Strange bug

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:15 pm

This used to happen occasionally in windows 2000, it's happening constantly in XP and is getting annoying. The computer boots up, and I wait (at this point, I wait five minutes to make sure everything is loaded). I click on the yellow scope 4.0 icon on the taskbar and I get the menu with 'Show' and 'Exit Scope' but I can't select either item. Instead, clicking lets me drag the menu whereever I want to onscreen (i.e. some event handlers got rewired somewhere) Killing the menu using the task manager just causes sfp.exe to crash a few minutes later. I just reboot and hope it works the next time. Sometimes it takes a few reboots. Dunno if this is going to be my major gripe for the XP system (otherwise it works great).

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:27 pm

I've had this happen occasionally too. Have you tried clicking away from the menu and trying it again?

BTW, you don't need to reboot when Scope crashes. Just run the program again, and everything will be fine. (That's assuming you haven't yet loaded your DAW software, in which case you will have to reboot.)

Shayne

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 12, 2008 3:40 pm

the menu will be impotent until the scope project is loaded. if it isn't loading, i would think that there's something buggered up in the install or the os.

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:10 pm

I've had this happen occasionally too. Have you tried clicking away from the menu and trying it again?

Absolutely, tried changing the focus to it using alt-tab, tried CTRL-F4 to close it. The only thing that can close it is the task manager, it's like the 'mousedown' event got rewired and it now implements a way to drag the menu around on the screen.

BTW, you don't need to reboot when Scope crashes.

Maybe most don't, but I do. I think it's a hardware problem, whenever it crashed in Win2k, trying to re-start it was always a waste of time. I'd get errors like 'unable to communicate with card'.

the menu will be impotent until the scope project is loaded.

That's why I give it 5 minutes to boot up.

if it isn't loading, i would think that there's something buggered up in the install or the os.

Well, the OS was loaded up without event, carefully, just load XP and do all the updates, install software, disable network card. I suppose I should take a look at the processes running, but I found that destabilized the system under Win2k, without any benefit I could really detect. I'm not really worried about that last 5% of performance, as I am with installing the software, and using it to make music. Good chance it's a slowly dying motherboard. I find the Sonic Timeworks plugins destabilize my system somewhat, and I get the idea they tax the limits of the PCI buss. I've been planning to get a new case, motherboard, and cpu for a while now.

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:35 pm

5 minutes to load is WAAAY too long. something's wrong. possibly it's hardware, but corrupted software will do it. just because windows boots doesn't mean that the os is working properly.

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:48 pm

Not that it specifically takes that long, I just left it running that long to make sure everything was all loaded up. I just rebooted and timed my system, it takes 20 seconds to get from power-on to loading the OS, then another 40 seconds to load XP and then SFP (I had music feeding into the ins while it was loading so I could tell exactly when the SFP platform's default config had loaded).

One thing I should have added, when the SFP platform has the frozen menu, it does not appear to have loaded the default config either. So far I've rebooted my system 3 times tonight, and only the first time did it crash.

Jah Servant · Post by **Jah Servant** » Tue May 13, 2008 3:20 am

what if you stop Scope from running at start up? just manually start it once your computer is booted up, it's only an extra click this way and you maybe will avoid the menu problem, it could be a work around until you upgrade your system.

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Tue May 13, 2008 3:29 am

Check in msconfig to see what is loading at bootup. Sometimes conflicting startup activity interferes with Scope's boot. Even moving the cursor while Scope is loading has caused the "impotent" taskbar icon for me.

JS's suggestion is a reliable workaround if this is the problem.

/dave

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue May 13, 2008 4:29 am

May be uncheck Scope from MS config (so it doesn't start from here)

Then you do a shortcut to place in the "start" folder of "programs" menu.

something like
Target = (your scope disk/install path) \App\Bin\SFP.exe
Start In : (your scope disk/install path) \App\Bin

(your scope disk/install path) = for example "C:\Scope\ or whatever is your disk.

Otherwise, reinstall over itself (magic medecine for many things):
BUT ===> backup all your presets and scope.rgy + cset.ini first

just an idea...

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:27 am

ps; the method above has the advantage of
- starting the default project instead of the "os background project"
- default and os project are now the same (the default project) and so you only have to manage 1 project for your default.
been running like that for 3/4 years now, no problems

nightscope · Post by **nightscope** » Tue May 13, 2008 10:32 am

garyb wrote:5 minutes to load is WAAAY too long. something's wrong.

When I eventually sorted out the one IRQ sharing instance I had my loading times, which weren't bad at all, dropped a lot.

ns

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Tue May 13, 2008 2:30 pm

Might try your method sometimes, Mehdi, but just checking out MSConfig was educational. I see a bunch of processes running at startup, not sure if I need any of them.

nvcpl, nwiz, nvmctray - related to graphics card, as far as I can see I can disable them.
NeroCheck - can disable this I think. sometimes I like to burn cds from the computer, so I have nero installed, but I don't need some service for it running all the time.
ctfmon, microsoft office - I know, I know, not supposed to have non-essential programs on music computer. Excel is handy to organize things with, at times. Apparently Microsoft Office installs several services, to check if you want to start entering different languages, or using different keyboard input devices, at any given moment. NOT very necessary for the music computer!

If I disable any of these, it puts my system into 'Selective Startup' mode (which prompts me with a bootup message that I can disable) This sounds like I'm going in the right direction, has anyone here seen Fleecy? I mean, has anyone got a comment about this setup?

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue May 13, 2008 3:46 pm

I personnally disabled everything that i didn't know what it was.

The only thing i left is "NvCpl" library, Scope and some internet apps that i prefer to run at startup. Everything else is turned off and I didn't notice a change in performance of bugs in applications. XP starts slightly faster.

Without those internet apps, I would only have "Scope" and "NvCpl" (which is a nvidia library that can be disabled only by physically removing the nvidia graphic card from its AGP slot if I remember well).

-- If i didn't have a nvdia graphic card, nor internet, i would only have scope in msconfig, and absolutely nothing else.

(the "scope" is the shortcut i've made and placed manually in the "start" folder, and that is put back into msconfig after a reboot; i did this mainly to load the default project (with scope window opened) instead of OS default.)
This is a trick I got from GaryB in fact

I guess you can try step by step if you are not sure about something (reboot once you disable something, and see what happens).

The language is not needed at startup: it is available in the various toolbars (click on empty space in the applicattion bar at the bottom of XP, and activate/desactivate it). it is also available in all Office apps (you must put it yourself in your shortcut menus through the personalisation or options menu of words/excel etc)

I hope it helps.

Mehdi

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:24 pm

spacef wrote:I did this mainly to load the default project (with scope window opened) instead of OS default.

I'm not sure I understand what this means. What is the OS default? Does it mean scope has to load one configuration, then immediately loads another? And this way means it only loads the final one?

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Wed May 14, 2008 1:00 am

- OS Default: sorry the term is "startup" = project that loads at startup
- Default project: project that loads when you want to make a "new" project or when you launch scope manually.

The startup is the one that loads at OS startup and it is always closed (ie: project window not showed but hidden), unless you do the above trick which simulates a manual launch (and which allows to Show the project window).

See settings/projects in scope: you can save 2 projects (it can be the same if you press both buttons).

So, when i start XP, scope is launched, and the project window is "showed" withouth any other manipulation (i don't have to press "show" in the taskbar). This is not possible with the startup project (as far as i know) because it is always closed (or minimized), and then you do have to press "show" in the taskbar to open the project window.

I hope it's not even more confusing now

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:44 pm

Well, that definitely fixed things. Scope was crashing occasionally during startup because of loading contentions, it seems - the system was still initializing some things and wasn't ready to run an app. When I installed Scope, it put an icon on my desktop but of course also installed itself so it starts automatically, without showing the project window, like you said. I unchecked Scope as a startup item and I just click on the desktop icon to start scope, obviously well after startup has finished. Maybe some day I'll drag it into the Startup folder but for now, it's working fine, never crashes. The way it works (with the two configuration files) is a bit confusing for me, it's oddly complicated but it does let you get the job done (like Microsoft's implementation of C# date functions)