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dgeorge
USA
12 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Apr 2014 : 05:02:31
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Am I the only one experiencing frequent crashes of V17? EPC works along just fine and then, often while dragging a PCB trace or similar, the whole app just INSTANTLY disappears. IN the last three days I have accumulated 8 instances where I am forced to rename my last good PCB (or SCH), then copy the ~SecurityCopy to the same directory and rename it and then re-start and then repeat the work that was dropped. As a consequence I have set my security copy time to a minimal 3 minutes. Does anyone have a clue or a suggestion to try as to what might be causing the crashes? -- they are quite frustrating! This is a 64bit/Windows7 machine running EPC v17.0.4 and more info is available if needed.
P.S. The crashes were happening with v17.0 so I decided to 'upgrade.' But an identical crash just happened -- therefore this post.
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Iain Wilkie
United Kingdom
1010 Posts |
Posted - 22 Apr 2014 : 08:11:57
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I have been using V17 extensively right up to rev4 with no problems like this at all. Also running on 64bit Windows7.
Maybe some other program running interfering ????
Iain
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ricobasso
20 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2014 : 08:31:58
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I have been having very frequent crashes exactly as described in the OP when dragging traces in the pcb editor, having recently changed from V15 to V17.0.4 (on Windows 7 Prof 32bit). I reduced the time between autosaves to 1 min to mitigate this.
I don't know if this is significant but I remembered that I had forgotten to install Easy-PC as Administrator so have now uninstalled and re-installed as Administrator. Only time will tell if this was the problem.
p.s. the un-install also blew away my V15 copy! Beware. |
Edited by - ricobasso on 23 Apr 2014 12:14:45 |
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DavidM
United Kingdom
458 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2014 : 08:40:32
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The default for installing each version is indeed to install 'over the top' so that you only end up using the latest version, but there is a step during the installation process where you can choose to install it into a different folder. Admittedly a little late to be telling you that as you have already installed it, but worth remembering for next time.
If you are having persistent crashes then it may be worth trying to pin down a sequence that makes it happen. I realise that this is a lot easier to say than to do, but with the vast majority of our users able to use the software without this kind of problem it is clearly something quite specific that is triggering the fault in your case. Anything you can do to help narrow down the fault situation can only make it more likely that we will be able to sort it out for you.
David.
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ricobasso
20 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2014 : 12:23:17
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| AFAICT, it was the UN-install which blew away V15. I still had V15 and V17 after the initial (non administrator) install of V17. |
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 08 Jul 2014 : 11:46:58
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Crashes in V17 are becoming intolerable: over 30 times on an average day, often destroying the files I was working on.
I recently bought a new PC with Win8 and upgraded from V15 to solve infrequent crashes (2 a day), only to end up with a system that is totally unstable.
While NumberOne is busy adding unstable features (PDF print anyone?) that I never use, the base of the program is crumbling and NumberOne seems incapable or uninterested in solving it. Support blames the OS, but that is not going to solve it either.
I cannot go on like this, and EPC does not allow me to downgrade to version V15 that was workable, without losing weeks of work....
Come on, NumberOne, get your act together
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edrees
United Kingdom
766 Posts |
Posted - 08 Jul 2014 : 11:53:11
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Windows 8, - now there's a clue.
I've been on V17 since its release (Win7/64) and it is quite stable. 99% of my EPC crashes I've experienced are down to dual screen mode, which I now seldom use. Otherwise it's quite stable.
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Iain Wilkie
United Kingdom
1010 Posts |
Posted - 08 Jul 2014 : 11:54:57
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I never use dual screen mode, and as you all know, I do not experiance any instabilities.
Iain |
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remi
United Kingdom
101 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2014 : 15:53:12
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I still feels like the dual screen mode is in beta or alpha release.
You CANNOT use this mode without experiencing any crash.
It has been 3 years that this feature has been out and still no sign of any fix...
On single screen mode I only get a few crashes in a month (like once a week) |
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2014 : 17:06:33
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apart from dual screen, EPC seems to have troubles writing files to disk under Win8. Most of my crashes occur when EPC writes files to disk, e.g. when doing a back-annotation on 5 circuit diagrams, it saves 2 or 3 files, and crashes before the rest is saved, leaving me with an unresolvable mess.
Another frequent problem is the automatic backup feature, that spontaneously deletes my original files and replaces tehm with numbered tmp files. Disabling automatic backups is no solution, since the numbered files are generated anyway.
Has anyone experienced similar problems under Win8? |
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DavidM
United Kingdom
458 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2014 : 17:32:05
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There is no difference in what we are doing on Windows 8 to Windows 7 or earlier, so its hard to see why that in itself would be the cause of so much extra grief.
On saving a design we first write to a .TMP file to be sure we can write the whole design out. If that succeeds, we remove the SCH file and rename the TMP to the proper SCH filename. This is separate from any backup or security copies, and is done to ensure that we don't somehow end up only writing part of the data over the top of your proper design file.
Looking at the code, it shouldn't be possible to write the temp file and take the proper file away and then fail to rename the temp file to the proper name, unless something else external to the program is preventing access to the file at some stage.
Can we check if you are using any kind of 'real time' backup or shadowing software? We have had reports of issues with this kind of shadowing or synchronising software in the past.
David |
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2014 : 19:05:40
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Hi David,
this PC only has McAfee running in the background.
The crashes are intermittent, but I counted 30 just yesterday morning. A slight improvement seemed to be to turn off the HTML reports, presumably because they need 2 files written to disk in stead of one, and so double to chance of a crash.
I saved a corrupted .pcb file, so if analysing that can be of any help, I can mail it to you.
Do you reckon EPC under Win7 is more stable?
best regards,
Henk |
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DavidM
United Kingdom
458 Posts |
Posted - 10 Jul 2014 : 09:10:35
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We don't have this kind of huge instability reported from elsewhere, so its hard to say that there is a general problem running on Windows 8 versus 7. We have more Windows 7 than 8 in the development team, but the support team are mostly using 8, so we have a good mix of systems here including desktops and laptops from different manufacturers.
We do have a few reports of intermittent failure to save designs, a similar issue to the TMP file problem you are seeing, but so far these have been impossible to reproduce in all the testing we have done here so we have yet to find the cause.
If you are able to affect stability by doing something as simple as turning off HTML reports, then this points to some issue with the file system rather than something specific with the saving of designs, and therefore a different problem to the TMP file issue.
David |
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2014 : 07:59:47
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Hi David,
yesterday I worked on a very simple design with just 2 switches, 1 connector and 10 nets. I wanted to rename the connector, but failed miserably. Changing the PCB and using back annotation to update the circuit diagram, the program crashed and destroyed the .sch file.
I had a backup copy, and using this, I tried to change the circuit diagram and forwarded the design change. That worked well until I saved the .pcb. I first got a file write error, and when I tried to save it again, the project manager had sneakily replaced the original file with a tmp file. The tmp file name was now visible in the top bar of the program.
I saved the corrupted copies in case you are interested to investigate. |
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AHagedoorn
Netherlands
5 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2014 : 11:08:43
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Hi,
I'm running EPC on a 32-bit win7 laptop and it was stable upto revision 17.0.4. Recently I updated to 17.0.6, thereafter I am experiencing frequent crashes. With editing schematic symbols in the schematic symbol editor (library). For instance by moving or editing a shape. Can't tell if the schematic and pcb editor suffer crashes because I didn't use them with the latest revision yet.
Hope there will be a solution soon.
Best,
Arend
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Benno
Netherlands
79 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2014 : 18:33:30
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Henk and Arend,
since you are both from the Netherlands, do you run a dutch version of windows and dutch language settings?
Perhaps you can make a screendump of them for support?
It is just a hunch, but I had major issues some years ago also with infrequent crashes of an app I made. That ended out being caused by a commercial Delphi component and a client using danish settings in his windows.
Since most other users here are either english or US I think it is worth for support to have a look at.
I hope for you guys they solve it.
I am still at V15 and not sure if I will upgrade to V18 when it becomes available. I am looking at Kicad at the moment. Not because it is free but because all fileformats are open giving me opportunities to automate tasks. CERN has made resources available to help in the pcb package and from what I have seen that looks very promising.
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2014 : 12:07:45
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Hi guys,
thanks for your suggestions. Benno: I am quite convinced that the main instability is in the writing of files to disk, and that should not depend on language. I would rather suspect the backup process that runs in the background and is also writing to disk.
Anyway, since I am quickly running out of hair to pull out, I went to the shop and bought me a brand-old Windows 7 machine (in Dutch). Bliss: a whole day of hard work, just one simple undestructive crash. Hope EPC keeps working like this. |
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mjohnm
USA
15 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2014 : 15:02:03
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I too am having frequent crashes. Seems like one every 10 minutes or so! It occurs under several different circumstances; often when generating output for printing, but at other times too. I am using V17.0.6. There is no way I am upgrading to V18 until I know the stability issues are fixed. Downgrading is out since V17 files are not useable by V16 (so V17 says when saving a file generated in V16). I should have gone back to V16 as soon as the problem appeared, but I assumed the issues would be fixed by one of the service updates.
Occurs under both Windows 7 and 8.
I have been using Easy-PC for many years and faithfully update to new versions, even though the feature additions are relatively minor. It is very frustrating that I am trapped like this! Doubly frustrating that I see many other users have the same problem, but I don't see that the issue has been officially recognized.
mJm |
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mjohnm
USA
15 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2014 : 15:04:03
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P.S. I have the problem in both single and double screen modes.
mJm |
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2014 : 15:21:48
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Hi mjohnm,
just a tip about crashes during printing: never ever use the PDF print option of EPC: it is completely unstable, and has been so for nearly a year. Use CutePDF, Acrobat Distiller or another PDF printer emulator in stead.
Number One Support simply blames Windows for these crashes, and seems to leave it at that.
By the way, I have offered more than once to send corrupted files for analysis, but Number One is not interested. Either they already know what is wrong, or they don't bother.
best regards,
Henk |
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Iain Wilkie
United Kingdom
1010 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2014 : 17:00:09
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Make sure you do not have your files set for any instant cloud backup service such as Sugarsync. That type of utility can grab and start copying files to the cloud meaning that access is temporarily restricted and TMP files can get generated.
Iain |
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mjohnm
USA
15 Posts |
Posted - 26 Jul 2014 : 14:32:42
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Iain:
Thanks! Well spotted - I use Sugarsync! So, something new in V17 is the problem, given that I used V16 with Sugarsync with only the occasional crash. I'll have to try stopping Sugarsync while using V17. However, EasyPC should not crash out silently - surely trapping a file io error should be a matter of course?
Anyone else that has/had the problem: does this help you or are there other issues?
mJm |
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exatech
Netherlands
18 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jul 2014 : 09:16:41
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Hi mJm,
I do not use Sugarsync, and my EPC is totally unstable on my Win8 machine, so there must be another issue as well.
I did discover something that may underwrite my suspicion of basic file write problems: when the Win8 system became unstable, I turned off the automatic backups. That did not help much, and N1 support urged me to turn it back on because turning off supposedly caused infrequent crashes.
Now here's the thing: after buying a Win7 system and installing EPC, it runs rather well, just the occasional sudden death. However: this sytem does not make automatic backups.....
cheers,
Henk
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Topic |
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Frequent crashes of v17