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A5 crashes - solved???

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    A5 crashes - solved???

    To all
    I noticed several posts about the A5v45 crashing and 2 updates to dll's.
    I am printing to a HP LaserJet 2100 on a Novell Network.
    I made the upgrades and made sure thav all mc*.dll files in Alpha were the same date in Windows system.
    That reduced the amount of crashes but still had a few.
    Finally I moved all of my menu items that I had after the printing up so they would be exceuted before the printing instead of after the printing.
    Has not crashed for two weeks.
    Here's hoping that it will last.
    Must have something to do with the HP 2100.
    Charlie Crimmel

    #2
    RE: A5 crashes - solved???

    Charlie, what are mc*.dll files in Alpha?

    Comment


      #3
      RE: A5 crashes - solved???

      Tom:
      They are Ms files instead of mc files.
      sorry
      In Program FileA5V4 there are numerous dll files. Most start with a4 or a2.
      4 files are found in many dirctories.
      seems like many programs use the same file names.
      do a seacrh for ms*.dll
      find the ones in the A5V4 directory and where they are in other directories.
      Make a backup and then try to get everything to the same date.(especially the windows and windows system directories.
      I tried to make the Alpha dll's the standard in the windows directories.
      The 4 file are
      Mfc40.dll
      Msvcirt.dll
      Msvcrt.dll
      MsVcrt40.dll
      If you use ProComm Plus-do not change their dll.-ProComm will not run and you will have touse your backup copy of the dll's.
      Charlie Crimmel

      Comment


        #4
        RE: A5 crashes - solved???

        Charlie,

        I would be grateful if you could share your experiences with me. I am desperately trying to narrow down the cause of upredictable crashes. Ideally, I would like to create a crash scenario that I can present to Alpha Tech but this is proving difficult because the crashes are so unpredictable.

        I have an application that runs perfectly on my computer and on most other computers, however with certain printer drivers these unpredictable crashes are making it very difficult to distribute my application. I would be pleased if you could share your experiences with me and confirm similar scenes or add to my list of known causes. This way I can be certain that it is not my application design that is at fault.


        By using exhaustive tests, I have so far established the following:-

        1. The crashes only occur with certain printer drivers. I know of at least three but there are obviously a lot more.
        2.The crashes never occur on my development machine only on certain other machines.

        4.The crashes always occur after performing a 'print preview', not during the print or preview. The preview is always successful. The crash occurs when performing another action after the preview such as opening or closing a form with a button.

        5.The crash is not caused by any single named preview it can be any saved layout, report, letter etc.

        6.It does not happen with any particular action, it can be opening a form with no event sripts attached, or simply fetching another record after performung a preview of a report..

        7.The fault is not within the layout's properties for printer selection etc.

        8.The Alpha version has no effect whether V4.03 or V4.5

        9.The fault has nothing to do with networks.

        10.I have also established that by switching the default printer on the host, the crash can be eliminated, however this obviously is not practical, I cannot expect a client to replace their printer.

        11. Sometime ago, I thought that I had narrowed the problem down to colour equations in the column properties of browses. I removed all trace of those equations and the problem seemed to disappear. However, it is back again so I would be grateful of any light that you may be able to shed.

        I am certain, that this has nothing to do with specific printers or drivers but is a conflict of how Alpha looks for the default printer and what it does with that information.

        If you can confirm any of your experiences that appear in my list or if you can add to my list, it will help me in my quest to build a test program that forces the crash so that I can present the problem to Alpha.

        Be very grateful for your contribution.

        Below is an assortment of error messages that are invoked but are meaningless to me.

        ALPHA5 caused an exception 10H in module MSVCRT40.DLL at 015f:1023b3ae.

        ALPHA5 caused an exception 10H in module A2ENGINE.DLL at

        ALPHA5 caused an invalid page fault in
        module MFC40.DLL at 0167:5f8012b6.


        Michael

        Comment


          #5
          RE: A5 crashes - solved???

          Michael:
          1. The crashes only occur with certain printer drivers. I Only on my HP 2100 laser Jet

          2.The crashes always occur after performing a 'print preview', not during the print or preview. The preview is always successful. The crash occurs when performing another action after the preview such as opening or closing a form with a button.

          The above is exactly what was hapening to me. I moved all of my buttons for this application to be executed before the print preview.
          seems to have helped.

          Charlie Crimmel

          Comment


            #6
            RE: A5 crashes - solved???

            Michael,

            Things to try either individually and collectively;

            1. Change the fonts used on your forms to a true-type (e.g. arial) and see if the problem comes back.

            2. Try with a simple layout as opposed to a complex one. See if any of these parameters are the issues.

            3. Watch for overly small fonts and overly large fonts as a potential issue.

            4. Change the printer setup options to print fonts as graphics

            Report back your results.

            Regards,

            Ira J. Perlow
            Computer Systems Design & Associates
            [email protected]
            Regards,

            Ira J. Perlow
            Computer Systems Design


            CSDA A5 Products
            New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
            CSDA Barcode Functions

            CSDA Code Utility
            CSDA Screen Capture


            Comment


              #7
              RE: A5 crashes - solved???

              Charlie,
              Don't know if you caught my previous post, so I'll include it here; A little history. I was running v3.0 in Win98 with no problems in my app. I installed v4.5 (upgrade for v3.0)from disk, and that's when the fun began. I started getting dll error messages. Then I bought a new computer with WinME as the OS. I reloaded both versions from disk and copied my files to those folders. Still got the dll error messages, only in WinME the reference is to the sh31w32 & mfc40 dll's, which are different than the dll's named in Win98. This problem (so far) only occurs in fields that contain simple lookups, and it happens when I add or change data from the lookup choice I've selected, particularly when adding a lot of characters (but still well below the defined length of 200). It doesn't matter if the fields are always required or not required, and the field rules are set to "allow any". I've tried removing indexes, removing field rules, compacting, and consulting a psychic, to no avail. I've also gotten an occasional a2engine...blah, blah, blah message, lockups, a5 crashes, and periodic crashes of the entire system.
              I noticed in one of your later posts that you mentioned updating your dll's. Where did you get them and what is the procedure? Would appreciate detailed explanation as I am, at best, of intermediate ability in all things computer & A5. Thanks, Bill

              Comment


                #8
                RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                Ira,

                It would seem from Charlie's experience and other message boarders that I have been in contact with that the two key issues are, rogue print drivers(lots of), and performing a print preview.

                I downloaded a known rogue printer driver for test purposes(Common HP Deskjet 690c) and stripped my application piece by piece. Below are two definite causes but I have not been able to re create the situation in another app such as the Alpha Invoice sample.

                Cause 1.
                On my main form I had a date variable set global via the form properties and the value was set to / /. After I gave the variable a default value the crash was cured. But why, what is the connection between certain print drivers and a layout preview?

                Cause 2.
                I opened a form using a simple action script. The form contained an embedded browse showing a few fields, two of which were previous value character fields. I switched from using an embedded browse and place the fields directly on to the form. Once again the crash was cured. Problem solved, but why, will it return with other print drivers.

                3. I still have one other form that when opened after a report print preview, crashes. This form also has an embedded browse and when removed cures the crash. Unfortunately, the form is useless without the embedded browse.I have deleted this form and completely rebuilt and named it but as soon as the embedded browse is added, the crash returns. I have stripped out all actions and calcs but still no luck. (I have loads of other forms containing embedded browses, no problems here)
                What can be a possible connection between a report print preview and afterwards opening a form containing an embedded browse?

                I will make further tests, with fonts as Ira suggests.

                Michael

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                  "I moved all of my buttons for this application to be executed before the print preview."

                  Charlie, could you please explain this phrase in more detail? I don't understand what you are doing and I would like to know in case I run into similar trouble. Certainly you're not closing the app after printing so I would assume that other buttons will be pushed after the print job is completed. Are you saying that some of the scripts have the print operation in the middle of the script and additional actions were occurring in the same script?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                    Michael,

                    Excuse me for suggesting the obvious. Alpha does not get along with certain printer drivers, period. Particularly, newer HP drivers. Try using geneic WIN drivers instead. I don't know of any work arounds other than stripping your application down to barebones - and even that might not help. The exact problem you are having, I had - and made go away by switching to Generics. If you want a list of some substitute drivers let me know.

                    Peter
                    Peter
                    AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                    [email protected]
                    https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                      Cal and Bill:
                      Cal -
                      I use Procom Plus to download payroll files from jobsites.
                      I have an A5 application that imports these asc text files and checks control totals and prints reports to verify the files going into our Unix accounting program.
                      Then I saved all the asc text files and the tables to a iomega internal zip 250. The user selects the jobsite and the payweek ending date from look up fields in tables. These selections are passed to variables and the the variables are used to create the directories on the zip 250 drive. some of the reports are printed and others are just previewed.
                      The user goes down the menu items in order 1-2--3-4-5
                      When the save to zip button was after the print routines it crashed. When the save to zip button is before the print routines it does not crash.
                      Bill- Sorry to make you read all of this to get to your answer.
                      1. I downloaded the 2 dll updates from the alpha board-techinicqal help
                      2. I looked in the program filesa5v4 directory for all .dll files
                      3. I did a search in the windows explorer for those dll files. made back up copies of the dll's. checked the dates of all the dll's and replaced all the older dll's with the ones from the a5v4 directory.
                      Charlie Crimmel

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                        Thanks Charlie.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                          Hello Michael,

                          >>On my main form I had a date variable set global via the form properties and the value was set to / /. After I gave the variable a default value the crash was cured. But why, what is the connection between certain print drivers and a layout preview?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                            Peter,
                            Thanks for your input but I have no problems on my computer, it is the clients computers that have certain printer drivers that cause the crashes. I cannot expect them to switch drivers.

                            Michael

                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: A5 crashes - solved???

                              Jim,

                              You wrote
                              'I've had the exact same issue as above. In my case the global variable was the first field to receive focus when the form opened up.'

                              By strange coincidence the form giving me trouble has an embedded browse that causes the crash. I checked out Xbasic explorer and the first object in the list is the browse object. I will be making tests later, could be on to the cause here but have said that before.

                              Michael

                              Comment

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