Invalid item name "Lua"

[tmaynard]

I'm getting this error rather frequently these days:

Error on line 96 of C:\Users\Tom\AppData\Local\JPSoft\TCMD.INI:

  Invalid item name "Lua"
Press any key when ready...

It seems to occur whenever an application installation procedure spawns a command prompt. I don't remember ever seeing it before, but it's popping up all the time now.

I've looked at line 96, and regardless of whether it says "Lua=No" or "Lua=Yes" the error crops up [Note: I do not have Lua installed external to TCMD].

Edited to add: After pressing "any key when ready" the console screen shrinks to a tiny rectangle (or disappears entirely) at the upper left of the screen. It's about 50/50 whether it merely shriinks or disappears. Disappearance is (rather obviously) more annoying.

Any ideas?

 

[rconn]

The Lua directive is v16 only -- are you getting the error in v16 or an earlier version? If your COMSPEC is set to point to a v15 installation, then you'll get that error when an app starts a new shell.

 

[tmaynard]

Ooops, I'm usually more thorough. I'm running TCMD v16.00.41, on Windows 8.1, and (somehow, somewhere, somewhen) I configured my system so that TCMD steps in whenever CMD.EXE is invoked (which is an element of the problem I'm having).

Either of two things would quiet me down:

1. Figure out what the root cause of the problem is
2. Reset the configuration so that TCMD is only invoked directly

Update: My COMSPEC is

Tom@venus c:\program files\jpsoft
$ echo %comspec%
C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD16x64\TCC.EXE

Unsetting COMSPEC (as you might guess) didn't help ... since another process is spawned.

 

[rconn]

Looking at the COMSPEC value in a TCC session won't tell you anything, as each copy of TCC sets it to itself. You need to check the COMSPEC setting in your system settings (Control Panel / System / Advanced System Settings / Environment Variables / System Variables). I suspect you have that pointing to an old version of TCC -- Take Command does not alter that setting on a new or upgrade installation.

 

[vefatica]

Ooops, I'm usually more thorough. I'm running TCMD v16.00.41, on Windows 8.1, and (somehow, somewhere, somewhen) I configured my system so that TCMD steps in whenever CMD.EXE is invoked (which is an element of the problem I'm having).

Either of two things would quiet me down:

1. Figure out what the root cause of the problem is
2. Reset the configuration so that TCMD is only invoked directly

Update: My COMSPEC is

Tom@venus c:\program files\jpsoft
$ echo %comspec%
C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD16x64\TCC.EXE

Unsetting COMSPEC (as you might guess) didn't help ... since another process is spawned.

TCC sets COMSPEC to itself whan it starts. If you "echo %comspec%" from CMD, you should see the name of cmd.exe. There should be no reason to change the system-wide value of COMSPEC (in ControlPanel\system\advanced\EnvironmentVariables\system) which should point to CMD.EXE.

I don't know what "TCMD steps in whenever CMD.EXE is invoked" means, but whatever it means, it doesn't sound good. TCMD and CMD are in no way comparable. TCC and CMD are comparable (have the same basic function) but I wouldn't recommend trying to replace CMD with TCC.

 

[tmaynard]

I don't know what "TCMD steps in whenever CMD.EXE is invoked" means

It simply means what it says: I had hard-coded the COMSPEC setting (it was done quite a long time ago, as I said, and I had forgotten how). The reason was to avoid CMD.EXE from appearing on occasion.

However. after deleting the entry in SysVars, I believe it worked just fine -- there was no error, and that was my original issue.

A nice bit of diagnostics. Thanks for your help.

SOLVED.

 

[aliteralmind]

I had this problem, too. About four or five unknown item names in the INI.

I had both TCC-LE and Take Command installed. The COMSPEC Windows environment variable pointed to

%SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe

but in Take Command, "echo %COMSPEC%" was equal to

c:\applications\utilities\tcc_le\tcc.exe (I'm going be memory here, so I may be off)

I uninstalled TCC-LE, and now the "unknown item" warnings went away. The Windows environment variable is still the same, but "echo %COMSPEC%" is now equal to

C:\applications\utilites\take_command_16\TCC.EXE