windows xp white screen

[TerryMoss]

Hello,

I need help with a very difficult problem.  I have a data acquisition program written in CVI that is very reliable on single core PCs running Windows 2000. 

On a single core XP PC its not too bad, but maybe once every month or two it hangs up.

On dual core XP Pcs, the same program is hanging up some place after a time period of 1 day to 1 week.

I say "some place", because even in the debugger it hangs up with a white screen, but the debugger is lost, that is there is no way to stop the program to determine where its at.

I'm running CVI 9, with DAQmx 8.9.5f7.

I originally thought I had a problem with the dual core PC, but I repelaced it, and its behaving exactly the same.

In summary, minor problem with XP single core, major problem with XP Dual Core.

Thanks,

Terry Moss

[srdfrn]

Hi Terry,

One thing you might want to try is looking at the System Event Viewer to see it anything is happening when CVI locks up like this. Also, have you noticed any patterns?  Does the freeze happen after a certain amount of time has passed on each computer, or at a certain time in the day?  How long is your program supposed to run each time you start it?

You might also want to have an NI Spy capture up and started while you run your program (without logging to a file, however -- the file would be quite large).  When the program freezes, then you can check the capture window to see what happened when the lock up occurred.

Regards,

Stephanie R.

National Instruments

[TerryMoss]

Hello,

This program runs 24/7 for months at a time on single core Win 2K PCs with ZERO problems, its running on 15 machines altogether.  I have 1 single core XP PC that has a problem once or twice a month.

The dual core XP machines may run for a day or two at a time, or maybe week, but never longer.

Thanks for the tips on the events viewer and NI Spy.  I'm not familiar with them, do you have a link or two that give the basics on how to use them?

Thanks,

Terry

[srdfrn]

Hi Terry,

You can read more about using Microsoft Event Viewer with Windows XP here, here, and here. 

Regarding NI Spy, you can read more about this program in its help file, which (after you open NI Spy) is found at Help >> Help Topics.  To access NI Spy, naviagate to Start >> All Programs >> National Instruments >> NI Spy. Something you may want to double check is which API's your capture is set up to include.  Under Spy >> Options >> View Selection, make sure that whichever API's are included in your program are checked in this window.

Regards,

Stephanie R.

National Instruments

[TerryMoss]

I cannot load a screenshot, but the event viewer essentially has this info in it.

hang module hungapp hang address 0x000000000

I took a close look at the code, and the only thing that looks like a potential issue is the use of a realloc command for an array.

Why it would cause a problem on hw or OS combination I don't know, but those low level calls can cause more problems than they are worth using.

I commented it out for the time being, and restarted to see if its any more reliable or not.  It will be at least a week before I can make a positive statement about it.