Random crashes with explorer viewing style

[Janizdreg]

PowerArchiver often crashes on my computer. Here’s how it happens:

• I use PowerArchiver’s explorer viewing style (the crashes are somehow related to this since I don’t get any crashes when using the classic style)
• I open an archive
• I exit PA and it crashes upon exit

The crashes occur randomly, roughly 33% of the times I exit PA.

I’ve got Windows XP Home Edition SP1 and I’m using PA 9.2 if that helps.

P.S. Apart from this annoying little bug PowerArchiver is by far the best archiver software I’ve ever used and I totally love it, so a big thank you to the devs - hope you will keep up the good work.

[spwolf]

Hi,

If you could somehow isolate the problem, we would have an chance of fixing it. What exactly do you do in PA? What kind of files do you open (size, type, etc), folders you browse, etc, etc. 33% is a lot, it should be quite reproducable!

thanks,

[Janizdreg]

Okay, here’s what I’ve found out so far to be necessary to reproduce the bug:

• PA’s viewing style is set to explorer (as mentioned earlier)
• An archive is opened in PA through Windows explorer (if you open the archive via PA, there won’t be any crashes)
• No files are extracted from the archive before closing PA (extracting a file and then closing PA seems to prevent the crashes)
• The archive shouldn’t be stored on the desktop or in my documents folder - crashes don’t occur when the opened archives are stored in these

In addition the crashes don’t depend on type or size of the archive - PA can crash handling any archive as long as the other “crash criteria” is met.

Hopefully these instructions are enough to make the crashes reproducable. Whether or not they are, I’ll play around some more and see if I can pinpoint this thing a little more accurately.

[TBGBe]

@Janizdreg:

[1]PA’s viewing style is set to explorer (as mentioned earlier)
[2]An archive is opened in PA through Windows explorer (if you open the archive via PA, there won’t be any crashes)
[3]No files are extracted from the archive before closing PA (extracting a file and then closing PA seems to prevent the crashes)
[4]The archive shouldn’t be stored on the desktop or in my documents folder - crashes don’t occur when the opened archives are stored in these

1. Done
4. Two Zip files in “C:\PA_Testing”
2a. (PA not running) Tried both with rightclick “Extract to here”
2b. (PA not running) Tried both with rightclick "Extract to … " {FileName as Folder}
2c. Tried both rightclick “Open with PowerArchiver” ; extract files; No error (Checked with Explorer that extracted files exist while PA not closed)

Can you expand on your steps 2 and 3?
What exact version of PA - Help/About shows 9.20.07 for me?

[Janizdreg]

It seems you misunderstood my instructions (but they did suck in the first place ;)) so here’s rewritten, better instructions on how to reproduce the bug:

1. Set PA to use explorer viewing style and close it
2. Create a folder C:\PA_Testing\ and to it an archive patest.zip which can contain anything or be empty of files, doesn’t matter
3. Open patest.zip using Windows explorer (double click or press enter on it, assuming PA is using default settings) so that the PA window will open up inside that specific archive
4. Don’t do anything to the archive, especially do not extract anything from it
5. Close PA

There and then it should crash. If it won’t, try opening and closing PA using the archive a few times (just do the “good ol’ enter & alt+f4 dance” for a while) and it should.

Also, the exact PA version I’m using is 9.20.07.

[TBGBe]

OK, instructions better :p

Tried with Zip, CAB and 7z format archives.
Open / Closed(Alt F4) PA 5 for times each format.
Then tried closing with File/Exit.
Then tried closing with Toolbar button.

Then tried opening with double-click.

Still no crash

Only difference I can see is that I have XP Home Sp2.

P.S. Is your PA registered? If not, as mine is, then it maybe something with the not-registered dialogue/date-check ?

[spwolf]

I have tried it about 30 times as well, and could not get it to happen. Let us know step by step what exactly you are doing, and with what kind of archives (format, size, number of files).

thanks,

[Janizdreg]

Ok, here’s exactly what I do:

First, I do a clean install of PA. Then I run PA once but I don’t alter any settings except set the viewing style to explorer and enter my registration information. After that I close PA.

Then I open Windows explorer, go to C:\ and create a folder PA_Testing, thus getting a path C:\PA_Testing. I open the folder and right click there, choose new/text file and name it patest.txt, and do nothing about it. I right click on the text file and choose Compress To “patest.zip”. I double click on the newborn patest.zip file (which is sized 118 bytes) and the PA main window opens. I click ALT + F4, PA exits and crashes at the same time. That’s it.

I just tested PA 6.11 and I get no crashes with that. Neither do I get them when booting to Windows 98 SE (on the same computer) and opening the patest.zip with the latest PA version. Maybe this indeed is something Windows XP SP1 specific since TBGBe was not able to reproduce the crashes in Windows XP SP2 either.

[spwolf]

@Janizdreg:

Ok, here’s exactly what I do:

First, I do a clean install of PA. Then I run PA once but I don’t alter any settings except set the viewing style to explorer and enter my registration information. After that I close PA.

Then I open Windows explorer, go to C:\ and create a folder PA_Testing, thus getting a path C:\PA_Testing. I open the folder and right click there, choose new/text file and name it patest.txt, and do nothing about it. I right click on the text file and choose Compress To “patest.zip”. I double click on the newborn patest.zip file (which is sized 118 bytes) and the PA main window opens. I click ALT + F4, PA exits and crashes at the same time. That’s it.

I just tested PA 6.11 and I get no crashes with that. Neither do I get them when booting to Windows 98 SE (on the same computer) and opening the patest.zip with the latest PA version. Maybe this indeed is something Windows XP SP1 specific since TBGBe was not able to reproduce the crashes in Windows XP SP2 either.

Sounds good - I will test it more, with your steps. It really has nothing to do with PA 6.xx, most PA was rewritten several times since then - or since 8.xx for that matter. Most bugs are easy to reproduce and solve, trickier ones take time but once we find an way to reproduce it, it is easy to fix. It could be anything from some obsecure code to some application tagging itself to PA on your system and then making PA crash.

We will try this and move from that point forward. I will let you know my results.

thanks,

[spwolf]

It works fine on WinXP SP1 (tested). I am thinking that it might be related to some other software that attached itself to PA.exe - it has happened before.

Can you please download and install DLL Show (it is pretty small):
http://www.gregorybraun.com/DLLShow.html

It will show you an list of programs/dlls running under powerarc.exe, you can export the list to .txt and send it to us at supportRMV ME@conexware.com.

thanks,

[Janizdreg]

Done, uploaded the list to http://janizdreg.atspace.com/txt/POWERARC_Module_Dependency_List.txt

[spwolf]

@Janizdreg:

Done, uploaded the list to http://janizdreg.atspace.com/txt/POWERARC_Module_Dependency_List.txt

You run an tight ship there mister :-). I will be downloading that Sygate firewall to check if it somehow has something to do with it…

thanks,