Tool freezes upon startup about switchblade HOT 7 CLOSED

From [email protected] on December 02, 2010 15:01:58

I've tried to track this down but it is a bit difficult on my system. I suspect the problems are related to running on Windows XP; unfortunately I don't have a Windows XP machine around to test on.

I've done my best to diagnose what is wrong all the same though. I'd ask you to do the following:

1. Try the newest version that I have just uploaded -- 3.5. Hopefully this will work.
2. If the above doesn't work, try downloading and installing the C library download I have uploaded (vcredist_x86.exe). It sounds like you have already got this sorted, but it might be worth trying the one I've put there to make sure you've got the right version, just in case.
3. Assuming the above doesn't change anything, could you please send me the log file if it exists? If Python encounters an error it will create a file called "gui.exe.log" in the same directory as the application.
4. Lastly, you could try running the application from within the depends.exe. To do this you can run depends.exe on gui.exe, then use the "Profiling" menu to start a profile. If you could send me the log of this, I can compare it to my own, working, log to try and find any important differences.

Status: Accepted

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From [email protected] on December 02, 2010 15:01:59

Download 3.5

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From [email protected] on December 03, 2010 00:19:45

I tried to run v 3.5 on all systems and I also tried to run the gui.py instead of the exe; the problems remain the same.
The gui.exe.log is not created; i suspect that is because the application freezes and does not crash.
I attached the txt and dwi of the dependency walker profiling. The profiling was done on the 3.5 version of the tool on a freshly installed windows with all updates and the vcredist you provided.

Attachment: gui.txt gui.dwi

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From [email protected] on December 03, 2010 04:47:33

I have the same setup and issues mentioned above.

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From [email protected] on December 04, 2010 06:33:21

BTW; here is a picture of the frozen app: http://imgur.com/QoXxS

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From [email protected] on December 04, 2010 07:22:16

I have reproduced the error here after finding a Windows XP box. I've tracked this down to threads in GTK. The application can "sort of" run by commenting out the Python line that initialised threads "gtk.gdk.threads_init()", in that the GUI is now running. Unfortunately that will break threading interactions so is not a solution as such.

As far as I can tell there is a bug somewhere in GTK (and/or possibly PyGTK) with threading on Windows XP only; there appears to be a deadlock on a critical section. It would appear to work well on other operating systems tested (Windows Vista, Windows 7, Linux). I've seen anecdotal evidence that e.g. using a different version of Python (such as ActivePython) helps. I believe I have disproved this, testing such made no difference to me.

I'm going to look into the following things next:

• Look for an actual bug report of this in GTK to see if it's been reported and maybe fixed. So far I've been unsuccessful at this.
• Consider a design that does not require threads, or at least does not require GTK threads, to avoid these issues.

In the mean time, it should at least be possible to run the command-line program. This worked fine for me, and has all the functionality the GUI does, it is just more complex to use.

Owner: [email protected]

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From [email protected] on December 04, 2010 10:55:09

Please try version 3.6 which I have just uploaded.

I've removed threading from the GUI entirely, which means the previous deadlock is gone. I can successfully run the GUI on Windows with this version.

Unless any problems are reported with version 3.6 I'll close this issue in the near future.

Status: Fixed

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