Access Violation

General comments and questions. Technical support.
Robert
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Post by Robert »

No, I do not have file compression on any of my installs or systems. And I doubt that file compression is the actual cause of the occurrence of that error on your end, either -- for this is how elusive it is acting every time... Coincidence does not equal cause.
I did test uninstalling Atlantis several times in the last few days. More than I have ever done, and probably will ever do. I never got access violations except when I had altered the file properties of "awp.exe" so that it was “compressed” by Windows to spare disk space. I repeatedly installed and uninstalled Atlantis with and without file compression of "awp.exe" several times. Access violations only happened when "awp.exe" was compressed by Windows.

As a rule-of-thumb, "correlation might not equal causation", but in my case, the cause of the access violations from Atlantis was definitely the compressed state of its executable. I never got access violations uninstalling Atlantis when "awp.exe" was in its original uncompressed state. There was nothing elusive about it at all! Nothing that could be misconstrued as "elusive"!
patr
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Post by patr »

I said it was elusive because the access violation both occurred during normal usage (as in, starting up Atlantis via its shortcut) -- as well as when uninstalling it -- but always quite unpredictably.

I imagine you can't reproduce that error each time, despite file compression being activated. It just happened *the first time you tested it that way.* Whenever the error occurs, there is nothing that occurred before it that stands out to me. No special activities, no changing of settings, etc. Hence, elusive to trace the possible cause of the error. If something is reproducible at any given time, then it is not elusive.

Do you have a good explanation for that access violation error? You can't have a good explanation because it shouldn't happen, not in any of the circumstances described. It is a shortcoming of Atlantis, not a feature. It is an indication of something going or being awry.
patr
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Post by patr »

I would recommend to debug the program, if you're capable. Look at what it points to when the error occurs and see if there is an issue in the code there.
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admin
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Post by admin »

We understand that you are getting errors in Atlantis, and we apologize for the inconvenience. But there is little we can do about things that are not reproducible on our systems. It would be possible to create a debug version of Atlantis that you could run on your system, but only in case when there is a reliable way to reproduce the error, on your system at least. We need to know what exactly to debug.

If your copy of Atlantis always reports the same error address (0067940B), it corresponds to a basic routine used by tons of modules and features of Atlantis. So in this particular case, the error address itself is not of much help.

As I understand, you have a portable copy of Atlantis on a USB stick. Does it work without errors?
Robert
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Post by Robert »

I imagine you can't reproduce that error each time, despite file compression being activated.
As I tried unsuccessfully to explain, these violation error messages are systematically displayed on my system each time I try to uninstall Atlantis and I have beforehand activated compression in the file properties of "awp.exe".
When compression is not included in the file properties of "awp.exe", I can uninstall Atlantis without a glitch. All this is as reproducible as possible.

Now a number of Atlantis users have reported problems regarding Atlantis which suddenly could not write to disk. In each case, the culprit turned out to be the antivirus application. This even happened on my system: AVAST had started considering "awp.exe" as RANSOMWARE, and was blocking any attempt I made to save modified documents. I have had to tell AVAST that Atlantis was in no case RANSOMWARE, and register it as a safe application with AVAST.

Could you please check if your antivirus application or security suite is not unduly “protecting” "awp.exe" or its home folder from write access? In which case, "awp.exe" could not be deleted on uninstall and the attempt would cause Atlantis to throw up an access violation message.
patr
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Post by patr »

I understand.

To be sure: I have master backups of Windows 7 (ESU) and 10 installs (Pro, LTSB, LTSC, etc -- I create updated Windows via sysprep, etc.) and restored to pristine states where the OS has not yet connected to the internet, nor any AV's have been installed. Only VC Runtimes, .NET framework where applicable, etc. And I have had these access violations regardless. I've also had them on at least 3 PCs with completely different setups and hardware sets, one of which is a performance laptop running Win10 Pro x64 which has a factory OS install (with restore partition). On the restores from master backups I have since done, I made sure to not even have addons or anything installed that might interfere -- I even used Autoruns to check if anything was being called or run that isn't part of the OS by default. These installs can't be more pristine or uncomplicated than this.

So to be sure, you are saying that since you enabled file compression, you can reproduce the access violation error *each time* you uninstall? Again, I've had file compression enabled on some installs years ago but never had any program error out on use or uninstall due to this. So why would Atlantis? Again, I've not used file compression in probably 10 years and not on even on my current hardwares let alone installs. I'd recommend debugging with file compression on, then, and see where that leads. If there is something in the code that is incompatible with that, it may also fix the other violations I experienced just starting Atlantis up via shortcut. Who knows?
Last edited by patr on Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
patr
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Post by patr »

admin wrote:As I understand, you have a portable copy of Atlantis on a USB stick. Does it work without errors?
I just installed the portable copy on the USB stick yesterday. To be sure, as I said before I can go weeks without an error and use Atlantis daily. (EDIT: I just checked and the Windows install I'm currently on is less than 2 weeks old.) Then, one day I start Atlantis via shortcut (not even via a document) and I get the access violation error. In the past I restored via .ini file, then I still got these errors again eventually (after some weeks) -- at that point I was getting frustrated and just started backing up all peripheral Atlantis files in ProgramData/AppData and packed this as a silent installer so I could double-click and restore to a working condition quickly. Then it was all fine again for some time and after an undetermined amount of time, the error again surfaced. This on various Windows installs, it was not bound to any particular install ever.

Which is to say, if I were to exclusively from now on use the USB stick to start Atlantis (not very convenient to say the least!) it may be weeks before it clunks out again. I can try only if that might tell you anything I haven't already shared or said. Are you thinking that if it fails, I can send you the entire portable Atlantis files so that you might be able to reproduce the problem?
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Post by admin »

As I understand, you get the error only at program launch.

If the error happens so rarely, tracking down the cause will be even harder.

I suppose, you can keep using your standard (non-portable) copy of Atlantis. If you get the error again, please make a screen capture of the entire Atlantis window (including the error dialog), and post it here.

Sorry for not being more helpful than that.
patr
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Post by patr »

As I understand, you get the error only at program launch.
It happens both at program launch, as well as at program uninstall.

When it occurs at program launch, it of course also happens if I then try to launch via an associated document.

I have not experienced an Atlantis AV error based purely on a corrupted document. Which is to say, it never happened that it errored out on a document but I was still able to launch Atlantis directly. So it was not ever a document issue.
I suppose, you can keep using your standard (non-portable) copy of Atlantis. If you get the error again, please make a screen capture of the entire Atlantis window (including the error dialog), and post it here. Sorry for not being more helpful than that.
I believe I did find that the AV error code during program launch might have been different than the one I received during program uninstallation -- but I'm not entirely sure.

I'll document whatever occurs in the future and let you know.


TO NOTE: Robert says he can reproduce the/a access violation at will when enabling OS file compression. So in that instance it is of course not hard to reproduce and I would think you'd want to look at that first at foremost. Correct?
Robert
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Post by Robert »

I did not enable “OS file compression”. I enabled file compression exclusively for “awp.exe”.

However, last night, my Windows system got automatically updated to the latest available build (19043.1237).

And uninstalling a compressed “awp.exe” executable now no longer produces access violations.

Problem solved as far as I am concerned! :)
patr
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Post by patr »

I hope 100% you are not involved in the programming aspect of things :)

So Robert, you are saying you have been this intensely involved in Atlantis, and yet when you can produce a reported error *at will*, you then thought it was a good time to change the operating system state you could produce the error on? Is that what you're saying? I can't even wrap my head around that line of thinking. I would freeze everything right then and there and keep it that way until the source of the av error (at least the one you're able to create) was hunted down. When one thinks about that for a second or two, it's really just astounding that you did that.

On another note, I have used Atlantis for a long time without stability issues (other than the av error) and have at times used very large, complex documents and never had a problem with those. So I know it's not some all-out instability and I'm glad for that.
patr
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Post by patr »

Just to be sure: I contended you could not produce that av error at will, but you maintained you could. And the moment I indicated that this would be extremely useful for the programmers, it suddenly doesn't work anymore on your end. Is that right?
Robert
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Post by Robert »

I can't even wrap my head around that line of thinking
And you are the one who accused me of …"towering prejudices"…

It’s just that I haven’t got so much of a chip on my shoulder as you suggested so nicely in this thread.

A singularly "elusive" bug in a single user’s system(s) is not worth any more of my time and attention. Sorry to be such a disappointment to you!

In any case, your problem cannot be reproduced on our system(s). And whether I am involved in the programming aspect of things or not is completely irrelevant. Bugs, if any, cannot be fixed in a vacuum. Not even in this vacuous thread!
patr
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Post by patr »

If the welfare and stability of Atlantis would be of great importance to me (it is, but only more so in your case I would imagine, given the history you mentioned) I would go to great lengths to ensure that a reproducible error could be sorted out, especially if I would be *the only one* being able to reproduce it at will -- and even more so if I were in the middle of a discussion about just that. I would definitely not be updating my system at that point, right in the middle of it. But that's just me, I guess. I really can't understand that, but if it makes sense to you then so be it. I don't see what prejudices have to do with it. Robert, the guy who thinks bug reports are the actual bugs Atlantis has to be defended against.
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Post by admin »

If you get a "normal usage" error, please post a screenshot of the Atlantis main window plus the error address. Thank you.
patr
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Post by patr »

admin wrote:If you get a "normal usage" error, please post a screenshot of the Atlantis main window plus the error address. Thank you.
Will do. Thank you.

EDIT: Meanwhile, another uninstall access violation:
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Robert
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Post by Robert »

patr
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Post by patr »

:) I'll read it, if you guys promise to read the following which I feel will be more fruitful: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/621 ... ion-errors

I'm not saying Atlantis is programmed in Delphi or not.
djsmith911
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Re: Access Violation

Post by djsmith911 »

This seems like a good place to report the access violation I experienced while removing documents from my Document project. I only experienced it once but all I did was remove a document from my document library and got an Access violation. I had added and removed one or two documents before it happened. I just noticed the update to vs. 4.1.4.7, so maybe you already fixed it.

Atlantis version: 4.1.4.6
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Re: Access Violation

Post by admin »

Is this error reproducible?
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