[not yet reproducible] Various crashes

[Nightbreed]

I'm getting various crashes that I'm unable to track down the causes of. I think I've narrowed it down to mouse_over type of buttons. That seems to be where the crashes takes place.

It's not a continuous crash problem, but it does happen often.

There's also crashes when pressing stop, then play when switching library content.
For example; when I press stop, then click an item in the library, then press play again. I get a crash. Again, this isn't constant either, but a crash occures around about there.

If you can release a debug version, I'd be glad to post some crash reports, that is, if the player isn't already able to produce those.

[FordGT]

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but I too have noticed 4-5 crashes of the shimmer interface component. And like you said Nightbreed, it happens when I mose over the controls.

[Nightbreed]

No problem FordGT, you helped narrow down the issue with that.

I always thought it was just my themes that was crashing on mouse over, but I'm assuming others are having issues too.

[Cliff Cawley]

Hi guys,

Any reproducible cases have the best hope of helping me find out what exactly the problem is. it is possible perhaps that the name of the layer was slighly not what Xion was expecting, and therefore causes it to crash.

If you have any skins that you think are suspect or seem to cause it to crash, send them over so I know and I will see about debugging them.

We'll see how we go with this method and if I can fix the crashes that way, otherwise later on, we can look at other methods.

Thanks for the reports!

Cliff

[Nightbreed]

Cliff, I get crashes at times with my MiniWmp11 skin, and this is only when doing a mouse over.

On my Xion-a-Tunes skin, I get it at random times with the next and previous buttons on the mouse over.

[Cliff Cawley]

Ok, I'll look into reproducing it here.

I've been running with your Xion-a-Tunes skin for a while now, but havn't experienced anything.

Which version of Windows are you using?

Cliff

[Nightbreed]

I'm using XP sp2.

I've noticed the crashes take place when the _over is placed bellow the _normal button layer.

I'm having a feeling it has something to do with the fade of the buttons with the mouse_over. That's about the only point where it crashes. Right as the _over images is fading into the _normal one.

Hope that makes sense...

[Cliff Cawley]

I've noticed the crashes take place when the _over is placed bellow the _normal button layer.

Hmm yes, that's possible. It is required that the _over are above the _normal so that Xion can match the correct button with the correct _over layer (because you could have multiple play buttons for example, and it needs to know which play button is associated with which _over button)

I will do some tests so that I can make a fix to stop it from crashing.

Thanks!

Cliff

[Nightbreed]

if it's just a matter of layering though... I think a guide to how the layers should stack might cut the crashes down.

I think I have it all down, but I may miss some every now and then. Mainly those "indi_play play_normal" or something along those lines

[Cliff Cawley]

if it's just a matter of layering though... I think a guide to how the layers should stack might cut the crashes down.

Good idea, i'll probably add it into the tutorial as well as the Layer name reference -> http://xion.r2.com.au/index.php?page=layerref

Thanks!

Cliff

[wombatharness]

Cliff, I am also getting frequent crashes. Like FordGT, this has something to do with the shimmer component. In the ten minutes after installing Xion, it crashed four times all due to an unnamed problem with shimmer. This had nothing specifically to do with mouseovers, it crashed once while the mouse cursor wasn't near the Xion interface, and once while trying to access the tray menu. This is all with the default skin. I immediately came here to see if anyone else was having the same problem, and, well...

The obvious workaround is to turn shimmer off, but if this is unstable maybe future releases could have it disabled by default? I also have two minor problems (always plays on startup even when unchecked; uninstall leaves 42 orphaned registry keys), but the crashing thing is more important. Running WinME, GeForce 6200, AGP graphics bus, 1.2 GHz proc, 384 Mb RAM.

[EDIT] Okay now I really am hijacking the thread. This is an unrelated problem, but once minimized there appears to be no way to recall the interface except by opening the config dialog, which is then hidden by the interface. Clicking the tray icon only causes it to play or restart the current track, it doesn't recall the interface. Again, this is all with the default skin.

[Cliff Cawley]

Cliff, I am also getting frequent crashes. Like FordGT, this has something to do with the shimmer component. In the ten minutes after installing Xion, it crashed four times all due to an unnamed problem with shimmer. This had nothing specifically to do with mouseovers, it crashed once while the mouse cursor wasn't near the Xion interface, and once while trying to access the tray menu. This is all with the default skin. I immediately came here to see if anyone else was having the same problem, and, well...

Shimmer is the component that gives you the skinned interface. It seems there are some bugs in the Skin engine that only seem to show up on some machines and not others. I have fixed one or two crashes that I found here, but i'm not convinced that is all of them. If anyone finds any reproducible cases, please let me know.

Okay now I really am hijacking the thread. This is an unrelated problem, but once minimized there appears to be no way to recall the interface except by opening the config dialog, which is then hidden by the interface. Clicking the tray icon only causes it to play or restart the current track, it doesn't recall the interface. Again, this is all with the default skin.

Once you disable Shimmer, the interface will be disabled, correct, as shimmer is the interface control. Usually if you just hide it, you can right click on the tray icon and select 'Show Xion' to bring it back up again.

Cliff

[PK]

Usually if you just hide it, you can right click on the tray icon and select 'Show Xion' to bring it back up again. Cliff

or doubleclick the icon

[wombatharness]

Cliff: I didn't see the "Show Xion" command before. Thanks. Disabling shimmer is therefore not a workaround.

Errors involving shimmer.dll often occur before the interface even appears, causing immediate shutdown. Since this isn't 100% of the time, it suggests a conflict. [EDIT] Attempting to change skins causes a shimmer.dll crash 100% of the time. Attempting to download skins directly to the player does nothing, the download appears complete (according to the browser) but Xion does not change skins, and the skin file is not anywhere on the harddrive. Downloading elsewhere and moving manually would be the workaround, except as I said, I can't change skins without Xion going boom, so it's all rather pointless. [END EDIT]

New problem: running Xion seems to disable tooltips in the tray area. Some tray apps and the clock provide useful info in a mouseover tooltip, others simply "identify themselves" in a tooltip. When Xion is running, there are NO tooltips, not even the date tooltip from the clock. Tray icons otherwise behave normally. As soon as Xion exits (gracefully or crashing), the tooltips return.

PK: "Configure Xion" is the command in bold, so shouldn't double clicking open the config dialog? You are right that it shows the interface instead, but standard Windows gui rules are that the bold command is the default (double click) command. Unfortunately, double clicking also seems to operate the play/pause control, making this not a good choice for showing the hidden interface.

[SLoB]

yes system tray tooltips working here altho when moving from system tray and showing xion to hover over Xion it bows out with
Unhandled exception at 0x01dbcd5e in Xion.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x01ef2007.