Hi all,

I cannot get Navigatrix to read charts on my VM.

My setup is as follows :
- MacBook running Mac OS X (10.9)
- Parallels Virtual Machine running Navigatrix 0.5
- Home folder shared between Mac and VM
- Chart files stored on the Mac OS filesystem (although it is less stable, I want to be able to run the Mac version of OpenCPN, without the VM, just in case)

Strangely enough, once in Navigatrix, OpenCPN will somehow not access the charts stored on the Mac OS. I can view the charts in the File Manager, and I can select the folder in OpenCPN. But the charts never show up in OpenCPN. The log file just shows :



Both folders contain charts, and as you can see, only those in /home/user/Charts/kap/NC are loaded, not those in /media/psf/Home/Charts/NC . When I copy them to /home/user/Charts/kap/NC they show up, so the charts are good

Does anybody have any clue as to why these charts will not be accepted by OpenCPN ?

This leads me to having to copy my charts to the VM which is really a waste of space, and now I have to deal with the fact that I have to increase the size of the VM, but that's another story. I'd just rather have Navigatrix read the charts from where they're stored in the first place.

Thanks for your help.

NR

When running a virtual machine I sometimes run into a permission problem. That is the user of the VM doesn't have the proper permission.

I did a test of a stock install on a VM. It looked like this

Hi Moe,

Thank you for coming to my help.
I had thought about a permissions problem, but have checked and permissions are : -rwxrwxrwx
And I don't get any error message like you get on your screenshot. Nothing happens, and so I went digging into the log file, which also shows that... nothing happens !

The fix in Virtualbox is open a terminal in Navigatrix(VM).

Enterreplacing nx if you have another username.

The group vboxsf will probably be different in Parallel.

Thanks again for replying. However I am not sure I really understand your answer : do you think it's a permission issue or not ?

My reply was I (humbly) think it's probably not. My arguments for this are :
1. permissions for the folder in question are for full access, group and user owner are for myUser
2. the opencpn process is launched with this same user
3. I don't get any error message like the one you captured in screen shot

However, I looked into what you suggested - adding my user to a group. Somehow, I believe that would be in case the folder sharing was not done with myUser, right ? But the permissions for the given folder is "drwxrwxrwx 1 myUser myUser", so I guess Parallels already takes care of sharing without any issue. Accessing a chart file with medit is not an issue.

Am quite confused as to whether this is a permissions issue or something else. Does OpenCPN inhibit loading charts on a another volume or partition ? Did I miss something else ?

Being member of a group is a permission issue.

The Navigatrix VM doesn't 'know' it is suppose to have access to the shared directory...at least default Virtualbox VMs.

Until username of the VM is added to the Group that has access to the data 'it's not going to happen'...at least in Virtualbox.

I can make assumptions that there is a similar occurrence in Parallel, but I don't know.

I am sceptical about your group name however. This is mine:after adding (on the VM) the username of the VM moe to the group vboxsf I have full access.

I understand that a user being member of a group is the core of permissions. To make it short, I am under the impression that Parallels handles this out of the box.

In the accompanying screen shot, I never had any permission denied error message when applying the settings as shown on the left. And on the right, it shows access is fully granted to my user.

Permissions for the whole of the shared folder are set up as so :




Now another piece of information which is quite puzzling : I have noticed that a different type of chart does display, as seen on this second screenshot. However, neither raster nor S57 charts do. Just to be clear : all the folders have the same permissions. This must also somehow point us in a direction other than permissions, doesn't it ?

So the initial problem was that some charts were not displaying not all charts were not displaying?

Correct. I had tested several folders and none had worked before my first post. Now I did some more testing and noticed that one worked, which is why I am adding this piece of information to the puzzle.

Try this:
1) Enable Chart Quilting
2) Select chart view from coloured buttons
3) Optional outline of chart to locate limits of chart.

Hi again,

These are all enabled and have already been toggling the outlines in the hope of seing the red frames appear. But no blue rectangles (or green ones for that matter) on the bottom either. Only yellow now that I have tried that.

I have been using OpenCPN for 4 years now, so I know my way around a little, and like I said the charts are not loaded - as the log file extract also shows. When a chart is found in a folder it is loaded, the blue rectangle appears and the log file says so. When it's not, no blue rectangle and no entry in the log file. When my charts are in the Linux filesystem they are loaded, when they are on the Mac (shared) filesystem, they don't - with the exception of the yellow charts, for some reason. This is what I'm trying to troubleshoot.

Sorry, I'm at a loss. I don't have either a Mac or software "Parallels", or any S57 charts to try and replicate the problem.

While it isn't much help, I think it does narrow it down to a Parallels issue as a Virtualbox VM will handle cm93 and raster charts.

OpenCPN website stateshttp://opencpn.org/ocpn/chart_formats
...which may or may not be part of your troubles. I don't know. Maybe someone else does.

Hi again,

Thanks anyways for trying to help. We're both at a loss, then

I tried ENCs in order to check if it was related to the type of chart, but for the most part, this is most annoying for raster charts which do not work either.

So yes, this is probably due to either Parallels or my Navigatrix installation. Trouble is I don't even know where to start looking, since I just have no mention whatsoever in the log file : no error to point me in a direction.

I will try to reinstall with the latest Navigatrix version once I finish downloading the .iso file, to see if there is any Navigatrix issue that has been solved since. Otherwise I will have either dig in the Parallels user forum or hope someone else can help me here.

Thanks again !