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[BartMan01]

I usually leave MC up and running.  Lately it has started to frequently crash.  It got to the point where it was happening every few minutes.  I un-installed/re-installed and that helped, but it is still occasionally crashing - even when just sitting there doing nothing.  There are no additional skins/plug ins currently in use.  Any thoughts on what logging I should turn on or what I should look for to determine what the conflict is?  I can't think of anything major that changed on my system before this started to happen, so I can't even narrow it down based on that.

[John Gateley]

What version are you running?

What changed?

This could be hardware related too.

j

[BartMan01]

Running 12.0.139.
Crashing started happening under .130 - but it ran stable for a while, so I am guessing it is a conflict that got recently introduced.  At its worst, it would crash after just a few minutes of running.  I had installed data master and a couple of skins under .130 - but can't recall the crashing starting immediately after any of those.  MC is the only app that is crashing, so I was looking for advice on how to narrow down what is causing it.  Currently don't have data master installed and am running the default skin.  The only thing I can think of that MC would be doing when just sitting there idle would be checking on podcast feeds.  Next time it happens I will post the exact error.

[JimH]

Uninstall all third-party plug-ins as a test. 

Are you using Audioscrobbler?

[BartMan01]

No third party plugins are currently running (they went away with my un-install/re-install and I have not put any back).  Not running audioscrobbler either.  Before the re-install it was crashing every few minutes.  Now it is just sporadic - will run hours at a time then just crash.  If anything is playing when it crashes, it will continue to play until I acknowledge the error box.

As to what has changed - my system is pretty much always changes.  No hardware changes at all, and no significant software changes that I can pinpoint as a possible cause.

[glynor]

Is it Prime95 24 hour stable, with the current incarnation of its software load?  Have you run at least 2 passes of Memtest86 on it?

If you want a quick hardware test, grab SuperPI Mod and run at least the 4m or 8m tests.  But really that'll just tell you if you have a serious CPU or memory issue.

If you haven't tested it thoroughly, then I'd strongly recommend that you grab yourself a copy of Orthos Stress Prime (which is a dual-core optimized version of Prime95) and make sure it can handle running it for at least 24 hours straight without an error.  I'd also make sure it can run at least two passes of Memtest86 (grab the bootable ISO and burn it to disc and then boot from the disc).

I'm only suspicious of a hardware issue because I haven't seen anything similar at all on any of my systems.  If you have really done a complete base-installed version of MC and it's still crashing regularly, while not even playing anything, that leads me to believe that something else is going on on your system.  Just because only MC manifests the issue doesn't mean it's necessarily MC's fault.  You might just not be running any other software that stresses the system in a similar way!

It's always best to eliminate hardware issues as a possibility first, and then investigate other possibilities.

[gpvillamil]

I have had a similar problem, here is what it was:

When MC12 is doing an auto-import on video files, apparently it reads the file to generate thumbnails and gather some info. I had some files for which the Directshow graph (the codecs used to play it) was faulty. So MC12 would do an auto-import, hit those files, call the codecs and crash. It would never get a chance to update the library, so the files would remain uncatalogued. If I added files to other watched folders that were scanned before the video folder, it would prolong the interval.

The codec at fault was the Ogg DirectShow filter. I uninstalled it and replaced it with another, the ffdshow audio decoder. No problems ever since.

[glynor]

When MC12 is doing an auto-import on video files, apparently it reads the file to generate thumbnails and gather some info. I had some files for which the Directshow graph (the codecs used to play it) was faulty. So MC12 would do an auto-import, hit those files, call the codecs and crash. It would never get a chance to update the library, so the files would remain uncatalogued. If I added files to other watched folders that were scanned before the video folder, it would prolong the interval.

Ahhh... Good point gpvillamil!  I hadn't thought about thumbnailing and Otto.  I was thinking about codecs initially, until I fully understood that it would happen when MC wasn't playing anything.  However, you're right.  If MC is sitting idle, but Otto is running (or a view with unbuilt thumbs is visible) then it could be that.

Bartman -

I'd still strongly recommend you rule out hardware issues, especially since it's easy to do so (it doesn't take much effort to run those utilities, just time).  However, once that's ruled out, I'd say to do this:

1. Disable Otto.  Options --> Library & Folders --> Options --> Uncheck Run Auto-import in background
2. Set MC to open to the "Start page".  Options --> Startup --> Startup Interface --> Location
3. Close and reopen MC, and don't navigate away from the Start page.  Watch and see if MC crashes.

Also, if you want, before you reopen MC get Process Explorer and run it.  It'll let you watch to see if MC is calling any sub-threads such as JRThumb.exe.

[BartMan01]

I SERIOUSLY doubt that it is hardware related, but I will still test that.  Already ran memtest off of a current Ubuntu server CD - stopped it 1/2 way through its 3rd pass with no errors.  Thanks for the link to the stress tester - I do have a dual core Athalon 64 so that will come in handy.

The mention of otto makes me think it may be another issue all together (I don't currently have any folders set up to auto-import).
I have been having an issue where MC is naming QuickTime podcasts with more than 40 characters - which causes QuickTime to complain that the file is invalid.  Wonder if the issue is happening when MC tries to pull an 'invalid' named QuickTime movie file and then create the thumbnail.

[glynor]

Orthos is probably the way to go then.

I've had my own Athlon 64 systems be able to pass 5-6 passes of Memtest86 and do fine with SuperPI, but which would fail in the 15th or 16th hour of running Prime95.  If it isn't "Prime stable" then it'll fail in weird ways that you'll eventually find.

Also, running vanilla Prime95 only will test one of your two cores on a dual core CPU (both Intel and AMD varieties) and sometimes, especially when overclocking, one core can be more prone to failure than the other.  Orthos fixes that, and actually provides a nicer interface for the test (makes it easy to tell if it's crashed and whatnot).

In this particular case, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it is thumbnailing and codec related.  But like I said before ... It's easier to eliminate hardware as a possibility, before you start fumbling through software diagnosis.

[BartMan01]

It's easier to eliminate hardware as a possibility, before you start fumbling through software diagnosis.

Don't disagree - which is why I am running it.  Must admit that it's a little unnerving to see the CPU sitting around 50-54C instead of its usual 30-40C (AMD retail box cooler).

[BartMan01]

CPU Test ran for over 24 hours with no errors warnings on either core.  I changed the podcast name properties on my quicktime podcasts - will see if that makes a difference.

[BartMan01]

Update:

Two things have changed:
1)  Upgrade to lates 12.x beta
2)  Changed podcast defaults for filename to [name].

Have not experienced a single crash, and MC has been running mostly round the clock.

Looking at my Quicktime video podcasts, there were quite a few with the generic thumbnail instead of 'cover art'.  Batch renamed them all to a short name, did a delete cover art, and it was able to process them all fine.  At this point, I am assuming it was the 63 character Quicktime limitation that was causing problems as it tried to create thumbnails and kept erroring out.  Most of those podcasts are recent additions, so their addition could have coincided with the start of the crashes.

[glynor]

Sounds like you got it!!  (And you confirmed that your hardware is good as gold to be relied upon.)

[BartMan01]

Spoke too soon.  Still crashing.  At the moment I can't load up the iPod because it takes several hrs, and it keeps crashing mid load.

[krdavies]

Bartman01, sorry to answer this one as well but I have a similar issue which I have managed to get around. Following a thread I started regarding number plays and last played editing, I think it may have been you who suggested having MC write these fields to the actual files then I can use another program to edit them. Anyway I did this and MC had to resync my iPod from scratch and estimated about 8 hours (obviously all files had changed). I started is off and went for lunch. When  I returned, MC had frozen and a manual close was required. This happened several times until I turned off my screen saver and power save functions then it worked perfectly. Might be worth a try. Using .147 version of MC.