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View Full Version : The Return Of "Access Violation" Errors



swingtan
October 29th, 2008, 04:11 PM
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that gets these, and historically there are a few posts mentioning these error messages.....

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3162/2985190239_c75ceb1fdc_o.jpg ("http://www.flickr.com/photos/swingtan/2985190239/" )

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2986045774_fb46057d9b_o.jpg ("http://www.flickr.com/photos/swingtan/2986045774/" )

These are not new for me, in fact the first image was taken on the 16th Sept, the second today. they have been occurring for quite a while and while they can be annoying, they never seemed to cause any real problems. However I was a bit worried and would always restart the application if one of these errors occurred.

Today I had a bit of a breakthrough in that I worked out the exact scenario that causes this to occur.....


Start Tune Tool or Scan Tool and then minimise the application.
Leave it minimised for some time while continuing to use the laptop for other work.
After some time ( which can take a while ) maximise Tune Tool or Scan Tool and immediately hover the mouse over a button.
As the Tool attempts to find the pop up "help bubble" for that button, the error occurs.
You can minimise the Tool and maximise it again, but the error occurs every time you hover the mouse over a button.
In Tune tool, if you then select a new parameter field to adjust, everything resets and you get the "help bubbles" back and no more errors.
In Scan Tool, if you open the DVT tab up and attempt to activate, the issue clears and again you can get the "help bubbles" back with no errors.


So this leads me to think that there is something funny occurring when the application attempts to call the routing that activates the "help bubble" / "button prompts" ( or what ever they are called ). Has any one else noticed this? My laptop is fairly unique in that it does a lot more than just tuning and rarely gets shut down. Most of the time I simply "sleep" the laptop when I'm not using it so it does have periods of time where it may go a week or 2 without a reboot ( amazing for Windows.... ). However, it did get a reboot last night so should be in a fairly good state.

Simon.

Goldfinger911
October 30th, 2008, 03:35 AM
What operating system? XP Pro?
Those are memory access violation errors. Does the Windows Event Viewer give you any more info about whats going on at that moment when the violation occurs? Does your laptop have two DIMMS in it or one? If two, pull one out, reboot and try to cause the error. Then try the other DIMM. You could have a bad DIMM.

Another possibility... disable the Windows XP Luna theme. Set it back to using the old Windows GUI. Also, turn off the transparency of windows, menus and popups. Then try to recreate the error. There could be an issue with your video driver and the application at the GDI level.

joecar
October 30th, 2008, 05:45 AM
Simon, which scantool/tunetool build...?

Blacky
October 30th, 2008, 06:10 AM
Can you please make sure it is not an issue caused by this setting:

Run Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer).
Select menu option: Tools->Folder Options.
Select the [View] tab page.
UNCHECK "Show Pop-up description for folder and desktop items".

I realize that the above setting is for Windows explorer, but that setting causes Explorer to crash (sometimes) when it attempts to display the pop-up file description. It may be related.

Regards
Paul

Blacky
October 30th, 2008, 06:44 AM
I tracked down the address in the error message and it appears as though the routine that pops up the yellow "tool-tip" tries to get the resolution of the monitor by calling GetBoundsRect(), I presume so it can place the tool-tip so that it is 100% visible. It looks like register EAX (the Handle of the TMonitor object) passed to the GetMonitorInfo() Windows function is NULL which causes the access fault. I don't know why EAX is NULL (see image).

While the app is minimized for an extended period, does the laptop hibernate? Does the screen saver come on? Does the screen power down?

After maximizing the window, if you leave it for 10-15 seconds, then hover over a button does it still fault.

See this thread for more info...
http://qc.codegear.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=53932
Regardless, I will add the suggested workaround.

Regards
Paul

swingtan
October 30th, 2008, 08:38 AM
I tracked down the address in the error message and it appears as though the routine that pops up the yellow "tool-tip" tries to get the resolution of the monitor by calling GetBoundsRect(), I presume so it can place the tool-tip so that it is 100% visible. It looks like register EAX (the Handle of the TMonitor object) passed to the GetMonitorInfo() Windows function is NULL which causes the access fault. I don't know why EAX is NULL (see image).

While the app is minimized for an extended period, does the laptop hibernate? Does the screen saver come on? Does the screen power down?

After maximizing the window, if you leave it for 10-15 seconds, then hover over a button does it still fault.

See this thread for more info...
http://qc.codegear.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=53932
Regardless, I will add the suggested workaround.

Regards
Paul

This is "exactly" what I was thinking. In fact it can describe the lead up to the errors at some times precisely. In fact I'd spoken to a couple of guys and said that I think it may even be something to do with the Intel Video drivers......

FWIW: Windows XP Professional SP2 with EFILive build 70 ( though it's been occurring for the past 8 months I guess, it just seems to be happening a bit more now. )

The laptop is quite often "suspended" while the applications are minimised. Both screen savers and screen power downs occur regularly. Especially if I've been working on a tune and then walk out to the car with the laptop, as I close the screen. I also have the power saving features set fairly high so the laptop will drop the screen after only 2 or 3 mins of no activity ( when on battery ).

After maximising, I can wait for minutes and still get the error.

I just read that thread from codegear and had a good laugh..... My other "issue" is that I can't load log files if I have a VNC-Viewer window running. If I try, I get the "chart full of notes" error. the only thing that doesn't match, is that I'm not running the application "from" a VNC window and don't run VNC Server. I only use VNC Viewer for accessing multiple X desktops on Unix servers.

Just knowing what the problem is makes me happy.... then again it is Friday!

Thanks for the great work guys!

Simon.

mxracer
October 30th, 2008, 09:43 AM
Paul... if you are interested I have some ideas on why EAX is null and what you may be able to do about it besides the workaround you listed.

Dan

Blacky
October 30th, 2008, 12:42 PM
Paul... if you are interested I have some ideas on why EAX is null and what you may be able to do about it besides the workaround you listed.

Dan

Shoot me an email at paul@efilive.com
Regards
Paul

joecar
October 30th, 2008, 01:31 PM
mxracer/Dan, welcome to the forum...:cheers:

mxracer
October 30th, 2008, 11:58 PM
Thanks joecar. Been reading like a dog for a while now. I don't know squat about EFILive yet (I should have mine next week :grin: ) but maybe I can help in another way here.