Author Topic: Old problem.. any known solution ? (American Heritage Dictionary by DUX)  (Read 16031 times)

Glenn

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Hi all, when trying to run the good old American Heritage Dictionary (published by DUX) on ArcaOS 5.0.7, I get a SYS3175 with PMMERGE.DLL, the app does not start. Googling for that error gives many results with people mentioning similar problems. There are also patched versions of PMMERGE.DLL but all much older than the current ArcaOS version, that may or may not have integrated this patched version. IIRC this problem happened with eCS too but not with the original Warp 4.

Was there a known solution / workaround to be able to start such programs on current versions of the OS?
« Last Edit: May 15, 2022, 07:07:16 pm by Martin Iturbide »

Roderick Klein

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Re: Old problem.. any known solution ?
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2022, 12:36:29 pm »
If you have such an issue I think its best if you open a ticket at Arca Noae on mantis.arcanoae.com. This will require you to upload a testlog. Do not backlevel pmmerge.dll to an older version as that will introduce other issue's.

If you are lucky then based on the popuplog.os2 entry and with the SYM file of pmmerge.dll somebody might be able to determine what function it crashes it. That might give a hint. But this trick does not always work.

Roderick Klein
« Last Edit: May 15, 2022, 12:43:33 pm by Roderick Klein »

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Old problem.. any known solution ?
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2022, 07:06:47 pm »
Hi Glenn

I don't have the American Heritage Dictionary by DUX, but the only thing I had seen is that there are two patches at hobbes, but I'm not sure if those are for the same thing you are using? Those are patches for DUX.EXE.

Regards
« Last Edit: May 15, 2022, 07:11:42 pm by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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Glenn

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Re: Old problem.. any known solution ?
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2022, 12:55:39 am »
Hi Glenn

I don't have the American Heritage Dictionary by DUX, but the only thing I had seen is that there are two patches at hobbes, but I'm not sure if those are for the same thing you are using? Those are patches for DUX.EXE.

Regards
Unfortunately the remedy is worse than the problem: instead of just not starting the application, applying these patches causes the app to somehow start minimized (can see the program in lSwitcher) but also to hang the WPS - I have to use TOP to kill the app AND reset the WPS before I can regain control on the system...

Pete

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Hi Glenn

Are you using a multiprocessor system? - Just wondering if using markexe.exe (from os/2 toolkit) to "mark" the executable (dux.exe ?) as mpunsafe will help...


Regards

Pete

Glenn

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Are you using a multiprocessor system? - Just wondering if using markexe.exe (from os/2 toolkit) to "mark" the executable (dux.exe ?) as mpunsafe will help...
Hi Pete, It' s a VirtualBox system, one processor in the configuration. I' ll check that anyway, but I remember my "real" system in the early 2000s, a P4 (hence without multiprocessing), showed the same problem.

jailbird

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If it's a crash in PMMERGE.DLL, have you tried the OS/4 team's patched PMMERGE.DLL?

Obviously it won't be supported by Arca Noae in any way, so backup your current .DLL first!

http://os4.team/os4/pmmerge/pmmerge6111.zip

Roderick Klein

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If it's a crash in PMMERGE.DLL, have you tried the OS/4 team's patched PMMERGE.DLL?

Obviously it won't be supported by Arca Noae in any way, so backup your current .DLL first!

http://os4.team/os4/pmmerge/pmmerge6111.zip

Where is listed what it fixes ?

Roderick

Lars

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Where is it listed what USB 12.12 fixes ?

Seriously, we all know that by now, 80% of OS/2 is trial and error. It`s worth giving it a try and note down the results (worked / made things worse / did not make a difference).

Martin Iturbide

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Where is it listed what USB 12.12 fixes ?
Hi Lars:

I know you posted it as a rhetorical question (to make a point, rather than get an answer), but there is a little text on the USB Readme about what is updated on 12.12.
Quote
Change Log
==========

v.12.12 02-Apr-2022 - David Azarewicz
  USBCOM: Fixed USB3 issues. Added support for some newer PL2303 devices.
  USBD: Added protection from some XHCI unsafe drivers.
  USBCALLS: Added protection from some misbehaved applications.
  XHCI: Added isochronous support. May not be fully tested due to
    the lack of compatible drivers and applications.

But I agree with you  that is worthy to do some  trial and error with the OS4 patched PMMERGE.

Glenn; Can it be possible to get some pictures of the CD-ROM, or send it over to "martiniturbide@gmail.com".  I want to see if I can find it around?

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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OS4User

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Seriously, we all know that by now, 80% of OS/2 is trial and error. It`s worth giving it a try and note down the results (worked / made things worse / did not make a difference).

In general it is true :)

But PmMerge from OS/4 has several critical bug fixes and some improvements.

- Heap leak was fixed (this manifested itself as inability to run any programs after a while)
- Misserialization in some semaphore was fixed too (I have no idea how it manifested itself)

Sometimes the system hang on start - you can see desktop  background  and nothing more.
With OS/4 PmMerge   -  I do not  see such behavior.

Some people reported some other improvements - I do not remember exactly.

Lars

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I have a setup with the W4 kernel (to develop and debug WPS classes). That fails with PMMERGE6111. On system start, the system will trap in PMDD with PMMERGE6111 in place. Reverting back to the original PMMERGE fixes the problem

OS4User

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I have a setup with the W4 kernel (to develop and debug WPS classes). That fails with PMMERGE6111. On system start, the system will trap in PMDD with PMMERGE6111 in place. Reverting back to the original PMMERGE fixes the problem

PmMerge from OS/4  does not support 16bit system (I have no idea what does it mean). It could be the reason.  Can you try with UNI or SMP  kernel ?

Lars

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The W4 kernel is the old single core kernel. But it is a 32-bit kernel, just like the SMP kernel. The W4 kernel only supports the old 8259a interrupt controller (predating local and IO APIC).
If I try the SMP kernel, it works ok. As I said, it is only a prob with the W4 kernel.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2022, 08:33:34 am by Lars »

OS4User

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If I try the SMP kernel, it works ok. As I said, it is only a prob with the W4 kernel.

You may also try UNI kernel.

As I said, PmMerge from OS/4  does not work with "16bit system".

I have no idea what is "16bit system" from point of view PmMerge.  But code for "16bit system" is missing in it.

If it works with SMP kernel then everything as expected.