"Access Violation: Invalid Memory Read Operation at Address 0000000000000000"

[rodmichael]

I get the above "Error" message intermittently with PixInsight v1.8.5. The only solution seems to be to remove the application and reinstall it when I get the message. Any ideas what is happening? I also seem to have lost the PI icon (blue cube) when I "pin" it to the taskbar. A second installation seems to run fine on my other PC.

[souls33k3r]

Silly question perhaps, would you reckon your disk space is 75% (or more) full? If do then kindly clear up some space. Hope this helps 

[rodmichael]

Thanks for the thought, but, no. I'm using a 2 TB SSD and it's only at about 40% capacity, so about 1.2 TB open.

[astrodoc71]

I'm getting exactly the same error. Running Win 7. Disc is over 60% free. I can fix by restarting the computer once or twice. No blue cube icon either. It's a generic notebook
Dave

[astrodoc71]

Ok seems to working after a clean reinstall. Blue icon is restored. I'm thinking I did something when I initially installed it on this computer as it was a "new instance" of the program . Anyway so far it's fine.
Dave

[jwmckay]

I have had a similar issue and in my case I believe was related to available memory. If you are running Windows 10, try looking at the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete and choosing "Task Manager" from the list of options.  Look at the available memory and % used.  After one of the numerous Windows updates, I found out that one process (Windows Wireless LAN 802.11 Extensibility Framework) was eating up 80%+ of my memory when the computer was first started up. After some time, it dropped down to less than 30%, but if I tried opening PI during the first few minutes of starting my computer, I would get the "Invalid Memory Read.." message.

After exploring some forums, I found out that my Dell XPS laptop needed to have the network drivers updated. Once I did that, the memory usage dropped significantly. 

I still notice, however, if I try starting PI after running another program, it will sometimes give me the error message. I'm certain that some programs are slow to release memory after they exit, and may be the source of the problem.

-Jim

[speach]

I'm not getting an 'invalid memory..." but the blue icon on the taskbar keeps coming and going!!!

[rdryfoos]

Finally someone is having the same sort of trouble that I have been reporting for the past 2 years.  Juan....its not only me.  No that otehrs are reporting teh same problem, perhaps you will be able to duplicate it?

Rodd

[dpaul]

I've been getting this same issue for about 6 months now (I have the latest version of PI). Laptop has 30 RAM, i7 processor and disc less than 50% full.
I can use PI for hours then after closing and re-opening it has the access violation error until I've closed and re-opened a few more times.

Often certain processes seem to cause it - Dynamic crop and Dynamic background extraction seem the worst culprits.  I can live with this but I'm always saving data regularly in case it bounces me out.

I love PI and don't mean to be critical but so many people seem to mention this, surely it must be a bug in some way. Nothing else I do ever causes this.

Thanks

David

[RickS]

I love PI and don't mean to be critical but so many people seem to mention this, surely it must be a bug in some way. Nothing else I do ever causes this.

Hi David,

I suspect the issue is that the PI Team can't reproduce the problem.  If someone can find a reliable way to make the error occur then it can be fixed...

Cheers,
Rick.

[dpaul]

Hi Rick

That's the problem - its intermittent / unpredictable.

It seems to happen most often after exiting the program following a lengthy processing period then restarting soo afterwards.

I'll try to look for trends

Thanks

David

[RickS]

Hi David,

After exit the PI process hangs around for a while on Windows.  Might be worth checking with Task Manager.  Perhaps it's running a new copy when the old one is still around that provokes the problem.  I don't encounter this problem myself.

Cheers,
Rick.

[topboxman]

My case was similar but different. After a lengthy processing images and closing PI by clicking on the "X" at upper right can cause for PI to fail to restart unless you reboot the computer. Closing PI process via Task Manager resolves it.

I found a way around to avoid rebooting the computer is by exiting PI via "File->Exit" instead of clicking on "X" at upper right and works EVERY TIME!!!!!

I love PI but no offense to PI developers and personally I am sure there is a bug in latest version because I reverted back to previous version of PI and I NEVER had this issue. Re-installing latest PI does not help because I am still having issues closing PI by clicking on "X" at upper right. Several other people have reported their issues resolved by using "File->Exit" to close or exit PI. I am still using latest version of PI because it has several cool new tools not found in previous version and I simply have to remember to close PI via "File->Exit" instead of clicking on "X" at upper right and works every time.

Peter

[dpaul]

Thanks Rick

I'll keep an eye open for this - last night I did get the problem again during the same session after using it for an hour - so it is intermittent.

David

[Juan Conejero]

We have two different problems here:

- The "File > Exit vs X" issue is a known bug on Windows and Linux. I have already found and fixed it completely in the next version that I am preparing for release. This bug prevents the core application from terminating correctly when the main window is closed (by clicking the 'X' icon). Basically, the problem is that a component of the integrated web browser (which is an implementation of the Chromium browser) may not terminate execution when the application is exited this way. This happens sometimes and more on some machines, and much more on Windows. As noted, this bug is now fixed. Please bear with me; I am going through a time without much time available due to personal matters, but definitely working on it. A new bugfix release with some new features will be available soon.

- The access violation problem at startup on Windows. This is a machine-specific issue, which we cannot reproduce on any of our working and testing machines. This should never happen under normal working conditions. From our support experience, these problems seem to be caused by defective OpenGL and hardware acceleration support implemented in some graphics drivers. This happens mainly on Windows 7 (which, please note, is no longer supported officially), but has also been reported a few times on Windows 10. Other similar problems reported on Windows 10 have been caused by buggy system updates distributed by Microsoft during Fall-Winter 2017, but most of them seem to be fixed now. Please note that there is nothing we can do to solve these problems. Our only recommendation is to perform a clean installation of the operating system, preferably Windows 10, with the latest versions of all hardware drivers, and avoiding vendor-provided utilities. None of these things happen on Linux and macOS.