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eWP Startup

Started by Saijin_Naib, 2008.05.21, 15:50:51

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Saijin_Naib

Hello, I've been having an issue with eCS 2.0 RC4 for the past few days that begins with startup of the PMSHELL.

The desktop goes to load, a PC speaker beep series occurs (about 3 notes in rapid succession) then the desktop opens, window list shows, desktop closes, desktop opens, etc etc. This will occur indefinitely until I force the computer to restart.

Now, if I force the eWP/xWP "safe mode" and run XFIX and delete what invalid handles WILL be there and write it back to the .ini, I can get to my desktop and work fine, as I am doing right now. However, when I reboot again, I will have to begin this process anew.

Xfix complains that there is one more handle than there should be. It remarks something like (xxx expected, xxx+1 counted, hmmm.) I am not sure of the significance of this? Running Cleanini/CHeckini only seem to exacerbate the problem.

I have also had a run through things with FPOS and Iconomize utilities, after which I do a check with Cleanini to force a WPS reset so the changes don't get over-written (or thats my understanding).

The disk is recently check-disked and is clean, and is recently defragmented.

Could this have to do with changes I have made to the Virtual Memory addressing and thread counts?
Threads: 384 (1sec boost)
Swapper: 2mb
Virtual Address Limit: 2048mb
Disable DLL Basing (on)
High memory for Java (on)

Do I need to reformat/install?

Thanks.

djcaetano


  It seems there is some program/WPS dll causing some kind of traps. These
beeps lead me to think about eCenter (xCenter) plugins. Maybe the trap being
generated is causing some kind of INI corruption.

  What happens if you keep CTRL+SHIFT+F1 while WPS loads?

Saijin_Naib

Thanks DJ. It appears that CTRL+SHIFT+F1 brings me to the same eWP Panic! screen that holding Left-Shift during WPS startup does. This time, no invalid handles were found, and no beep series when eWP loaded. I really don't know what caused the issue, but I guess so long as it's fixed. It seems the invalid handles were cleared out through using FPOS, Iconimize, Cleanini, Checkini, and XFIX. I really wonder how I broke it in the first place though :C

Here are the entries from my popuplog.os2 related to the WPS resets. It appears that PMSHELL.exe crashed with some variation of stuff in PMMERGE.dll every time. What also kinda scares me is that sometimes in the process of selecting handles to delete, xfix would crash. Eep :C

djcaetano

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.21, 17:08:42
Thanks DJ. It appears that CTRL+SHIFT+F1 brings me to the same eWP Panic! screen that holding Left-Shift during WPS startup does. This time, no invalid handles were found, and no beep series when eWP loaded.

  When the "Panic" dialog shows up, mark the box to *not* run xWP startup folder once, click on "continue" and as fast as possible push CTRL+SHIFT+F1 (left control and left shift). Keep them pressed until WPS is fully loaded. THEN you should open "StartUp folder" and run everything there.

  CTRL+SHIFT+F1 prevents WPS from loading any programs in any startup folder (I don't know about special StartUp folders created by xWP/eWP) or any other program that was opened before the last shutdown.

  I had noticed many times tha eCenter/xCenter are responsible for almost all WPS corruption problems I experienced in the last 3 or 4 years. I reduced a lot the problem by removing xCenter from Startup folder and keeping it only attached to the screen borders (using the Screen configuration object). The result is xCenter is not loaded while WPS boots, but only the first time you touch the defined border. Since I use xCenter on top of my screen (like original Warp 4 beta), I attached it to the top border. So, whenever I need to use xCenter for the first time, I simply move my mouse to the position where xCenter should be and... bang! It just appears. :)

  I could have just removed xCenter, but it is too much useful to be discarded, now I had found a way to avoid this kind of corruption.

  As a secondary tip, add to your CONFIG.SYS the following line:

  SET DESKTOP = [your desktop path]

  Mine is:

  SET DESKTOP = C:\DESKTOP

  This will allow WPS to find most of its data even when some parts of INI were corrupted. Moreover, keep at least 5 desktop backups (use the automatic backup features). I program it to archive the desktop once per day OR when there is a change bigger than 0.1%. This way, whenever you notice something was corrupted in the INI (desktop corruption in some way), reset the computer (using CTRL+ALT+DEL or something) and restore the previously archived desktop. CAUTION: sometimes the corruption is shown *after* the last backup is done. In this case, the newest desktop archive may be corrupted. In that case, use the second on the list.

djcaetano

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.21, 17:08:42
Here are the entries from my popuplog.os2 related to the WPS resets. It appears that PMSHELL.exe crashed with some variation of stuff in PMMERGE.dll every time. What also kinda scares me is that sometimes in the process of selecting handles to delete, xfix would crash. Eep :C

  Weird!

  There are tons of SYS3173, which OS/2 says it is a "breakpoint" exception
(HELP SYS3173 on command prompt)... all of them exactly at the same place. Are you using a "beta" or "testcase" PMMERGE.DLL?
  There are several SYS3171, which means "exception stack overflow", which is a very rare and weird problem.
  SYS3175 is the usual, common programming error (usually the use of a non-checked pointer). It happens on XFIX, probably some bug.
  A SYS3186 happened: this is most weird; this error happens when one tries to execute a privileged operation in user mode (i.e.: a normal program trying to disable computer interrupts). PMMERGE.DLL should not present this kind of error.
  There are some SYS3182, which are problems with floating point operations. If the problem is in xCenter, the suspicion is over TCP/IP monitor or CPU usage monitor or any other that presents floating point values.

Saijin_Naib

Wow, I barely understand the vast majority of what you have said there, but to my knowledge, I do not have a testcase PMMERGE.dll. Prior to this log, I have never even heard of it.

For the floating point error, that is reasonable, as I have the CPU monitor widget in my ecenter along with a few other widgets.

I do not know how the SYS3186 could happen. My start-up folder is pretty bare, as you can see from the attached.

Well, I will definitely add the desktop line to my config.sys as you have suggested, so hopefully bad things will no longer happen.

How can eWP/xWP cause ini trouble? They seem to be pretty passive in terms of what I use them for (eCenter)

Pete

Hi

Just wondering if Saijin_Naib has the "wrong" DOSCALL1.DLL file installed in \os2\dll as that file differs depending on the kernel in use. If the wrong file is in use it could cause problems - and entries for pmmerge.dll in the popuplog.os2

The SMP version is 2-08-05  3:47p       144,631    208 a---  DOSCALL1.DLL

The W4/UNI version is  18-07-06 11:56a       192,100      0 ----  DOSCALL1.DLL


Regards

Pete

Saijin_Naib

Well, I had the system running in SMP mode for a while, but I had to stop this because Panorama will TRAP my computer if i press CTRL+ALT+DEL with SMP enabled. I have two doscall1.dll files, on in C:\OS2\install\uni\ and one in C:\OS2\dll\ and they appear to be the 192kb version, so, the correct one. So again, I have no idea what caused these errors that (apparently) are rather rare. I've broken OS/2 again :C

Saijin_Naib

#8
What attributes should the os2.ini and os2sys.ini be? My folder window sizes don't seem to be saving anymore.
Right now both are set to +archive +system +read only

Edit: HAH! Added bonus of my XFIX/FPOS/Iconomize/Cleanini/Checkini spree, no more desktop scrollbar madness!

The Blue Warper

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.23, 03:44:37

What attributes should the os2.ini and os2sys.ini be? My folder window sizes don't seem to be saving anymore.
Right now both are set to +archive +system +read only


Normal attributes for the os2*.ini files are +H +R +S (Hidden, Read-only, System).

Saijin_Naib

Thanks TWB :)

I need to not play with XFIX, luckily there were backups of the os2*.ini files or I'd be buggered right now. I apparently deleted a handle that should not have been nuked and the WPS wouldn't load :C


Also, if anyone is a member on the eWorplace/xWorkplace mailing list, would you please submit this eWP crashlog to them so they can atleast have the information? That'd be greatly appreciated.

Andi

If it's a problem with some widget, you can try to disable all and reenable 1 by one. One methode is to delete all dlls (make a backup before) from the plugins directory which in your case is in C:\ecs\system\ewps\plugins\xcenter.

DavidG

Quote from: Andi on 2008.06.02, 14:44:26
If it's a problem with some widget, you can try to disable all and reenable 1 by one. One methode is to delete all dlls (make a backup before) from the plugins directory which in your case is in C:\ecs\system\ewps\plugins\xcenter.

I know there is a problem with the REXX widgets.  Gregg Young had some code fixes.  Don't know if he ever found out who to submit them to since Paul Ratcliffe doesn't handle the code for these widgets.

Quote from the newgroup by Gregg.

I have some code changes I would like to add to the rexx widgets (a fix for the F1 crash in some apps (PMView) when one of the rexx widgets is installed). Who has access? I contacted Paul he doesn't. Thanks