That stubborn runtime error 9

loofou · 01-05-2015, 12:48 PM

Hello again fellow Gurpers,

I was working occasionally with GCA for the past year or two and sometimes it crashed. I just shrugged, reloaded and that's that, because a program as complex as GCA may have a bug here and there and it always was kind enough to backup my characters before the crash. For the few characters I created it was stable enough.

But in the past few weeks I really started to work with the program, creating many NPCs for my campaign, working in data files for my own systems and settings and so on.

And now the error is really getting on my nerves. I can't have the program open for more than 5-10 minutes until it crashes again. I can't say it has always been the same error in the past, but in these cases in the last weeks it has always been the persistent "Runtime-Error 9", that's trying to make me crazy.

Now, I've used the search function and found a few other people with the problem, but either no solutions or only solutions that made no difference on my part.

I have tried making different printers my default printer, I have tried different quick view sheets (I would like to use phoenix, but it crashes on every sheet reliably), I have tried using different data sets/files, I have reinstalled the program multiple times, even to different folders or hard drives, deleted appdata and so on.

I can reliably crash the program with any character, even completely empty ones. All I have to do is open any dialogue window and cancel out of it. Do that four or five times and the program crashes. Every time. It doesn't matter how much time lies between those four to five dialogue-cancels, I can even add or remove traits or leave the pc for half an hour. The moment I press the Edit button, the program is doomed. Most of the time it crashes on the fourth dialogue, very seldom it makes it to the fifth.

The thing is: I can do this on every single PC I own. It 'works' on every single one of them, all have different hardware, even different windows versions. It happens on my main computer with Windows 7, on my old laptop with Win 7 and on my new Windows 8 tablet, too.

The question is: Is there no working solution for this problem? All I found was installing different printer drivers, which I have done, too. I installed the Bullzip PDF Printer and later on the Foxit PDF printer and made those default printer, even uninstalled all other printers, but nothing of that helped one bit.

I would really appreciate some help.

Here is a very short video of me crashing the poor program deliberately.

Armin · 01-05-2015, 01:58 PM

Hello.

Your video was very helpful. After watching it, I went into GCA myself, and then spent dozens of cycles of "open Edit window, close, open Edit window, close, . . ." trying to reproduce what you did. I couldn't.

So, I watched your video again, and noticed that right before your error message, you appeared to click on the gray area, instead of on the white page. I hadn't been doing that. So I tried it, and bingo, I can now crash GCA pretty consistently in the QuickView.

So: Thanks! That was very helpful.

Unfortunately, I can't fix this issue right now, because the development machine that I need for GCA 4 is broken, and the tools won't install on my current workstation. But this is significant enough that I'm going to try and take some time to see if I can fix the old machine to get things working long enough to maybe get an update out for this.

In the mean time: The apparent solution for getting GCA to crash less in QuickView is "don't click on the gray background area." Kinda sucks, and may be hard to avoid due to habit, but avoiding it will almost certainly significantly increase the usability of QuickView. The other alternative is "don't use QuickView."

Hopefully that helps a little. I'll see what I can do to find a way to get an update out for it.

loofou · 01-05-2015, 03:12 PM

Wow. So my quirk in nervously clicking everywhere has finally produced something nice! :D

The fun thing is: I click in the grey area all the time, because I can't accidentally click on something vital there. No wonder my program is crashing all the time.

Okay, so I just have to change my habit a bit. Another idea is to adjust the window size to just contain the paper, so I can't click outside the paper any more. Maybe I even change the paper size or something (is this even possible?)

How long has this bug been around? I've seen threads of 2010 with error 9, but I don't know if it's the exact same bug or not. Glad I could help in finding a solution. I know how hard it is to track bugs down if you can't reliably reproduce them yourself, so I made every effort I could to make it as clear as possible (even though my conclusion was the wrong one...)

Armin · 01-05-2015, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loofou

Wow. So my quirk in nervously clicking everywhere has finally produced something nice! :D

Congratulations ;-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by loofou

The fun thing is: I click in the grey area all the time, because I can't accidentally click on something vital there. No wonder my program is crashing all the time.

And in my case, I have basically the other habit: I tend to naturally click on empty places on the white of the page.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loofou

Okay, so I just have to change my habit a bit. Another idea is to adjust the window size to just contain the paper, so I can't click outside the paper any more. Maybe I even change the paper size or something (is this even possible?)

The built-in sheet is fixed to portrait and letter size. If you use Phoenix, you can use Print Setup to change your default paper size and orientation, and Phoenix should honor that in QuickView.

Note that if you do change settings in Print Setup, you'll need to remember to change them back before actually printing a character, or they'll print that way, too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loofou

How long has this bug been around? I've seen threads of 2010 with error 9, but I don't know if it's the exact same bug or not. Glad I could help in finding a solution. I know how hard it is to track bugs down if you can't reliably reproduce them yourself, so I made every effort I could to make it as clear as possible (even though my conclusion was the wrong one...)

This bug has likely been around for years. Not sure if it goes back to the original release of GCA 4, but it well might.

Even with isolating this particular bug, there are likely other issues still lurking in there, although this is likely a contributor to a bunch of the QuickView problems. (There can also be problems if folks try interacting with QuickView elements before GCA has finished calculating and updating the sheet from a previous change.) QuickView is a really big kludge, and thus has extra issues.

Armin

Angel Darkover · 01-05-2015, 10:26 PM

I have to say, awesome way to support development by providing a video to examine. From past experience, I can say that most developers would LOVE it if their testers provided such material for difficult bugs. As Armin indicated, being able to scrutinize precise actions can make all the difference in the world. Again, kudos to you sir.

loofou · 01-06-2015, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angel Darkover

I have to say, awesome way to support development by providing a video to examine. From past experience, I can say that most developers would LOVE it if their testers provided such material for difficult bugs. As Armin indicated, being able to scrutinize precise actions can make all the difference in the world. Again, kudos to you sir.

Well, I'm a developer myself, so I know the problem with bad bug reports and strange QA ;)

01-05-2015, 12:48 PM	#1
loofou Join Date: Dec 2014	That stubborn runtime error 9 Hello again fellow Gurpers, I was working occasionally with GCA for the past year or two and sometimes it crashed. I just shrugged, reloaded and that's that, because a program as complex as GCA may have a bug here and there and it always was kind enough to backup my characters before the crash. For the few characters I created it was stable enough. But in the past few weeks I really started to work with the program, creating many NPCs for my campaign, working in data files for my own systems and settings and so on. And now the error is really getting on my nerves. I can't have the program open for more than 5-10 minutes until it crashes again. I can't say it has always been the same error in the past, but in these cases in the last weeks it has always been the persistent "Runtime-Error 9", that's trying to make me crazy. Now, I've used the search function and found a few other people with the problem, but either no solutions or only solutions that made no difference on my part. I have tried making different printers my default printer, I have tried different quick view sheets (I would like to use phoenix, but it crashes on every sheet reliably), I have tried using different data sets/files, I have reinstalled the program multiple times, even to different folders or hard drives, deleted appdata and so on. I can reliably crash the program with any character, even completely empty ones. All I have to do is open any dialogue window and cancel out of it. Do that four or five times and the program crashes. Every time. It doesn't matter how much time lies between those four to five dialogue-cancels, I can even add or remove traits or leave the pc for half an hour. The moment I press the Edit button, the program is doomed. Most of the time it crashes on the fourth dialogue, very seldom it makes it to the fifth. The thing is: I can do this on every single PC I own. It 'works' on every single one of them, all have different hardware, even different windows versions. It happens on my main computer with Windows 7, on my old laptop with Win 7 and on my new Windows 8 tablet, too. The question is: Is there no working solution for this problem? All I found was installing different printer drivers, which I have done, too. I installed the Bullzip PDF Printer and later on the Foxit PDF printer and made those default printer, even uninstalled all other printers, but nothing of that helped one bit. I would really appreciate some help. Here is a very short video of me crashing the poor program deliberately.

01-05-2015, 01:58 PM	#2
Armin GCA Prime Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Portland, OR	Re: That stubborn runtime error 9 Hello. Your video was very helpful. After watching it, I went into GCA myself, and then spent dozens of cycles of "open Edit window, close, open Edit window, close, . . ." trying to reproduce what you did. I couldn't. So, I watched your video again, and noticed that right before your error message, you appeared to click on the gray area, instead of on the white page. I hadn't been doing that. So I tried it, and bingo, I can now crash GCA pretty consistently in the QuickView. So: Thanks! That was very helpful. Unfortunately, I can't fix this issue right now, because the development machine that I need for GCA 4 is broken, and the tools won't install on my current workstation. But this is significant enough that I'm going to try and take some time to see if I can fix the old machine to get things working long enough to maybe get an update out for this. In the mean time: The apparent solution for getting GCA to crash less in QuickView is "don't click on the gray background area." Kinda sucks, and may be hard to avoid due to habit, but avoiding it will almost certainly significantly increase the usability of QuickView. The other alternative is "don't use QuickView." Hopefully that helps a little. I'll see what I can do to find a way to get an update out for it. __________________ Armin D. Sykes \| Visit my GCA5 blog for updates and previews. \| Get GURPS Character Assistant 5 now at Warehouse 23.

01-05-2015, 03:12 PM	#3
loofou Join Date: Dec 2014	Re: That stubborn runtime error 9 Wow. So my quirk in nervously clicking everywhere has finally produced something nice! :D The fun thing is: I click in the grey area all the time, because I can't accidentally click on something vital there. No wonder my program is crashing all the time. Okay, so I just have to change my habit a bit. Another idea is to adjust the window size to just contain the paper, so I can't click outside the paper any more. Maybe I even change the paper size or something (is this even possible?) How long has this bug been around? I've seen threads of 2010 with error 9, but I don't know if it's the exact same bug or not. Glad I could help in finding a solution. I know how hard it is to track bugs down if you can't reliably reproduce them yourself, so I made every effort I could to make it as clear as possible (even though my conclusion was the wrong one...)

01-05-2015, 10:26 PM	#5
Angel Darkover Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Seattle, WA	Re: That stubborn runtime error 9 I have to say, awesome way to support development by providing a video to examine. From past experience, I can say that most developers would LOVE it if their testers provided such material for difficult bugs. As Armin indicated, being able to scrutinize precise actions can make all the difference in the world. Again, kudos to you sir. __________________ Madness takes its toll. Please have correct change.