ENVI EX and ENVI Zoom are unable to open data files on some international operating systems

Some users may experience errors when trying to open data files in ENVI EX and ENVI Zoom. The issue is most prevalent on machines running an international version of Windows, such as Spanish, Portuguese, or Japanese. This Help Article discusses how to configure ENVI EX and ENVI Zoom to avoid these errors.

When opening data files using ENVI EX or ENVI Zoom, a user may experience one of the following error messages:

   Internal Error: Error opening file. Unit: 100

   Internal Error: Shared Memory Segment not found

These errors are caused by an internal bug when reading directories that contain diacritical marks (an accent mark added to a letter). The directory may be the user's home directory, a temp directory, or an input or output directory.

The current work around is to change the directories to new directories that do not contain diacritical marks, or remove the diacritical marks from the directory name. They should be changed in the following manner:

• From the ENVI EX and ENVI Zoom preferences, change the Directories setting to point to new Input, Output, Temporary, and Alternate Header directories that do not contain diacritical marks. Save these settings.
• If the problem persists, a manual preference setting may be necessary. Go to the \ITT-dir\IDL71\bin\bin.x86 (or bin.x86_64) directory and launch the idl.exe. This will launch a Windows terminal with an IDL command prompt. At the IDL prompt, type:
  
  IDL>PREF_SET, 'IDL_TMPDIR', 'my_new_dir_name', /COMMIT
  
  where 'my_new_dir_name' is a directory location that does not contain diacritical marks.

This should resolve any remaining file read problems in ENVI EX and ENVI Zoom. If it does not, please contact Exelis Visual Information Solutions Technical Support at support@exelisvis.com.

Review on 12/31/2013 MM