Rev 3.0 crashing on OS X too (as well as Vista and Linux)

Tue Oct 14 18:59:20 EDT 2008

Folks, I'm really glad for sane counsel.  I know you are all trying to help,
and I really appreciate it. I can see that there are very few other people
being plagued by the same problems as me.  But I think you'll see I've tried
to be proactive and exhaustive in my attempt to get a stable platform (the
problem has been going on for 5 months).
I don't think it's a hardware issue.  Here's what I've used:
* Rev 2.9 and 3.0 on a Compaq laptop running Vista.  I've had crashes on
that.
* Rev 2.9 and 3.0 on a Linux umpc laptop.  I've had crashes and lockups on
that
* Rev 3.0 on a PPC powerbook (OS X 10.4.11).  I've had crashes and lockups
on that.
* Rev 3.0 on Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian virtual machines.  On one of those
there was a crash, but I can't remember which one.

I did try MC with the 3.0 engine on Linux (before finally admitting defeat),
and I experienced exactly the same kinds of hanging that I experienced with
the Rev IDE.

If it was a hardware issue one would expect other applications to suffer.
 Web browsers typically use a lot of RAM, graphics and system interaction,
but I don't see Safari or Firefox crashing.  In fact Rev is the only
application I see crashing.  I even run the IDE for Lotus Notes, and I don't
see crashes with that.

I don't think it's a specific code issue.  These lockups and crashes have
occurred with very different kinds of stacks.  The stacks were written by me
or by others.  Some of the problems I've seen have been when using quite
complex stacks, and maybe I'm doing something a little unusual in those
(like the issue I posted where I am using numToChar(29) and numToChar(30) as
safe delimiters, and those chars are stored in the keys of a
custompropertyset).

But other times the problems manifest themselves with very simple stacks
like the one I posted in the Quality Control Centre today (
http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=7307). Chiildishly simple
stuff, yet Rev crashes.  Luckily I'd saved that simple stack at one point so
it could be included with the crash report (but I'd only saved it half-way
through because I'd already lost it once when Rev hung and I had to force
kill it).  Feel free to look at that stack.  The problem is, you're unlikely
to get a crash.  As soon as I restarted Rev I opened the stack, moved the
field and there was no crash.

None of it is predictable.  The only thing I found that was predictably
presenting problems was running Bjoernke's Chat Rev on Linux.  Obviously
that stack works fine for the chat rev users, whatever platforms they are
running it on (although Bjoernke did note problems with the Chat Rev server
on Linux -  it would take days for those problems to manifest themselves for
him, whereas on Linux I could get problems within seconds).

Apart from Rev 2.9 and 3.0, the only thing I can think that is in common is
that I often use revNavigator.  It seems incredible that something written
by someone as experienced as Geoff, and that is basically sanctioned by
Runrev (for years it's been in the default install) could be crashing the
IDE.  I also can't be the only one using it (I remember reading a glowing
review by Sarah some years ago).

I will run without revNavigator for a week and see what happens.  It would
be helpful if some other people would download revNavigator 3.0 from Geoff's
site, and install it as a plugin and see if they start to get this kind of
erratic behaviour.  I was using OS X for about 3 days before I started to
get hanging and crashing today.

The bottom line is this: the engine should not be crashing.  How can anyone
trust that they can deliver an application based on that engine, if during
development it is randomly crashing?  If it's not crashing for you, then
maybe you feel you can trust it.  I certainly don't feel I can trust it.

Bernard

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Chipp Walters <chipp at chipp.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 4:31 PM, J. Landman Gay
> <jacque at hyperactivesw.com> wrote:
>
> > But I'm really starting to think it's
> > hardware. He's crashing at random times, nothing really reproducible,
> while
> > performing common tasks others do all the time without issues.
>
> And if he can't create a reliable recipe for the crash, then it could
> be bad memory. I'd suggest getting a memory checker and having it run
> overnight.
>
> That said, it appears Bernard is crashing on all 3 platforms with
> great regularity. I'm using Rev 3.0 on WinXP on a fairly complex
> project-- and I've seen it 'hang' a few times-- but I suspect it's the
> IDE, not the engine-- and typically when I'm doing something I'm not
> supposed to (like debugging Rev's script editor). For the most part,
> it's been stable for me and I continue to use it daily.
>
> I don't dispute it doesn't work for Bernard.
>
> Something Richard Gaskin mentioned, I believe at the RevMasters Summit
> awhile back, might shed some light. I don't remember his exact words,
> but to paraphrase he said designing an application was significantly
> harder than designing a tool. A tool should allow for a desired
> outcome to be performed without crashing. An application should
> prevent a user from taking any path which prevents the desired outcome
> from being performed-- and should never crash.
>
> I think I've always thought of Rev as a tool. I know if I improperly
> code something, it can crash. That said,  if I do improperly code a
> crash, then I can usually back up to where my coding has problems, and
> then replicate and document the crash or anomolous behavior. I usually
> can also find a work around to get around it-- and if I can't then I
> need to wait for RR to fix it.
>
> That said, I don't think the engine should ever crash, for whatever
> reason. But, the IDE is a different story-- and until it can run in
> it's own thread outside of any influencing 'other' scripts-- I doubt
> it can be made super robust.
>
> Certainly this doesn't provide immediate help for Bernard. But, I
> might suggest he consider posting some of the code he's trying to run
> in order to see if there are some obvious scripting errors being made,
> which might take the IDE and engine down.
>
> Also, Peter's suggestion of using MC is a great one for isolating
> where things are going south.
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