Increased incidence of crashing problems

[Bob Hartzell]

I am getting more reports of crashing. I wonder if it could be related to sp2 for xp. There has always been a certain fraction of people who have problems and I have made some headway by reducing the number of resources required but it is unclear how to positively fix whatever the problem is there. The interface is aggressive with the paged dialogs and the drawing canvas. Any ideas are appreciated.

[gusmus]

Hi Bob, You've probably got this stuff,, but just in case not, you can grab the sdk debugging kit and the sp2 developers kit from here.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/productinfo/xpsp2/default.aspx

I have had no problems at all with sp1 but I loaded sp2 and dumped it about 4 hours later. It not only caused frequent crashes but half of my apps wouldn't even run. I'd actually reccomend that unless you are working in a high risk security enviroment then forget it, seems to me that the cons far outweigh the pros.
Actually I've just done a test with KM and it isn't such a hog.
Before: system resources used 16%, Free ram 85%
After (Koolmoves loaded): system resources used 48%, Free fram 59%. =99mb
This is on my old faithful "celeron 1300mhz, 382 mb ram, XP+SP1.
If I run the same test on the P4 3.6mhz 1gb ram XP+SP1 it seems to fare much worse.
System resources before 18% used. After: 52% used
Free Ram before 94%: After 65% = 290mb
That's a big discrepancy on the two systems,, The Pentium 4 is using almost 200mb of ram more than the Celeron for the same app.

EDIT: You have to remember that this is what the OS has assigned to the program and not what it's actually using, but then again it's being loaded with a big fun file and with the browser open and playing the swf.

[Bob Hartzell]

Very interesting. I would be interested in numbers for a very small movie, flash mx, and photoshop. If the cpu loading is mostly associated with the size of the internal animation structures, I have an idea how to solve that problem.

[FLASHPULSE]

I ran KoolMoves on SP2 for a week with no problems. I removed it because I didn't like the extra memory it used. This could be an issue for those who have low memory.

[tmoore935]

I have no problems with sp2. I did download a special version of sp2 from microsoft that was supposed to replace ALL the security updates in one file (250 megs). And Yes I downloaded it with a 56k modem. I have used pretty much all of its defaults. I have half a gig of memory so there is no issue there and all my programs including koolmoves seem to work fine.

As for koolmoves, This version 4.4.5 seems to never crash but I have had earlier versions that crashed all the time. At that time I complained on this forum. One example was if I keep reopening koolmoves, I was guarenteed a crash.

my computer specs are listed on my footer if that helps. I use the home edition of xp.

[docree]

Sometimes, when I close the Score/Timeline KM crashes.
This is usually after adding actionscript inside the MovieClip edit.
I'm running latest KoolMoves version 4.4.5.
Win 98
128 Memory
ATI graphics card [think old and basic]
P3 [win 98 shows P2]
Very Good SoundBlaster card
[I don't care what anybody says, cause I never had their problems and I'm an audio pro.]
Pretty much a bare bones system. [Was considered top notch around 98 - 2000]
______________________
It seems that the most errors are coming from the noobs
switching from other "doomed" software.
I think they don't understand what the software is about and
probably don't have their system configured for any basic multimedia design.
It is bad to use dell or some other "dummy" pc for multimedia design.
Doc'Ree

[blanius]

The only time I've had a crash is if I exit KM with a new project open that hasn't been saved.

Curious to note my version in the About says 4.5

[necromanthus]

No crashing problems on XP-SP2 !
As I said many times before,KM may interact with some resident programs (AntiVirus,FireWalls,etc).
:mrpimp:

[Bob Hartzell]

Sometimes, when I close the Score/Timeline KM crashes.
This is usually after adding actionscript inside the MovieClip edit.

-> Are you saying that you are editing movie clip frames? Are you adding the action script using the actions/sounds page of the timeline or views > actions and sounds or the movie overview?

[gusmus]

I am going to start a new thread with an instruction manual for XP CPU resources,, the data has been lifted from several sites but compiled into a reasonably understandable format,,, PLEASE DON'T start making changes to your system if you DON'T know what you are doing,, get help.
The thread is called "TWEAKING XP", it is not aimed at KM users in general, it is aimed at XP users in general for whatever purpose "Call it a crash barrier if you like", Sorry it's a HUUGE post,, couldn't condense it any more. I suggest that you print it out, read it and use it at your leasure. Cheers

[FLASHPULSE]

Your title reminds me of http://www.tweakxp.com/

[gusmus]

Nahhh it's better than that Flashpulse,, It's a damned big document and I had to split it into 3 posts to get it on the forum lol,, it really does work if you are careful but as most users are more interested in the XP GUI than they are in their computers performance then I think that maybe it's all a waste of time... The crashes will continue and to be honest,, 99% of the crashes are the users fault and NOT the program. Cheers

[FLASHPULSE]

Originally posted by gusmus
and to be honest,, 99% of the crashes are the users fault and NOT the program. Cheers

agree

[docree]

Originally posted by Bob Hartzell
-> Are you saying that you are editing movie clip frames? Are you adding the action script using the actions/sounds page of the timeline or views > actions and sounds or the movie overview? [/B]
Yes, editing movie clip frames.
After editing/adding action script, in the actions/sounds page of the score/timeline overview,
it crashes [50/50] on exit of the "over view" while viewing actions/sounds page.
[That's a mouth full.]

The work around is to switch the over view to another page before exiting.
Doc'Ree

[gusmus]

I would be interested in numbers for a very small movie, flash mx, and photoshop. If the cpu loading is mostly associated with the size of the internal animation structures, I have an idea how to solve that problem.

I'll do a run through on that later tonight when I finish what I'm doing Bob, but it would be a big help if others could do the same and publish the results along with their system config so you can get a reasonably accurate idea of what is going on within the different systems,, I know that celeron is a nice smooth chip,, I also know that P4 can be very fast but it becomes a resource hog to justify the speed but AMD is a blind alley because hardly anyone will admit that they have overclocked the cpu almost to the point of frying the system (And this is probably the source of half of the crash complaints). Honesty please. If you're frying fish on your CPU,, we don't care,, just give truthful results so that Bob can improve the Program. Cheers.

[gusmus]

OK Bob, I'm doing this on the fly. I have IE open, Outlook running and I have 84% of my system resources free + 248megas of ram free out of 382 megas,
Enter KM:my system resources have dropped to 54% free and my free ram has dropped to 195 megas,, that means that i have used 53 megas to run the program.
Loading movie/fun file leybol2/index.fun 302Kb
system resources 52% FREE RAM 148 megas. So it confirms my old numbers on the celeron,, CPU usage is about 45% and Ram usage is about 90 megas on a basic Celeron 1300mhz with 382mb ram and NO overclocking,, seems to me that I have plenty in reserve.

Now for MM Flash mx: same basic setup with IE and Outlook running.
Oh dear, Oh dear. Just started Flash MX and my system resources are now at 43% but my ram usage is now at about 270 megas and I haven't even loaded a file yet, wonder what I can do with my spare 118 megas???
loading a small .fla 25kb
FLA loaded and it only sucked up another 10 megas,, let's try it with a SWF 234Kb (swf equivelent of the leybol2 fun file)
memory went ziippppp, all the way to the botton until the virtual memory kicked in and now I have 119 mb free but the comp is suffering,, you can tell by the jerky mouse.
Seems to me that Flash MX is a real hog when it comes to memory,, but the cpu usage stayed steady all the way through.

Photoshops turn
Memory dropped to about 65 megas free before the Virtual memory kicked in and that was just loading the program, I now have104 megas free(thanks to virtual memory)
system resources are at 54% (not bad)
Going to load a 350kb JPEG now
That was fun,, cpu usage was stable at about 53/54% but the ram dropped to 95 free when it was loading and then recovered to 126 mb free after it finished loading.

CPU resources were reset between each test.
Ram was defragged after each test.

Well there you go,, hope it helps.
I used the celeron 1300 because I thought it was probably the closest to an average KM user machine.. Seemed a bit silly to do this on the P4 3.6mhz because probably less than half of us have anything that fast.

[Glops]

It still crashes on Win2K ....with like a random time generator....
lol..

[Bob Hartzell]

Yes, editing movie clip frames.
After editing/adding action script, in the actions/sounds page of the score/timeline overview,
it crashes [50/50] on exit of the "over view" while viewing actions/sounds page.
[That's a mouth full.]

-> Is this correct:
You are inside a movie clip.
You have both the timeline and movie overview screens open.
You edit/add action script in the actions/sounds page of the timeline.
You close the movie view screen and then you frequently get a crash.

[gusmus]

I received a rather interesting e-mail this morning. It went so far as calling me a liar and that my system couldn't possibly do what I say it can without crashing.
As far as crashing is concerned then I think it would be obvious that if I suffered from crashes then I would have mentioned something on the forum long before now.
As far as my system is concerned, here is my reBUTTal in the form of a screen capture , so stick that where it is most comfortable Sir JERK. I won't mention his name for fear of embarrasing the poor chap but he knows who he is but if I receive any more crap like he sent me this morning then I will ,, believe me. Cheers

[docree]

Ok Bob,
Attached is a capture of the situation.
I tried to crash KoolMoves for a while...
It did not crash in the situation shown. :rolleyes:
However, it did crash when I added "shape properties"
to the mix. :(
DocRee

[docree]

Gusmus, many people don't believe that I coined the term "streaming". So you may have a few jerks that
don't believe you even with proof. The screen shot is
impressive. However, No Hablee Esteban canolie. :faded:

To clarify the earlier screenshot, the arrows show the situation,
while the circle shows the exit button that causes the crash.
DocRee

[gusmus]

Hi Doc, I've just tried that sequence about a dozen times and I can't get it to crash, either on KM or KM Beta. Not even the slightest freeze up or glitch that sometimes warns you that it's on the edge.
I'm honestly spoiled by this comp, it's much more stable than my P4 and as I've said before, "I've honestly never had a real crash or freeze up of KM in 2 years of using it full time. I can make it crash by taking a big JPG and doing a 3000 times "Zoom Out" but that has nothing to do with the program, that's down to having no system resources for such a huge operation and it doesn't only crash KM,, it takes everything out. Cheers

[gusmus]

OK Doc, I finally got it to crash.


0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 6b 6f 6f ure koo
0018: 6c 6d 6f 76 65 73 2e 65 lmoves.e
0020: 78 65 20 34 2e 34 2e 30 xe 4.4.0
0028: 2e 30 20 69 6e 20 6b 6f .0 in ko
0030: 6f 6c 6d 6f 76 65 73 2e olmoves.
0038: 65 78 65 20 34 2e 34 2e exe 4.4.
0040: 30 2e 30 20 61 74 20 6f 0.0 at o
0048: 66 66 73 65 74 20 30 30 ffset 00
0050: 33 37 30 64 64 33 0d 0a 370dd3..

Hope Bob can get to the bottom of that lot cos it's all dutch to me. Cheers

[Bob Hartzell]

It appears that you are running version 4.4?

Is the crash reproducible? What is the exact sequence and which screens are open? Can you get it to crash with the 4.5 beta?

[Glops]

It seems that YES the details you give with the frames...are right ! always when I change something in the frames...action script..it crashes sometimes after ...

Now I use always the SAVE button after I change a little thing ! damned !

[gusmus]

It appears that you are running version 4.4?

That was only for the screen shot Bob,,I've been testing it on versions 4.4 upwards because my other computers are usually a version or two behind the latest due to lack of web building use. It crashed on 4.4, 4.45 and the beta. It took me a while to learn the trick but yes, it'll crash it every time so there is your crashetty bug. All you have to do now is fix it lol. Cheers.

The exact sequence is. "Draw a shape"><"Convert shape to Movie Clip"><"Double click Shape to open Properties Box and then select Frames"><"Select Timelime and then Action Script"(As per Docree,s screenshot)>< "Now close the Timeline box using the X"><"Restart Koolmoves lol">
It doesn't seem to crash if you go back to "Main Movie" without closing the timelines box so maybe there is a "work around" the problem in that direction

[Bob Hartzell]

Unfortunately I can't get it to crash. There are a lot of details which may make a difference. 3 key frames are added at some point in the sequence.

I could use the crash dump data for 4.5 beta and the date of the .exe you are using?

Can others get it to crash?

[FLASHPULSE]

I can't get it to crash in 4.4 or 4.5 beta. It would be nice to know what anti-virus programs people are using cause even though you shut it down from the taskbar, it doesn't always shut it down. My anti-virus program runs off more then one exe. After shutting it down, I also have to end processes on the exe files.

[gusmus]

I've been trying for almost 2 hours now and I can't get it to crash on any version, yet last night , once I got it to crash once it would do it to order as you could see by the screenshot. The three .EXE dates are 10th-Apr-2004, 3rd-July-2004, and the beta is 8th-Sept-2004.
I'm running AVG and it's never been the cause of anything untoward in conjunction with KM. In fact I am beta testing (Alpha) Longhorn "DO NOT EVEN THINK OF ASKING FOR A COPY,,, THE ANSWER IS NO" and it is one of the few AV clients actually reccomended for its stability.
As for this (intermittent as it now seems) crashing problem, I can only guess that the computer or the os has to meet a certain criteria and at that point the program will crash. I can't believe that it is an inherant problem solely caused by KM, there must be some critical point where both the OS and KM reach critical mass and the crash occurs. It seems that recreating that critical mass is now the problem to be solved.

[docree]

The virus scan software: AntiVir Personal Edition
I do the "three finger salute" and turn off everything,
[except for what is needed by Win 98] before running
Kool Moves.
So, I highly doubt there is a software conflict. It rarely
happens, now that I brought the bug up. I should test again,
since I just recently defraged. I don't think my computer can tell
Bob when I crash KoolMoves, cause I use KM offline and don't
use an auto-crash-report-software.

The three frames inside the MovieClip are not from the bug...
The screen shot was from the closest available fun file that was
plagued by the problem.

I will try to recreate a more proper screen capture with crash info,
tonight. This crash may be an anomolie that happens 2% of the
time.
DocRee

[docree]

I could not get KoolMoves to crash again...
It could have been the hard drive being too fragmented
or a stray bit in the wrong cluster.

It could be possible that xp [for other users] may cause
crashes due to the way it handles the defrag.
Of course, I don't use xp on this PC so I don't know.
DocRee

[necromanthus]

KoolMoves has several memory allocation problems,that's for sure.
I had no crashes at all,but too many things are involved if you wanna track a crash.
Few of them:
1) the operating system
2) the amount of RAM
3) the resident programs (all active processes)
4) what are you doing at that moment (very important)
5) the current "RAM allocation Map" (extremely important)
Because of the 5th point, many crashes (those memory related) are NOT reproducible.
Windows has its own way to manage the system resources.
If a certain application doesn't follow the rules ...
;)

[docree]

Ok, still crashing...
Bellow are the crash dump details. [They may not help much.]

I can't get the system specs during the crash.
1: Win98 4.10.1998 [The first Win 98 not SE]
2:128.00mb Ram
[Not much, but works better than when I had 64mb]
3: Only what's needed... SysTray, Explorer, Aticwd32 and KoolMoves
4:[Exiting the "actions overview" in the frames of a movie clip.]
5: Could not get it... Will try cacheman with KoolMoves Sometime
DocRee
_______________________________________

KOOLMOVES caused an invalid page fault in
module KOOLMOVES.EXE at 015f:0079a593.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=015f EIP=0079a593 EFLGS=00010206
EBX=00c00160 SS=0167 ESP=00d2f414 EBP=00d2f460
ECX=00000460 DS=0167 ESI=00000002 FS=29af
EDX=8173f0fc ES=0167 EDI=02754cbc GS=4067
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 01 6a 00 ff 50 5c 83 65 08 00 81 fe 10 01 00
Stack dump:
00d2f484 000084f4 00d2f4d0 0000031c 00000002 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 007b9c3c 00000010 00d2f484 000084f4 00c00160 00d2f414

[blanius]

I'm having pretty random cases of crashing now as well.

WinXPHome 1gig Ram

Last crash was while adding frame to child movie.

[FLASHPULSE]

I think it would be nice if KoolMoves created a crash report when this happens. Such as: cpu usage, memory usage, list of programs running, OS, and graphics card drivers. This way we could figure out what's causing crashes for some of these people. I've run Koolmoves on a Pentium 1 120mhz with only 64mb on WIN 98SE and never had a crash. So, I don't think it's a performance issue.