Let me know what else you need to help fix.

The mod Quick Item Menu (0.2.5) caused a non-recoverable error.
Please report this error to the mod author.

Error while running event qiMenu::on_lua_shortcut (ID 37)
qiMenu/prototypes/functions.lua:35: invalid order function for sorting
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'sort'
qiMenu/prototypes/functions.lua:35: in function 'sortItemList'
qiMenu/prototypes/gui.lua:234: in function 'loadQSMenu'
qiMenu/control.lua:24: in function 'toggleQSMenu'
qiMenu/control.lua:199: in function <qiMenu/control.lua:196>

Thanks for reporting this one! Which mods do you have installed and can you tell me what happened for it to crash?

I think I know what's going wrong, I'll try to implement a fix meanwhile, but it would help to get the additional details if you have them.

I had this happen when I opened from the shortcut menu and from the console. I also had it happen with a fresh new game. I didn't do anything other than try to open the mod.
Many mods to list, tldr; doing a Pyanodon run.

{
"mods":
[

{
  "name": "base",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "aai-loaders",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "afraid-of-the-dark",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "alien-biomes",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "alien-biomes-graphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "assemblyanalyst",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "AutoDeconstruct",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Automatic_Train_Painter",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "BeltsAndMoreAnimationFreeze",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "big-pink-eraser",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "BigLight",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "BottleneckLite",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Burner-Leech-Fork",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "cybersyn",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "debugadapter",
  "enabled": false
},

{
  "name": "Electronic_Locomotives",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "even-distribution",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "even-pickier-dollies",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "FactorySearch",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "far-reach",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "FarReachPrototypeLevel",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "FilterHelper",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "flib",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "floor-placer",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Fluid-level-indicator",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "FluidWagonColorMask",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "fmsl",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "holographic_signs",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "InfinityChestStart",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "LoaderUnlocker",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "manual-inventory-sort",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "mferrari_lib",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Milestones",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "mining-patch-planner",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "more-achievements",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "MyQuickStart",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "nixie-tubes",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "not-enough-parameters",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "original-music-hd-reloaded",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "PersonalTeleporter",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "PlutoniumEnergy",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "production-monitor",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pump",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyalienlife",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyalienlifegraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyalienlifegraphics2",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyalienlifegraphics3",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyalternativeenergy",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyalternativeenergygraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pycoalprocessing",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pycoalprocessinggraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyfusionenergy",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyfusionenergygraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyhightech",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyhightechgraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyindustry",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pypetroleumhandling",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pypetroleumhandlinggraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pypostprocessing",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyrawores",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "pyraworesgraphics",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "qiMenu",
  "enabled": false
},

{
  "name": "QuickMapTagTeleport",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Quicksave",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "RateCalculator",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "RGBPipes",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "RunningSpeed",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "sds-soundpack",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "show-max-underground-distance",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "show-player-position",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "side-inserters",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "SimpleCompress",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "some-infinitychest",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "some-luaconsole",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Sort-All-Inventories",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Soundpack-alerts-and-sirens-updated-v1-1",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "squeak-through-2",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "System-Alerts-Continued",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "textplates",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "TreeRockEraser",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "Waterfill_v17",
  "enabled": true
},

{
  "name": "YARM",
  "enabled": true
}

]
}

Thanks for the mod list. Have you tried the latest version 0.2.7 yet? And could you let me know if it happens with that one as well? I already added some extra safety checks in that version, but if it still happens I'll look further to see what else it could be

Haven't had any issues with the latest versions and I have kept up with all the updates. Thank you for that!

New question for you. I am a die hard Pyanodons player. All of the py items show up in the quick menu, but searching for items does not always yield results (case in point high-pressure furnace mk01). Some of the categories end up being very long indeed and searching/scrolling through those lists takes an extraordinary amount of time. What strategies can be applied to make those searches more fruitful? Is there a way to get those py item libraries imported into the search dictionary?

Hey there. Glad to hear you're not running into any bugs anymore!

After some quick investigation and installing the mods, it seems that in some cases Pyanodon's items have an abbreviated name internally, which is completely different from the name it displays, which is throwing the system out of wack. In the case of the High-Pressure Furnaces, internally the name is HPF and as such, searching for HPF makes them come up in the search field properly. It's definitely not ideal, and specifically for the furnaces this could be a temporary workaround for now, especially considering that there's probably many more such cases that you're running into. I guess it's best to just add support for the Pyanodon mods altogether.

Now, while I can add support for the mod, I haven't played Pyanodons myself before, It'll take me a while to go through everything. But I can definitely add special cases to help sort the modded machines better, EG by putting the High-Pressure Furnaces in the furnace category and fixing the search term to work with both.

As I said, adding support is probably a good idea long term and I'll definitely get it done eventually and I'll also add proper aliasing then but as I said, it will take some time since I'm not familiar with the sheer number of machines in the mod yet.
If you'd like to help however, making lists of what you'd like to have added to what category would greatly help speed things up for sure.

do you know the names of the fields that are at play? I'd be willing to put together a spreadsheet or similar (name your format) to make the import process easier. The other thing going on is that the py mods get frequent updates and names change. Is there a way to "subscribe" to mod changes? Sorry, I am new to modding and haven't reached that chapter yet. :)
But I'll get working on a recipe list in the next few

If the py mods get frequent name changes it'll be difficult because I would be hardcoding a list and constantly maintaining this list wouldn't be very easy.

After some pondering I initially had the idea of saying "Ok if you find an item named HPF, put it under furnaces and set the name to High Pressure Furnace" (Hardcoding it) and then for every language that the py mod was translated in, manually going through the mods. But if they change it often then it'll definitely be a pain - especially since I don't normally play with them installed. Manual labor also doesn't seem to be a good approach, since someone will have to update this constantly to keep it up to date with the latest translations long term.

Knowing that, I tried to dynamically load the locale files from the py mods specifically (EG from the the pycoalprocessing one, which contains the High Pressure Furnace) and process the translation files when the game loads, automatically mapping it and stuff, to translate the HPF to High-Pressure Furnace, but another issue is that this is both extremely laggy, and very prone to issues if the names match with another mod, contain weird characters or a language file is deleted or added (among other things). It doesn't help that Factorio translates the locale at runtime, I don't have access to the translation when I make the menu so the only way I think I can load them is through manually loading the mod files.

I'll investigate and report back, but I don't have a quick fix for this. I might be able to add a custom settings field where you can enter something like hpf=high-pressure furnace, .... but that's not ideal and means you'd need to manually go through the py mod files every update as a user. And that would need to be done by every user of the mod.

Again, I apologize for the inconvenience here. when I know more I'll update you.

No apologies necessary! Thank you for taking the time to even consider!

So another way to approach...currently or at least on QsMenu, some of the different categories got to be unbelievably long and scrrolling through them (with Py) took minutes. After time, I was able to recall what list and where the scroll position was (for the most part) and it got a bit better, or I would recall a search term that would unexpectedly yield a covenient result - eg hpf. But it was frustrating that the furnaces category would still only show a few results and no hpf nor any other results that would be expected to obviously fall into the furnaces category.

Perhaps another look at how things are categorized, or how many items can fit into a category before another spill-over category is created, etc is another way to approach? I haven't looked at what's involved - my apologies for that. I just haven't had time.

Just took a look at QiMenu. It doesn't have near the issue that Qs did and honestly I don't know where you would fit another button. Too bad extended descriptions isn't around anymore. That would probably solve the issue as I think it showed the internal name.

nvm -