Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:56 pm

Everything was going along well, and I was fairly happy with CMuds new stability and features, but random aliases and triggers across my packages have suddenly vanished. Wouldn't be so bad if they were all in one package, but they're not, which is a little annoying.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:22 am

Check to make sure the package isn't in "Read-Only" format. I've had that happen a few times myself, and it's because the package likes to open up in Read Only format occasionally, and I don't pay attention to it. Sigh.

Charneus

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:27 am

It's not readonly, i've noticed that setting, it's kinda hard to miss

Novice Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 42

Just curious - have you had to kill the CMUD process recently, or have you had the 'fatal app' error appear that lets you close the program or continue to use it? Basically anything that may qualify as an ungraceful exit or the program entering a state where a graceful exit is no longer possible?

-MrC

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 8:18 am

ya, i still get a few of those occasionally, though generally i have been able to continue using, only two or three times have i had to alt+ctrl+delete or let it terminate

Novice Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 42

I've personally found on my setup that closing the program from that dialog makes things worse (couple system freezes). I also had a problem with things vanishing, and while I have no hard proof or an ability to recreate, I have a lurking suspicion that "continue" leaves things in a less-than-ideal state.

So if you 1) save package, then 2) make changes, 3) then continue when error dialog appears, then 4) make more changes (or just save), I'm wondering if a) settings saved in step 1 become lost, b) changes made since last save become lost, c) settings made after continue are lost, or d) save after you continue affects #1 or #2.

I plan on testing this more when I get back into CMUD, but since I am in complete agreement that this is /not/ good, any tests you can do to try and narrow this down would be a big help. Obviously the cause of the error dialog that lets you continue/quit is quite important, but I personally would rather kill CMUD, restart & continue instead of having to worry about code loss.

Seems from your reply that you may think the settings loss stem from another cause. If you have any thoughts about what may be causing your losses, it may help us (collectively) track down what may be causing it.

Zugg - maybe you could illuminate us with a bit of detail about how the save/backup process works? How is integrity in the SQL-Lite package maintained (it is SQL Lite, right?) and could there be a problem with code in memory buffer becoming corrupted and then saved to the package file?

-MrC

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:40 pm

Absolutely yes, MrCheviot. It depends on the error that caused the popup, but any kind of error involving memory, especially access violation, means that CMUD has gone seriously wrong and it's now no longer reading and writing to memory properly. I believe that CMUD actually suspends the package-writing background thread when this happens, because you wouldn't want it to write out invalid data. It's also possible that the memory error occurred in the package-writing thread, which was then aborted and any further changes won't be saved to disk.

Really, the only reason the Continue button is there is so that if CMUD errors while you're in combat or a dangerous area, you can run somewhere safe before quitting. You should never keep using CMUD after an error unless you're absolutely certain the error won't cause problems (like back in 1.xx, there was a bug where syntax errors in aliases would cause the MadExcept error catcher to pop up. You could continue after those.) If you're not absolutely certain, restart CMUD.

Zugg's posted this information a few times in the past, probably with more detail - have a search.

I really think some text should be added to MadExcept along these lines, because I hear a lot about people who've got problems who regularly click Continue and keep playing regardless of what the error was.

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:48 pm

Don't get me wrong, I've only lost a massive chunk of settings once i think? or maybe twice. So your point may well be what caused it, there's just no auto-backup + corrupted detection like there was in zmud yet. Or at least, it doesn't detect things quite as easily

Novice Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 42

Nod.. in my UI rant (I think) I mentioned that perhaps the ability to save multiple backups would be good in case this happens, since it's usually sometime /after/ the loss occurs that you actually notice it, and in my case the good backup was overwritten before I had a chance to reclaim any of it.

On that front, maybe a new formal request for a 'rollback' feature would be welcomed? I'm certainly more willing to push the limits of a program to find problems when I know I can escape any impairment doing so might cause..

-MrC