Hi all,

An error message that a few people have reported relates to the 'iolite_helpers.py' file.

The error message may look something like the following:

 Error Value: No module named 'iolite_helpers'
Error Traceback:   File "C:/Program Files (x86)/iolite-software/iolite4/DRS/3d_trace_elements (1).py", line 67, in <module>
    from iolite_helpers import fitLine, formatResult"

This post is to try to make it easier for you to find a fix (and perhaps avoid the issue in the first place).

For background, the iolite_helpers.py file is a python file with a series of functions that iolite calls to process your data. We put these particular functions into this file as it is easily readable by anyone: you can just open it in a text editor like Notepad++ so that you can see the code that iolite uses, for example, to calculate a discordia age, etc.

The problem arises when iolite cannot find the file, or execute the code within that file, which is typically the same problem. The most common cause of this problem is when iolite first runs, it presents the "First Run Dialog" which asks where you want to put your iolite folder. This folder contains your reference material files, and files like "iolite_helpers.py"*. You should put this somewhere like your Documents folder. A very common error is when users select a low level folder such as "C:" or "C:\Program Files" etc. iolite might be able to find the file there, but due to Windows restrictions, can't execute any of the code. If you put this in your Documents folder, iolite should be able to find the file, and execute the code within the file.

What if you've already put the iolite folder someplace iolite can't find and need to fix this issue? You can just re-run the "First Run Dialog" and it will create a new folder and put the files there, and tell iolite where to find them. However, if you've already used iolite, you need to run a couple of lines of code to trick iolite into showing you the First Run Dialog again:

from iolite.QtCore import QSettings
QSettings().setValue('FirstRun', True)

You should copy those lines into iolite's Python Workspace and click run. Then restart iolite and the First Run Dialog should appear. When it does, the following window will appear:

First Run Dialog

The most important part of re-running this is in the following window:

Set Paths Dialog

This is where you should make sure you've selected a folder that you have full read/write access to (i.e. your Documents folder).

I hope this helps. If you have any questions, please feel free to post here to help others resolve this issue.

Kind regards,
Bence

The iolite folder referred to here is not the main iolite application folder. That will be in your Program Files folder (or Applications folder on Mac). The main application is automatically placed where it needs to be during the installation process. In contrast, the first run dialog is asking where you'd like to put the additional files mentioned above (RM files, custom DRS files etc). The two folders are separate so that custom files are not overwritten with each new update. This avoids the issue of having, for example, custom RM values that would be overwritten when there's an update.