Zugg Software :: View topic

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

Well, what I meant was, if an older version (pre 1.13 or so) set something in the registry possibly, which I wouldn't have, since I didn't install anything before that on this system at least.

So far, I've tried two completely different systems -- My home system (with Zmud & Cmud), and my work system (CMUD only). I can reproduce the lockups on both. I will be getting a third system by Monday of next week, so can try again there, too.

As for locked up, yes, it is completely locked up... Once it is in this state, I can't do anything with CMUD except kill it via the task manager. It doesn't even respond to killing via the "X" box.

As a note, I just completely removed it from my work system, deleted the CMUD folder, and reinstalled -- I can reproduce the lockup again.

I can only produce it via the method I described... Starting, closing the "sessions" window, clicking the "aliases" button, and then clicking the "package properties" icon. Note that I have no packages installed in CMUD when I do this. At this point, is when CMUD is locked. The menu bit just shows how it fails to completely draw it once it is in that state.

Further testing shows:
I can also reproduce this by going to the pulldown of View->Aliases, and then clicking on the "package properties" icon.
Closing the "session" window is not required

I have no problems in general using menu's, and I only seem to hit this issue in the package editor.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:22 am

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:24 am

btw, I looked a bit closer at your screenshots, and it looks like you have your system set to "Large fonts". CMUD isn't tested with this setting, so go into your Video settings and change the font dpi down to the default of 96 (or select Small fonts) and see if that makes any difference.

It's possible that with Large Fonts something isn't fitting on the screen and one of the Developer Express toolbar controls might be trying to resize itself to fit and getting stuck.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Also, if Zugg's suggestion doesn't help, what screen resolution are you using on both computers? Are either capable of driving two monitors? If so, is the 2nd monitor enabled on either?

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

First system uses 1600x12xx (I forget the last two). The second is a 30" monitor with something like 2800x1600 or whatever the max res is. Both have large fonts enabled, I try without it.

And yes, I have the "untititled" package, sorry for not noting that I specifically do have that one. ;)

--Kernighan

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:54 am

I just tested this myself with large fonts - CMUD didn't go to 99% CPU for me but it did stop responding to any input whatsoever. It took a couple of seconds for CMUD to stop responding after clicking "Package Properties", but stop it did. Here's a screenshot.

Turn off large fonts, and everything's fine.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

BTW, you highlighted the wrong CMUD process. The other one is using 48% CPU. Which, if Windows thinks you have two processors, is virtually 100% of the CPU time for one of the processors.

Zugg, why are there often two CMUD processes? Killing one inevitably kills the other I've noticed though.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:46 pm

You know, I didn't even notice there were two CMUD processes. Yes, I am running dual-core, though weirdly, checking the performance tab with cmud crashed, each core is using a little over half capacity, rather than one core being maxed.

I've tested it a bit more as well, and it seems that I have to click the CMUD window behind the package editor, and then back onto it via the start bar for it to stop responding. Or on a menu. Once I've clicked package properties, I can continue browsing my settings just fine or change tab and as long as I've done that first, the error won't occur. It's only when I've clicked "Package Properties" and then immediately on a menu.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:02 pm

The extra process is the copy protection process. It's sort of like the old eLicense RunService.exe that used to run. Instead of running as a system service, the newer copy protection just runs as a separate process. But because it has the same name as the main process, it can be a bit confusing. But the extra process is needed because the EXE file is encrypted, so when Windows pages and needs to fetch a new page from the EXE file, the copy protection process is there to decrypt it as it is loaded into memory. It also monitors the main CMUD thread and checks for hacking or other tampering with the memory image. And yes, CMUD will only run with both processes...kill one and the other one will get killed too.

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

I can confirm that changing to normal fonts (96 dpi) from large fonts (120 dpi) resolves the problem with CMUD. However, given the resolutions I run at, using normal font sizes is not really an option to me. Will it be possible for this to be fixed?

Thanks,
Kernighan

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:43 pm

CMUD will not support Large Fonts for a while. As you probably noticed when playing with CMUD, there are lots of problems on lots of screens when you use large fonts. Captions become too large for buttons, text labels get cut off, etc. Windows does a very poor job at scaling a user interface based upon font dpi (and Delphi is even worse). So it requires a lot of effort to fix each and every form to handle font size differences like this. You'll probably see this same problem in many other software applications as well.

Novice Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 37

Okay. I've used large fonts for years, and not had too many problems, but yeah, they certainly do crop up from time to time. :/

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Thanks for the explanation, Zugg.

If you determine that it is a bug in the Developer Express toolbar system, maybe there will fix it themselves? I can't remember if you've said that you've already made changes / fixes to it yourself though.

One snag though - although I don't usually get the lockup, and can't replicate it - I never use large fonts (so far). So that was not the cause for me. I might have been messing with other graphics resolution settings previously though, related to external LCD screen and TV screen, etc.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:09 am

Unfortunately, Developer Express is completely rewriting their toolbar system. I guess they finally realized how crappy parts of their design were. On the other hand, I have dozens and dozens of modifications to their code to fix a variety of their bugs. So, when they release their new version (which was supposed to happen last summer, but didn't) then it will still be a lot of work for me to convert to their new system since I'll have to retest all of my changes (and see if they even still work).

So right now, I've considered the toolbar part of DevExpress (ExpressBars) to be my own code and I am managing it separately from the main DevExpress installer because of all the changes I have made. So it's a bug I'm going to be forced to fix myself I'm afraid.

As much as I hate the ExpressBars stuff, I haven't found any other good toolbar solution that handles the end-user customization properly. I used to use TB2000 and TBX, but it didn't have the end-user customization, and that's a big feature that CMUD will be taking more and more advantage of. So I'm pretty much stuck with ExpressBars and just have to hope that their rewrite is high quality and not so full of bugs. ExpressBars is definitely not up to their normal standards (and I couldn't even use their docking stuff...I had to find a better docking solution for CMUD)