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V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

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    #1

    V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

    I have long experienced shut downs with v4.5 and have tried to identify patterns or a pattern in what is happening when it suddenly gives me the "ERROr! This program has performed an illegal operation and will be suut down. All unsaved...."

    I am using WINDOWS 98 WITH AN AMD333 AND 150MB MEMORY/

    I can not identify any pattern. Sometimes hours or days between shut downs, sometimes minutes. Sometimes while editing a form etc. other times when changing addresses in a mailing list app. Sometimes when I am called away from computer for some reason and return to find the "ERROR!..."

    Any ideas appreciated.

    John
    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

    John,

    search for related threads in this forum.

    Without more information your question is akin to asking what causes Windows apps to crash?

    I follow a few rules which may be of use:

    1) I avoid multi-tasking alpha five with other large Windows applications, especially during development.

    2) I follow a standard troubleshooting sequence when confronted with an unexplained crash:

    a) verify that Alpha Five is running correctly by playing with the Invoice App that ships with Alpha.

    b) verify that the field rules and data are not the source by entering and editing dummy records in the affected tables or sets using DEFAULT forms. If I can do this, it's often a good indicator that the trouble lies in my forms.

    3) I turn off my Win98 systems every night.

    4) I keep my designs simple, and avoid complex multi-tiered sets, or elaborate memory intensive (graphic filled) forms.

    5) I try to pay attention to what I'm doing, so that when I do have a crash I'm able to give a reasonably complete description of what was going on at the time. I've learned that it helps to quickly jot the description down on paper, too!

    6) I keep a troubleshooting file (actually its a notebook) and when I solve a problem I make an entry which describes the problem and the fix. Helps me avoid (or at least helps me minimize!) the process of re-inventing the wheel.

    -- tom

    Comment

      #3
      RE: V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

      Hi John,

      In my case the first thing I would do is press/ctrl/del to see what
      other files are loaded in RAM. The second and possibly more important is to look in "My Computer" and check the percentage of RAM that is unused. When
      the avaliable RAM drops below 70% the system is near locking up. I
      build a lot of computers and remember the days that we were comfortable
      with 1 or 2 megs, today 128M is marginal. I also find that Alpha runs
      much better with 256M, ie, mine has 512M. Memory is cheap these days
      compared to corrupted files, expand yours to 256 or better.
      efs

      Comment

        #4
        RE: V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

        Sorry,

        That first line should read press CTRL-ALT_DEL.
        efs

        Comment

          #5
          RE: V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

          I've been having this problem ("program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down") and have been searching this forum. As this is quite a frequent problem on the forum I thought I'd post the solution I eventually found. This cured my particular problem (I was also having to re-boot the machine each time due to the "Licence Exceeded" message on re-starting) but may not cure yours.

          It was simply that I had one line of xBasic, buried in some button code, which wrongly tried to access a record in another table using:
          Code:
          tbl.fetch_find(othertbl.gCode.value)
          whereas it should have said:
          Code:
          tbl.fetch_find(othertbl.gCode)
          You don't, as I'm sure you realise, need the .value.

          As this line was within an IF statement it was only being accessed occasionally which added to the confusion. For some reason this does not result in a recoverable error message, but instead shuts A5 down.

          Just thought I'd log this for anyone else doing a search.

          Comment

            #6
            RE: V4.5 SHUTS DOWN

            John:
            I had a problem once several months ago where A5 V4.5 would lockup and the only way to recover was to shutdown. I tracked the issue down a report I was designing. I was trying to use a dash line in the report. I would change the dash to a solid line and no lockup. I changed the line back to dash and go to print preview and... instant lockup. I have not had any other lockups. HOPE THIS HELPS.
            Jim

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