Constant Crashes

[DeadSerious]

2) my DVD drive is a Blu-ray. Could the UDF business have something to do with XY crashing? That is, something to do with reading the disk in the Drive?

Forget that--just realized I was watching a regular DVD, not a Blu-ray.

[admin]

Okay, I was doing fairly well with it today, then had the first crash. I had recently started Power DVD and Internet Explorer. I did notice two things. 1) IE was using a large amount of CPU power immediately after the crash. (is it possible that adobe's flash player could have something to do with this? I did install a new version recently, and have noticed some issues with it, although mostly on Firefox.) and 2) my DVD drive is a Blu-ray. Could the UDF business have something to do with XY crashing? That is, something to do with reading the disk in the Drive?

Anyway, I'll keep trying. I only have 20 days left in my trial period, so I hope I can figure it out by then. And thanks for the continuing help!

Just to make sure: paste this into the address bar and ENTER:

Code: Select all

::text property("FileVersion", "%winsysdir%\msvbvm60.dll"); 

You should get "6.0.98.2".

[Minimax]

You may check the event viewer for suspicious entries related to the crashes.
Perhaps there are program entries whose dates correlate with the dates of your crashes.
Those entires may help you track down the culprit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Viewer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

[Minimax]

As a last resort try Process Monitor. This tool logs all background process, thread and registry activity.
You can scan the log after the crash and look for entries whose time-stamp match the time of the crash.
Perhaps you can isolate the problem by doing so.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96645.aspx

[DeadSerious]

Just to make sure: paste this into the address bar and ENTER:

Code: Select all

::text property("FileVersion", "%winsysdir%\msvbvm60.dll"); 

You should get "6.0.98.2".

Yep, I do.

[DeadSerious]

You know, I never thought to check the Event Viewer. I wish I had written down the times, now. It's been pretty good since the last crash. I'll also give process monitor a try. I have a similar program, but PM might be easier to use.

[DeadSerious]

Event Viewer:
"Faulting application xyplorer.exe, version 8.80.0.0, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x4ec683bd."

No other events anywhere near that time.

[admin]

Event Viewer:
"Faulting application xyplorer.exe, version 8.80.0.0, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x4ec683bd."

No other events anywhere near that time.

Are you using a virus scanner, if yes which? I need some way to generate those crashes on my system...

[Minimax]

You may provide Don with your system configuration by going to Start->Run and typing msinfo32.
The results can then be saved, zipped and sent to Don.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308549

[DeadSerious]

Event Viewer:
"Faulting application xyplorer.exe, version 8.80.0.0, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x4ec683bd."

No other events anywhere near that time.

Are you using a virus scanner, if yes which? I need some way to generate those crashes on my system...

I'm using Avira (the free version). They seem too intermittent for the AV to be causing it, though. I'm beginning to thing it has something to do with video. I had only three crashes the whole day yesterday. On one, I was watching a DVD with Power DVD. With another, I was using Windows Media Player Classic. In both cases XY was in the background. There were other programs open/running, though. I'm going to update my video drivers, just in case.

[mwb1100]

I was thinking about the crashes when XY is in the background. Also I never cared for MiniDumps -- no idea how to read them

As long as the crash is from the XY process the minidump should have useful information. You need to get the "Debugging Tools for Windows" to be able to usefully load and get information from a crash dump:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/Devtools/ ... fault.mspx

Of course you also need to be able to get the crash dump file created and sent to you, and I'm not sure how easy that process might be.

Also, the Debugging Tools are a powerful set of tools, so there is a pretty steep learning curve. I'm pretty sure that the tools would be able to tell you exactly what DLLs are loaded in the XY process at the time of the crash and exactly what instruction (and what DLL or EXE the instruction is in) caused the crash. Beyond that you might or might not be able to get additional information like stack walks depending on what symbols are available to you. I'm not sure how well VB6 is supported with these tools, but I think you'd at least be able to tell if the problem is in XY, a shell extension DLL, or a media codec.

In the end, only you can determine whether the effort is worth the troubleshooting gains. I know that for C/C++ programs, crash dumps (and a complete set of symbols) are like gold for figuring out problems that happen only for a customer.

Sorry if I'm taking this thread too far OT.

[admin]

I was thinking about the crashes when XY is in the background. Also I never cared for MiniDumps -- no idea how to read them

As long as the crash is from the XY process the minidump should have useful information. You need to get the "Debugging Tools for Windows" to be able to usefully load and get information from a crash dump:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/Devtools/ ... fault.mspx

Of course you also need to be able to get the crash dump file created and sent to you, and I'm not sure how easy that process might be.

Also, the Debugging Tools are a powerful set of tools, so there is a pretty steep learning curve. I'm pretty sure that the tools would be able to tell you exactly what DLLs are loaded in the XY process at the time of the crash and exactly what instruction (and what DLL or EXE the instruction is in) caused the crash. Beyond that you might or might not be able to get additional information like stack walks depending on what symbols are available to you. I'm not sure how well VB6 is supported with these tools, but I think you'd at least be able to tell if the problem is in XY, a shell extension DLL, or a media codec.

In the end, only you can determine whether the effort is worth the troubleshooting gains. I know that for C/C++ programs, crash dumps (and a complete set of symbols) are like gold for figuring out problems that happen only for a customer.

Sorry if I'm taking this thread too far OT.

pretty steep learning curve... that's what I thought, and I got pretty far without this tool the last years ... but good to know it's there.

[ogroeger]

So, which virus scanner should I install to have the best chance to have XY crash? It will be probably easy to fix once I can see it happen here.

If i were you i would first install a virtualization software, e.g. VMWare Server (free). Then install a Windows in it (XP, Vista, 7 doesn't care), make a snapshot, install a virus scanner and some shell extensions. Considering this thread, it makes not much difference what virus scanner. Play with it. When you want try a different virus scanner, return to the snapshot and install a different one. This makes it possible to use different virus scanner without "polluting" your own system.

[Minimax]

For testing purposes I can recommend VirtualBox. http://www.virtualbox.org/.
We use this virtualization software in our company. Hope this wasn't too Off Topic.

[PeterH]

pretty steep learning curve... that's what I thought, and I got pretty far without this tool the last years ... but good to know it's there.

Help me with my english, please.
Doesn't "steep learning curve" mean, that after a short time you know quite a lot?

And: I have no experience with PCs in this matter. But from my time with programming I must say, I don't know what I had done without dump analysis. As in a dump you can see a problem, without you just have to guess. (And I had dumps of 50 cm height on paper, no guessing here.)

OK - I'm often amazed about your quality of guessing. But sorry: for some kinds of complex errors, especially if you cannot reproduce, only much luck or a dump will help you.