This is a wildly specific problem, but it's 100% repeatable for me with the latest version of DOpus (12.20 x64) on multiple machines, so I suspect it's real. I save two-sided tab groups all the time because they're so handy. But one of my tab groups behaves a bit wacky when I go to restore it. I use it to synchronize the contents of one of the network drives on my machine in one city with an FTP folder in another city. The former is mapped to a share on my NAS in this house, and the latter is actually served up by a similar NAS in another house.
Here's the problem. When I restore the tab group, the tabs are not restored correctly insofar as the modified column is missing and one or both tabs are set to group by file type. This is weird, mind you, because it only happens with that particular combination. Using tabs with any other combination I've tried of local drives, network drives, and FTP sites works just fine, but that one combination has the problem I've just described every single time.
Have I found an actual bug this time, Leo? Or did I simply miss the stop-grouping-by-and-omitting-the-modified-column preference box somewhere as is usual when I think I'm reporting a "bug"?
If you go to Preferences / Folder Tabs / Tab Groups and double-click your tab group, then select the tab in question and click the Edit Format icon above the list, is the folder format for that tab set to override your normal columns?
No, nothing is customized there. Everything is grayed out for both the left and right file displays when I click that "Edit Format" icon. They both show no grouping enabled and include the default list of columns, which includes the date modified column that's missing when I load that tab group.
Edit: You can probably ignore this. See my later reply below.
Looking at your config, the only folder format I can find which is grouping by type (or grouping at all) is the one for This PC.
That's normal, but it makes me think that for some reason the This PC format is being used when you load that tab group. I don't know why that would happen, though, and I can't reproduce what you're seeing when I try with your same config (only edited to use my own UNC and FTP paths for the respective tabs).
There are some unusual things about the tab group's config file, which aren't usually saved, but they also don't seem to cause me the same problem when I apply them to my own config file, so I am not sure if they are important.
Have you tried deleting the folder tab group which is causing the problem, then opening a new lister, setting up the two folders again and saving a new version of it? I wonder if that would fix things.
Ignore my last message. I think I have now reproduced the problem.
It will happen if:
You start in This PC in either or both sides, before loading the tab group.
The group loads a Network Drive and/or FTP site.
The Preferences / Folders / Auto-Loading settings are set to block automatic loading of the folders (Network Drives and FTP sites).
With that combination, the tab ends up using the This PC folder format. This also explains the "(null)" you were seeing, since This PC doesn't have a path (which is usually fine as you can't usually see the format lock for it).
Now that we've reproduced it, we should be able to fix it. The fix most likely won't be in 12.21, unless we do another beta first, but it will be in 12.21.1 beta at the latest.
Wow! As a fellow developer, your explanation reminds me of too many weird little things I've fixed over the years. Good form catching it! I look forward to the fix. Thanks!
