Install extensions is not working on latest preview release

I’m on ubuntu


Thanks for the help

Does that folder exist and writable for your user?

I am also getting a similar error when I start Slicer from the latest preview

maga@magalab-ML:~/Downloads$ tar zxf Slicer-5.3.0-2023-03-10-linux-amd64.tar.gz 
maga@magalab-ML:~/Downloads/Slicer$ cd .Slicer-5.3.0-2023-03-10-linux-amd64/
maga@magalab-ML:~/Downloads/Slicer-5.3.0-2023-03-10-linux-amd64$ ./Slicer 
"Failed to create extensions directory" "/home/maga/Downloads/Slicer-5.3.0-2023-03-10-linux-amd64/bin/../Slicer/Extensions-31632"
Switch to module:  "Welcome"

It is adding that extra Slicer folder (which is now replacing the NA-MIC folder), and that’s where it is failing to create.

This NA-MIC to Slicer rename is a very recent change, so most likely that causes the problem. Is there a NA-MIC folder, too? Does the problem go away if you create the Slicer folder?

Hi. Thanks for the answer

Nope

You cannot create the Slicer folder you mention because that’s already the name of the executable to launch Slicer. Maybe the folder could be named “Slicer5”?

You have solved the mystery! There was no issue on Windows, because the Slicer executable name is Slicer.exe and on macOS the folder structure is special, but on linux there is indeed a name clash. The only way to change this is to modify the Slicer executable or the organization name, because the settings subfolder naming logic logic is hardcoded in the constructor of the QSettings class.

Changing the Slicer executable name is probably not a good idea, as it could cause regressions at many places.

Potential ideas for organization name:

  • slicer - most linux file systems are case sensitive, so the name clash would be resolved, but it could be quite fragile, it may not work on some file systems
  • SlicerCommunity
  • Slicer5 - it would reset settings at each new Slicer major version, which may not what users expect, it is also not an organization name
  • slicer.org - looks quite good, it is about the same as the organization domain, but it may be even good (as organization name and domain are sometimes used interchangeably)

Are there any other suggestions?

I’ll submit a PR to change the value to slicer.org to resolve the issue until we decide on the final name.

I’ve created an issue in the bugtracker:

@pieper @jcfr

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For future reference, thanks to @lassoan, the issue has been fixed in PR-6879.

After downloading the latest Preview build, I confirm that installing extension works.

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