Brainstorm update and trouble in SPM

Bugs
1

Hi François,

I updated brainstorm. I do it manually, removing the old "brainstorm3" from my application folder and putting the new one instead, as it does not work when I try to do it automatically (I am on mac, I don't know if it is related).
However, after the update, I had trouble opening SPM. First, my computer warned that SPM came from an unidentified developper and I had to give special authorization.
More importantly, opening SPM failed and I had the following errror:

Error using spm_check_installation>check_basic (line 182)
SPM uses a number of MEX files, which are compiled functions.
These need to be compiled for the various platforms on which SPM
is run. It seems that the compiled files for your computer platform
are missing or not compatible. See
   https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/SPM/Installation_on_64bit_Mac_OS_(Intel)
for information about how to compile MEX files for MACI64
in MATLAB 9.7.0.1261785 (R2019b) Update 3.

Error in spm_check_installation (line 28)
        check_basic;

Error in spm (line 290)
spm_check_installation('basic');

All the problem disappeared when I went back to my previous installed version of brainstorm. So, I don't know exactly what is going on but it seems related to brainstorm.

I already had the error with "MEX files" when I installed SPM on my computer and I fixed it with the help of an engineer. However, it will be complicated if I need to fix it each time I update brainstorm.

Do you know if I can update only some folders in "brainstorm3" so that it does not change my setup?

Thank you,

Adeline

2

SPM is not installed in the brainstorm3 folder.
It is downloaded and installed in the user plugin folder $HOME/.brainstorm/plugins/.
If you delete your brainstorm3 folder and download a new one, it does not change anything to your SPM install. It is only when you update manually SPM that you would have to recompile the mex files of SPM. If you don't want to have this problem, just don't update SPM.

If this behavior is different between different Brainstorm versions, it is probably because the older version is quite old, and released before the introduction of the plugin manager. Or you changed the configuration of how SPM is plugged into Brainstorm. You also have the option to configure manually the use of your local install of SPM instead of letting Brainstorm install it in its plugins folder.

See this tutorial for more information:
https://neuroimage.usc.edu/brainstorm/Tutorials/Plugins

3

Or you changed the configuration of how SPM is plugged into Brainstorm.

I think it might be that (but as I did not do it myself, I am not sure). I will ask and look at the tutorial.

Thank you for your reply.