5.8.6, this builds clean, but under builds of 5.8.7, (813 & 815), that last command fails. I got the same thing with the makefiles for Inline::C++, Lexical::Alias and several others. However, from the reports I have from several other people both in the thread and via /msg, it seems to be a problem confined to my system. My conclusion is that one of the aborted attempts to install has left something lying around somewhere that continues to prevent a successful installation. Time to back everything up to CD, erase all perl related stuff from my system and start from scratch :( Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal? "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by jkeenan1 (Deacon) on Jan 24, 2006 at 04:04 UTC
BrowserUK: `C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "-MActivePerl::DocTools" -e "Pod2HTML(installdirs + => "site")"` [download] At the moment, I'm not on Windows, so I can't test this out. But is there a problem with nested pairs of double quotes in the line of code quoted above? jimk	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by jkeenan1 (Deacon) on Jan 24, 2006 at 04:00 UTC
(Somewhat OT): Until I saw this post, I didn't know a PPM was available for Devel::Cover 0.55. The latest one I had previously was 0.47. But I now see that kobesearch has 0.55. Cool! jimk	[reply]
Re^4: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jan 24, 2006 at 08:23 UTC
Re: AS 5.8.7 (813 & 815) problems? by spiritway (Vicar) on Jan 24, 2006 at 05:38 UTC
I've installed both 813 and 815 on my WinXP (Home) machine without incident. I haven't used the features described in items 2 and 3 of your question, so I can't comment about them.	[reply]