Crashing on a Mac and Stability Issues

[ajbarr]

I've been using PixInsight for over a year on an IMAC currently running version 10.8.3.

In the past, when I try to close PI, it frequently crashes. I downloaded 1.8 10 days ago and the problem seems to be worse. Now I am getting crashes during processing in addition to when I close the program.

Don't know if anyway else has experienced this but I just wanted to point it out on the forum.

Thanks

Albert

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Albert,

I'm very sorry to hear this. A few users have reported problems with the Mac OS X version. However, we are unable to reproduce any of these problems with our machines. In fact, we believe 1.8.0 RC5 is the most stable Mac OS X version of PixInsight ever. Obviously it isn't such for you.

I REALLY need to know if other users have or DON'T HAVE similar problems with RC5 on Mac OS X. If somebody is having problems but doesn't report them, this does not help us. Similarly, given that these issues are really weird, reporting their absence is equally important.

[j.w.]

Yeah, I'm sorry to say that I too frequently experience a crash when closing Pixinsight in OS X.  It doesn't always happen, but seems to occur more frequently after I've completed memory intensive processes (deconvolution, ATWT, etc.).  This has happened on both my MacBook pro and my new Mac Mini (both with plenty of memory).  In fact, I've had 20 crashes just since 3/11.  This has been reported previously, and since it doesn't really impact anything (saved work remains saved), I've just learned to live with it.  I'd be more than happy to upload all of these crash reports if they would help.

John

edited to include OS X version (10.8.3), and one other odd behavior.  Using my wireless trackpad, often when I try to select New Preview Mode, the cursor, and action, spontaneously jumps over to Pan Mode.  This is with the cursor over the image window ready to select the preview box.  Corrective action is just tapping the trackpad several times until I'm allowed to select the preview box.  I've only noticed this in RC5.

[NGC7789]

I am running RC5 on an early 2009 iMac on OS X 10.8.3 and I have not experienced any crashing.

-Josh

[georg.viehoever]

... Using my wireless trackpad, often when I try to select New Preview Mode, the cursor, and action, spontaneously jumps over to Pan Mode....

Didn't we have strange behaviour with wireless mice/tracepads a while ago? Cant find it, but there was something...

[j.w.]

Oddly, I just found another corrective action (that makes no sense).  If I start with two fingers on the track pad, and then lift one of them before I click to select the preview box - it works as it should. 

[pfile]

... Using my wireless trackpad, often when I try to select New Preview Mode, the cursor, and action, spontaneously jumps over to Pan Mode....

Didn't we have strange behaviour with wireless mice/tracepads a while ago? Cant find it, but there was something...

yeah i think it was something about how a trackpad does not register itself with the OS the same way a mouse does. i think this was an OSX specific problem.

[Juan Conejero]

We are mixing completely different things here:

- There's no problem at all with wireless devices. What happens is that support for touch devices is still experimental in PI 1.8.0 RC5. It cannot replace a mouse, and including it has been an error because it has added confusion. For now, please use a mouse with RC5.

- It seems some users are having crashes with PI 1.8.0 RC5 on Mac OS X. This is the real problem we are discussing here. I cannot reproduce any of these crashes on our machines (a recent iMac and a 2008' Mac Pro), where RC5 is completely stable. I need to know if these crashes are machine-specific or represent a real problem with the application. I need both crash reports and success reports.

[ruediger]

- It seems some users are having crashes with PI 1.8.0 RC5 on Mac OS X [....] I need both crash reports and success reports.

I'm using PI 1.8.0 RC 5 on a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.7 only occasionally, but there is still a stability problem. I experienced an application crash after closing a star mask window. The previous steps were only: opening a fits file, creating a mask for it, trying out the mask with morphology transformation within a preview, then closing the mask window. Can try again tomorrow to find a repeatable sequence of steps.

Rüdiger

[Philippe B.]

For the moment, I cannot reproduce this problem on MacMini 10.8.3 or MacBookPro 10.8.3
I will try to go ahead and make more tests

[martin_magnan]

Hi

I can reproduce  a crashing window close operation on a 10.8.3 2011 macbookpro 17" core i7 with 8gig ram.

here is a link to a screencast I recorded after a few consecutive crashs with the same sequence of operations.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xezf1t87g1ntt50/Ripley_Crash_on_MacOs_10.8.3.mov

Martin

[martin_magnan]

Following this

the blend operation is not required to crash PI. A linearfit followed by closing the window subjected to the linear fit systematically crash PI 1.8RC5

Martin

[Philippe B.]

OK I got it too,
Simply using LINEAR FIT then close the corrected window file crashes PI RC5 (PI simply close and OSX show the small error message like PI has quitted)

[ruediger]

The previous steps were only: opening a fits file, creating a mask for it, trying out the mask with morphology transformation within a preview, then closing the mask window.

I tried exactly the same processing steps again (1.8RC5 Mac OS X 10.7.3 on MacBookPro):
- open fits file
- generate star mask with standard settings
- assign mask
- generate preview
- apply morphology transformation (erosion) within preview, mask active
- close mask window --> PI crashes

[wnourse]

I've had a couple of crashes on waking up from sleep mode (at least 2 occurrences, possibly 3) on my MacBook Pro (Late 2011, 16GB RAM).  Will try and document more readily if it happens again.

Will