Access Violation when accessing hard drive-Win10-Dell Inspiron -PI 1.08.04.1171

[rhaynes]

Hello. First let me say I love Pixinsight and still learning as I have used it less than a year. Recently I purchased a Dell Inspiron 15 and Windows 10. After installing PI 1.08.04.1170 & 1.08.04.1171 I experience Access Violation Errors. The program loads properly and I can maneuver about with no issues however when I attempt to open a file it crashes. Any sort of hard drive access seems to do this – File Explorer, Open a Copy, Load a Project, adding files in a process all crash.

I have FIT extension defaulted to open with PI and can double click a image and it will load PI and the image fine but when attempting to save image the program crashes

    Application errors:
    ==================
    Error: (08/29/2015 01:09:24 PM) (Source: Application Error) (User: )
    Description: Faulting application name: PixInsight.exe, version: 1.8.4.1171, time stamp: 0x55c075ba
    Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.10240.16430, time stamp: 0x55c59f92
    Exception code: 0xc0000374
    Fault offset: 0x00000000000ea28c
    Faulting process id: 0x14d4
    Faulting application start time: 0xPixInsight.exe0
    Faulting application path: PixInsight.exe1
    Faulting module path: PixInsight.exe2
    Report Id: PixInsight.exe3
    Faulting package full name: PixInsight.exe4
    Faulting package-relative application ID: PixInsight.exe5

The previous versions of PI run properly and have no issues accessing the hard drive.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I have completed

* ran memory check on RAM and all pass
* scan for malware and virus
* uninstall PI -reboot- and reinstall ( as administrator) several times
* disable antivirus (AVG) & anti-malware while attempting to open a file and also during reinstall of PI
* Configure to minimum settings with msconfig and boot. PI still crashes when accessing hard drive
* Boot Windows in Safe Mode with minimum settings and still crash when accessing hard drive.

Oddly the Dell is replacing a HP Pavilion laptop with a broken screen. I can still access the HP remotely and it has the same software installed (anti-malware, antivirus etc) so I upgraded  it to Windows 10 and PI  1.08.04.1171. PI opens and closes files with no issues on it so this problem seems to be specific to the Dell and later version of PI and perhaps not a Windows 10 issue. I have no way of downgrading the Dell to Win 8.1 to test this.

Any help would be appreciated as I hate the thoughts of purchasing another laptop to use Pixinsight.

[PNaccache]

In case it was not clear, I have a new Dell machine too.

(But I doubt it is a Dell specific problem... there used to be differences in implementation on different hardware but I have not had Dell or HP or xxxx hardware specific issues for a very very long time... But then who knows...)

[rhaynes]

I have tried everything I can think of and given up. Anytime I try to access the hard drive PI crashes. I reinstalled an older version and will run with that for now. Hopefully the new version coming out this fall will prove to be more stable.

[Juan Conejero]

I am unable to reproduce this problem on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Disks (including SSD, rotational and external) are accessed without any problem on all of our working Windows machines, including physical and virtual machines.

[jhusted]

I also have this problem with PI crashing while attempting file access. I am running a Dell Inspiron 17R-5737 Core i5 with Windows 8.1. Also, PI crashes when I roll my mouse over 'File Explorer' tab, where I get the popup: PCL Win32 System Exception at address:0007FF9E3F651FA with exception code C0000005. Access violation: Invalid memory read operation at address: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

I am using a trial license, so I apparently I can't run PI under a different user. There are posts on the web describing similar problems with other programs crashing and might have to do with the file ntdll.dll

Here is the details from Windows Event Viewer:
Faulting application name: PixInsight.exe, version: 1.8.4.1171, time stamp: 0x55c0783e
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.3.9600.17936, time stamp: 0x55a68e0c
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x00000000000f1280
Faulting process id: 0x2778
Faulting application start time: 0x01d0e534c36645a3
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\PixInsight\bin\PixInsight.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 8ad99b8c-5128-11e5-8326-4851b77cac35
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Fault bucket 120312171820, type 4
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: PixInsight.exe
P2: 1.8.4.1171
P3: 55c0783e
P4: StackHash_1dd2
P5: 6.3.9600.17936
P6: 55a68e0c
P7: c0000374
P8: PCH_98_FROM_ntdll+0x000000000009178A
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\Jeffrey\AppData\Local\Temp\WER9CED.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

[rhaynes]

That is interesting. Apparently an issue with Dell. Odd that the previous versions of PI to work fine.

[msmythers]

Have you tried killing any or all Dell specific software that might be running in the background? It might also be a Dell specific driver vs a generic Microsoft or actual manufacture driver. I have an Asus laptop that had a weird problem some programs crashing after I upgraded to Windows 10. It turned out to be the special Asus keyboard function software. After disabling that software everything was fine. I hate the added bloatware that come with so many computers.

Just a thought.


Mike 

[Renan]

Same problema here:

Dell XPS 13"
Win 10

Renan

[Juan Conejero]

Dell XPS 17" with Windows 7 Professional
Dell Precision M3800 15" with Windows 8.1 Pro

Both machines work perfectly with PixInsight 1.8.4.1171. The XPS has a clean Windows 7 installation, so no Dell utility software installed. The M3800 has the default factory configuration. Both laptops use McAfee Internet Security.

Other custom-built physical machines and a VMware 12 Pro machine running Windows 10 also work without any issues.

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Mike,

Have you tried killing any or all Dell specific software that might be running in the background? It might also be a Dell specific driver vs a generic Microsoft or actual manufacture driver. I have an Asus laptop that had a weird problem some programs crashing after I upgraded to Windows 10. It turned out to be the special Asus keyboard function software. After disabling that software everything was fine. I hate the added bloatware that come with so many computers.

Absolutely. In fact, I am convinced that most of the weird problems people are having with PI 1.8.4 on Windows are being caused by bad drivers or wrong driver configurations. In particular, the current 1.8.4 version has hardware requirements that the previous 1.8.3 version doesn't have. Other problems are being caused by malware protection software trying to be "creative".

The next version that I'm going to release soon is robust to bad graphics drivers not implementing valid OpenGL functionality. This should fix most problems on Windows.

[bmhjr]

I bought Pixinsight 2 days ago and loaded it on my laptop.  I have the same issue with version 1.8.4 as reported above.  The program crashes when attempting to open an image file.  The older version 1.8.3 seems to work but the font size and appearance on the 4K display is difficult to deal with.

Dell XPS 13
Windows 10

Thanks
Bill

[Renan]

On Dell XPS 13" Win10 with this same problem I deleted last versión, installed V1.8.03.1123 and  this fixed the error when openning a file but icons are so small on high resolution screen that it is unusable.

Renan

[Harry page]

Hi

I have 3 dells 2 xps machines and 1 17" inspiron  all upgraded to windows 10

they also still have a lot of dell rubbish on there and I don't get any problems using Pixinsight !!!!!!!!!!!!

Not much help I know , but its not a universal problem 

Harry

[cgalavis]

I am having the same problem with an Alienware Area 51 (yup, made by Dell). Is there any news on when the new version will be out? I could revert to 1.8.03 but unfortunately most of my projects were saved with version the latest version and the project file is not backward compatible 

-Carlos

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Carlos,

A new release is a matter of days. Hopefully this is a problem with graphics drivers, and then the new version should fix it because it is much more robust to deficient OpenGL implementations. As Harry has pointed out, this is not a universal problem; for example, we also have several Dell computers that work perfectly with build 1171.

In the meanwhile, you could try this solution:

1. Download the following zip file:

https://pixinsight.com/update-test/20150827-corelibs.zip

2. Uncompress it on any folder.

3. Copy all files extracted in step 2 to the following folder, replacing existing files and folders:

C:\Program Files\PixInsight\bin

You'll need administrative rights to do this. If you have installed on a nonstandard location, change "C:\Program Files\" as appropriate.

This patch essentially applies the same changes that we have included in the new version, so it should fix this issue with a poor OpenGL implementation. Let me know.