HouseBot Crashing

[ericvic]

I having an intermittent problem with HouseBot causing an access violation. It doesn't happen in the same DLL or at any specific time.
I am running version 3.02.01 on Windows Server 2003 and have made no major changes to my configuration in quite a while. Any ideas on what might be causing this problem?

Thanks,
Eric

P.S. I would like to again put in my vote for a separate server and client because when my power goes out and my server reboots HouseBot doesn't restart until I log into the server (which I usually only remember to do when I notice that HouseBot isn't running).

[ScottBot]

Can you email me ([email protected]) the latest dump file found in your \HouseBot\dump directory?

[ericvic]

There is not much to it. Here it is:


====== Begin Dump - Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:31:39 ======
Server Version = 3.02.01
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address: 7C81BD02 01:0001AD02 C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntdll.dll

Registers:
EAX:20303158
EBX:00330000
ECX:61290005
EDX:61290006
ESI:00330718
EDI:00000003
CS:EIP:001B:7C81BD02
SS:ESP:0023:076EFC4C EBP:00330718
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00010202

====== End Dump ======

[ScottBot]

Not much there to help. All I can really suggest is to try and find something common that could be triggering the problem. Like if it started happening when you made a specific change or when something in particular runs.

[Richard Naninck]

I have seen these ones happen as well. Usually during a very high load on the server PC. Sometimes just when adding or removing properties from a device. HB will just crash without any seemingly good reason. It never happens just like that; I have to be doing something with the server GUI. It also happens when enabling and disabling hardware devices connected to a com port and sometimes when trying to change a com port. I have 15 com ports running on my system and not all of them are in use yet. So when I try to connect a new device I have to guess which com port to use and then sometimes HB crashes. Always with somekind of Access violation and it is always a different one. Other than that, the system is rock solid so I am still very happy!

[dlmorgan999]

Hi Eric,

Although this doesn't directly address your crashing situation I have a tip for you that should help. Go look for something called TweakUI(there are different versions for the various operating systems). One of the features that this has is "Auto Logon". This allows you to specify a username and password. Then when the system is booted the logon occurs automatically.

I have my HB server set to do this. Then in the startup for the account I specified I have it run my script that starts HouseBot. This script also automatically recovers from HouseBot crashes. Overall it makes for a pretty robust server. I hope this helps!

-- Dave

[ericvic]

Dave,

I don't think tweakUI works for 2003 server.

Eric

[dlmorgan999]

Hi Eric,

Actually it works just fine on Windows Server 2003 (that's what I'm using for my HB server). Here is a link where you can get it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

Note the "Version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Windows Server 2003" comment.

-- Dave

[ericvic]

Thanks, I'll go grab it now.

Eric

[ericvic]

This is still happening and it is very frustrating to make sure I check to see that HB is still running.

The only thing I have noticed it that it seems to happen sometime after I have been running SageTV. The SageTV server runs on this machine all the time but it seems to happen after I have watch some TV from the SageTV client on another machine. The load on the server is never very high.

One other thing I just thought of is that I have a dual core processor so I'm wondering if it could be that normally all the threads for HB run on the same core but sometimes when the load is a bit higher some of the threads get moved to the other core. Maybe by running the threads really in parallel causes some sort of problem.

Eric

[ScottBot]

Unfortunately I wasn't able to determine anything from the dump that you sent before. If you have a newer dump that looks different, please pass it along. Maybe there's something in it that will help.

One way to rule out the dual core issue is to set the processor affinity for HouseBot to only one CPU. I know you can do this after HouseBot is running through the Task Manager. There's probably some way to set it permanently... but I don't know how.

[ericvic]

Scott,

I did set the affinity right after I sent the message so we will see if it works.

Here is the latest dump.

Code: Select all

====== Begin Dump - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 13:31:47 ======
Server Version = 3.02.01

==================================
======== House Server Thread =======
==================================
Thread Type    = Main UI Thread
Thread ID   = F54
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:  73ED4953 01:00023953 C:\WINDOWS\system32\MFC42.DLL

Registers:
EAX:FFFFFFF4
EBX:07FC5198
ECX:013B57F8
EDX:013B57F8
ESI:0012F358
EDI:013B57F8
CS:EIP:001B:73ED4953
SS:ESP:0023:0012F328  EBP:0012F330
DS:0023  ES:0023  FS:003B  GS:0000
Flags:00050293

Call stack:
Address   Frame
73ED4953  0012F330  Ordinal535+13
00406EA0  00000019  CxImage::`copy constructor closure'+3B20


====== End Dump ======

====== Begin Dump - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 13:32:09 ======
Server Version = 3.02.01

==================================
======== House Server Thread =======
==================================
Thread Type    = Main UI Thread
Thread ID   = 154
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:  73ED4953 01:00023953 C:\WINDOWS\system32\MFC42.DLL

Registers:
EAX:FFFFFFF4
EBX:07FC5198
ECX:013B5870
EDX:013B5870
ESI:0012F358
EDI:013B5870
CS:EIP:001B:73ED4953
SS:ESP:0023:0012F328  EBP:0012F330
DS:0023  ES:0023  FS:003B  GS:0000
Flags:00050293

Call stack:
Address   Frame
73ED4953  0012F330  Ordinal535+13
00406EA0  00000019  CxImage::`copy constructor closure'+3B20


====== End Dump ======

====== Begin Dump - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 13:33:31 ======
Server Version = 3.02.01

==================================
======== House Server Thread =======
==================================
Thread Type    = Main UI Thread
Thread ID   = 864
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:  73ED4953 01:00023953 C:\WINDOWS\system32\MFC42.DLL

Registers:
EAX:FFFFFFF4
EBX:07FC5198
ECX:013B56E0
EDX:013B56E0
ESI:0012F358
EDI:013B56E0
CS:EIP:001B:73ED4953
SS:ESP:0023:0012F328  EBP:0012F330
DS:0023  ES:0023  FS:003B  GS:0000
Flags:00050293

Call stack:
Address   Frame
73ED4953  0012F330  Ordinal535+13
00406EA0  00000019  CxImage::`copy constructor closure'+3B20


====== End Dump ======

[ericvic]

Scott,

Setting the affinity seems to have solved my problem. I have not has a crash since setting it.

Eric