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Index › Suggestions & Bugs › Software Bugs › Inconsistent freezing
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Inconsistent freezing (Read 940 times)
flight404
Inconsistent freezing
May 2nd, 2005, 7:20pm  
Okay, I realize this is going to be a difficult one to track down, but here it goes.  

Sometimes, on projects that use any combination of the Sonia Library and Powermate Library (cant find consistent results), the applet will work the first time it is run, but once I quit it and try to run it again, Processing freezes up, no errors end up in my console log, and I have to force quit.

At first I thought it was just the powermates, since the library was written a while ago blah blah, but with projects that use the powermate library and no sonia, it seems to work fine.  For projects that use just sonia, it seems to work fine.  But sometimes, on specific projects, the 2 combined just dont work.

So, is there something I can do to help narrow down the problem?  I cant publicly distribute the powermate library just yet (working on it), but I just don't know how to track down the problem because I get no feedback as to what isn't quitting properly or what is freezing up.

r


BTW, forgot to mention, this is on Processing v.86 using the recently updated Tiger OS for Mac.  This problem seems to be associated with Tiger more than the Processing update.
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Robert Hodgin {flight404}&&
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flight404
Re: Inconsistent freezing
Reply #1 - May 3rd, 2005, 1:13am  
For example, is there a way for me to see what is happening when it freezes?  Process Viewer and console log show nothing out of the ordinary, though Process Viewer doesnt show a running applet after i hit play when it freezes.
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Robert Hodgin {flight404}&&
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fry
Re: Inconsistent freezing
Reply #2 - May 3rd, 2005, 1:34am  
meaning that it only started on tiger? if that's the case i'd suspect either sonia or the powermate lib to be having trouble, cuz apple really f-ed with things internally in tiger and since both those libs do lower-level i/o, it wouldn't be surprising if there was trouble (maybe a jsyn update for tiger? or the griffin lib does something naughty with the usb driver?)

since both libs work independently, another theory would be that it's a problem with the two libraries fighting with each other (for instance, both trying to send events to processing at the same time and then choking). this could be a fault of one or both of the libs or of processing. something to try would be seeing if you could get the problem to happen with a different pair of libraries.

as for debugging.. that's tougher.. on windows and linux you can ctrl-break out of a java application to get its thread state, though i'm not sure how this is done on macosx. putting all sorts of println() statements around might help, but since they're also problematic, that introduce new trouble..
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flight404
Re: Inconsistent freezing
Reply #3 - May 3rd, 2005, 2:29am  
I was worried you would say that.  Hmmm.   I will continue to try and track down the problem.  I was also having similar issues running V3ga's Metaball textures project, which uses a lot of straight openGL calls, and no sonia or griffin stuff.  Thought perhaps his project was just more volatile and that is what caused the freezes.

As for the println method, not sure how it would help because the problem seems to happen after I exit a running applet (or while I am exiting). Trying to run it again sends processing into 'not responding' land before the applet is even relaunched.

Maybe Tiger screwed openGL somehow?  The only thing consistent with all my freezes is that they use the openGL library.  When I get back to work tomorrow, I will try the offending pieces with the P3D engine to see if it works any better.  I will keep you informed.


Additionally, when projects do freeze, I notice that the play button is never unyellowed from the running the time before.
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Robert Hodgin {flight404}&&
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fry
Re: Inconsistent freezing
Reply #4 - May 3rd, 2005, 7:41am  
it would be unsurprising if jogl were broken in tiger. anything on their lists about it?

also try the just posted release which should fix at least one part of the freezing issues.
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flight404
Re: Inconsistent freezing
Reply #5 - May 4th, 2005, 7:41pm  
Well, it seems I am a bit closer to figuring out the freezing.  I think perhaps Tiger changes the way threads are handled or some such crap.  I can get a frozen applet to work by turning each of the knobs to reinitialize.  So it definitely seems to be Powermate related.

r
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Robert Hodgin {flight404}&&
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fry
Re: Inconsistent freezing
Reply #6 - Jul 28th, 2005, 5:19am  
k, so if just powermate issue, gonna close the thread.. though if you run into more trouble, please post something about it in the bugs db.
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