crash in section Midi

[Arjan]

We do not have anymore the computer where we were able to reproduce the problem.
And now, we can not reproduce the problem again (no crash with your midi file on the other computers).

If possible, please send us other midi files which crash ControlBoard to.
We need to be able to reproduce the problem again.

Mmm. I'm guessing that this problem is timing related, perhaps your computer on which you could reproduce it was a bit older and slower? I'm using your software on an Asus EEE PC with an Atom N270 processor. Still, it seems to run your software just fine and there's never any delays or resource problems, the only problem is when I try controlling it through MIDI. You don't happen to have a Netbook lying around that you could test it on, do you?

I'm not sure what else I could send you to reproduce this problem. That midi file causes the crash consistenly on my system and it also caused it on your old system. It's too bad that you didn't keep it around until this problem had been fixed.

Is there anything else that can be done? I'm not sure what development system you are using (it doesn't seem to be Visual C++, but what do you use?) but in principle if you do a compile/build of juist ControlBoard.exe, keep that exact build in your development environment and send the resuling .exe to me I could tell you the exact address where it crashes and you should be able to single-step into the debugger and then in the (Dis)assembly view jump straight to the offending code location (address). If you were to do this in Visual Studio it would also show you the exact source code line and you could even do a complete stack walk if I send you the other code addresses that appear in my Visual Studio debugger when I attach it to the crashed ControlBoard.exe.

I will also be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement if you have some special debugging version that I could test.

[Arjan]

A little update: I just had the same crash without 3Dview on, just DMX out. Now that's really bad as it means that this can happen during a live performance as well . Please please please let me know what can be done to help you fix this bug. I can reproduce it consistenly on my system (the aforementioned Netbook). I'll give you remote access to this system if you need it. It's got Visual Studio 2008 Professional installed on it but I don't suppose that will be of any use.

Every crash seems to be for the exact same reason/location and it's trying to write to memory address 0x000000, ie. the code is dereferencing a NULL pointer.

[support]

We had the chance to use for a while the computer where we saw the crash on time (this is a 8 year old computer).
But we were not able to reproduce the bug again, even with a big lightshow running on 3DView.
It looks like the processor must be very slow, or very busy, in order to get that bug !

Are you able to reproduce easily this bug with another computer, or do you have it exclusively in your Notebook computer ?

[Arjan]

We had the chance to use for a while the computer where we saw the crash on time (this is a 8 year old computer).
But we were not able to reproduce the bug again, even with a big lightshow running on 3DView.
It looks like the processor must be very slow, or very busy, in order to get that bug !

I do think it's timing related but I'm not sure if the processor has to be particularly slow or extremely busy. My notebook is routing MIDI to my other synth modules at the same time (in normal use, not with the MIDI file that I sent you) and there is never a hint of latency so it can't be that busy normally. And although processor speed could be a factor (as that would obviously create timing differences), I'm sure you'll agree that it would be nice if the software didn't crash because of dereferencing a NULL pointer. Other factors that could affect the timing is number of cores (my Atom has only one realy physical core with hyperthreading to simulate a second core at the hardware level).

Are you able to reproduce easily this bug with another computer, or do you have it exclusively in your Notebook computer ?

I haven't tried but I will do so. Only thing is I'm leaving for vacation today so I won't be able to do any testing for the next two weeks so I'll have to get back to you on that. I will also try it with a physical MIDI loopback cable as that will involve a different MIDI interface would also affect timing.

Thanks,
Arjan

[razortongue1]

Update for me......I notice when i start plugging in my laptops power supply i get less crashes maybe it has to do with 2 usb ports hooked up to a computer that is almost starving of power and the computer was crashing that way, it still crashes for me here or there, but i notice using the power supply, and specific usb ports that the software for that device was installed on makes it crash less often.

[support]

Thank you for this info.

[Niffo]

Have you tried 6.30 beta release ? Midi support has been almost completely rewritten and may be the problem does not exist anymore ?

[razortongue1]

Have you tried 6.30 beta release ? Midi support has been almost completely rewritten and may be the problem does not exist anymore ?

I was using the Beta i thought it was the full version. So i just uninstalled beta and went to the last full release. I will let u know if its better, worse or the same.