Ovn Pro Bomb

Just discovered that Ovation Pro is crashing and taking much else with it on both my Beagleboard -xM and RPi 4. I haven’t used OPro for some time, yesterday making a forgotten update on the Pi, which suggests it was OK previously given that I didn’t experience any problem after updating the one on the BB -xM a while back.

This happens with both the 27th & 29th Aug 21 ROMs and with Ovation Pro versions 278e & 278f. I haven’t yet tried going further back with ROM versions yet. The 2 machines are a mirror as much as possible.

Prior to the crash I have on the iconbar; ShareFS, Transient, RAM Disc, Printers 1.89, NetSurf, Messenger Pro, Hermes, Newshound, PrintPDF, StrongEd, ToggleBD & MemNow as well as the usual.

Both machines seem to run everything else I’ve tried OK.

OPro loads to the icon bar OK. Opening a new window or making an icon bar selection crashes. The initial error message – ‘Internal error: abort on data transfer at &FC037C9C’. Selecting ‘Quit’ errors, ‘Internal error: abort on data transfer at &FC037C9C (code55)’. At this point most icon bar icons have disappeared (I’m currently seeing the printer & a segment of the Alarm icon showing). Clearing that error gives another app may have gone wrong error box for an unnamed app with an abort on data transfer at &FC037C9C (no appendage). Cancel that gives ‘Internal error, no stack for trap handler: Internal error: abort on data transfer at &FC037C9C, PC = 00000001:registers at 000AA9BC’. A romapps icon has replaced the printer and ‘Display’ & ‘Task Manager’ icons have appeared. Clearing the error brings the Ovation Pro icon back to the icon bar, an open OPro window and with all the previously running right-icon bar icons re-appearing. Left icon bar is blank. Stuff can be typed into the OPro window. Menu over the Task Manager at this point allows me to shut down.
-——————————-

So, can anyone repeat or unique here?

Press F12 and type where after each crash.

Following Druck’s instruction I see that Ovation Pro itself isn’t dying. Its window remains and accepts entry.

F12 is unresponsive until after all left side iconbar icons have disappeared.

Where then reports;
Address &FC037CA4 is at offset &00017814 in module ‘UtilityModule’

Returning to the desktop errors the Filer. ‘Continue’ regains the desktop. Presumably the filer is still running as it errors each time when returning from ShellCLI.

Of the remaining application icons, alternate ones error whilst the others show their menus when selected. ‘Where’ after each death shows the same report as above.

After the one of these latter errors a clear screen offered; ‘ToggleBD was unable to find the backdrop and must exit now’, which it did.

Edit: This time Shutdown came with many error reports and eventually took me to command line. JIC, DiscKnight; Disc is goood, phew!

Just checked through this years ROMs (thank you binary).

The problem first appears with the 11-July-21 ROM. With prior ROMs Ovation Pro runs fine.

Edit: Looking at the GitLab activity page changes were to ThemeSetup, WIMP, Switcher and mbedTLS on the 10th July.

This happens with both the 27th & 29th Aug 21 ROMs and with Ovation Pro versions 278e & 278f.

ARMv7 Pi2 and OPro v2.78f.
RISC OS was 5.29 from 14th July (I think?), just updated to 31st August build.

Prior to the crash I have on the iconbar; ShareFS, Transient, RAM Disc, Printers 1.89, NetSurf, Messenger Pro, Hermes, Newshound, PrintPDF, StrongEd, ToggleBD & MemNow as well as the usual.

Zap, AMU, NetSurf, and some of my own applications running. Oh, and ShareFS.

I don’t have Messenger/Hermes/etc. I use my phone/tablet for mails.

Seems to work fine for me. Looking at Frobnicate #31.

Check it isn’t one of your applets playing up.

Inside OvationPro is a directory called “Applets”. With OPro NOT loaded, rename this to something like “_Applets” and then see if OvationPro works.
(rename it back to “Applets” to undo this)

Okay, repeated with a RAM disc, Printers 1.83 (yeah, I’m a little out of date!), PrintPDF, and StrongEd loaded, in addition to the stuff mentioned above. That’s about as close to your setup as I can get, I think.

Still okay…

Hmm, I wonder if it is related to a theme? That seems to be what the change on to the Wimp the 11th July build was about.

I’ve just tried Sovereign and Morris… but given that I’ve not updated my !Boot in donkey’s ¹, if there’s a problem it probably won’t be noticed here ’cos the data is too old.

¹ Basic premise – if it isn’t actually broken, leave stuff in !Boot (other than Choices) the hell alone.

I wonder if it is related to a theme

Ah, I am using my own theme based on a dislike of isometric icons. Did a return to Acorn/RO 4 style flatish and blue.

I’ll play.

Just updated my theme stuff and tried all the themes here. Still okay. ;-)

But… what’s with the big ridge of the OK style buttons being a weird light blue?

Oh, okay. This might be a bug in ThemeManager.

If I mess with *WimpVisualFlags from a TaskWindow, then my ridges are drawn in the usual yellow.
If I select and apply any theme, they turn light blue.
Go do *WimpVisualFlags -FontBlending and they return to the usual light yellow.

[currently nightly RISC OS and Harddisc4 installation; with Boot:Themes and Resources:!ThemeDefs copied over]

Tried all the built in themes and still getting the same crashes. Annoyed that the issue persists but also glad it may not be my theme specifically, of which I’m fond. Also seeing the light blue ridges despite having -FontBlending set in CoFlags.

If it’s theme related, why is it that only Ovation acts as a trigger?

@ Fredrick Banbrough, I have run Ovation Pro successfully on both my Titanium machine and my Raspberry Pi4. using the latest 2021-09-02 Boot and ROM.The RPi4 is also using the Raspbian bits dated 2021-08-06. The normal theme is ‘RISCOSbits’ but I tried all the other themes with no ill effects.
As I don’t use the Pi4 for email I couldn’t try Ovation Pro with NetFetch and in my case Pluto,
however I did so on the Titanium and with no problems at all.
Regards Ron.

@ Fredrick Banbrough, Might I suggest you run !Reporter from start-up, that might help track down what is causing the real error. I suspect you have managed to installed some old modules, somewhere within !Boot

What version of the Utility Module do you have running? So we can compare versions.

Have you run discknight across your drives to check they are OK?

I think it’s me being addressed.

@ Ron, Thanks for testing. I guess the answer to my original question is that it is just me.

I suspect you have managed to installed some old modules, somewhere within !Boot

The only modules I may have installed in !Boot for a very long time would have been in the regular ROOL updates.

What version of the Utility Module do you have running?

5.29. It comes with the ROMs mentioned above.

Have you run discknight across your drives to check they are OK?

See above… OK, yes.

Perhaps I’ll try putting the relevant bits of !Boot through DirSync & try a re-instal of OPro, one applet at a time. It’ll have to wait for a bit.

@ Fredrick Bambrough. Sorry about the N and M switch.
Regards Ron.

:-)

currently nightly RISC OS

Wow. I’ve found the 7th August build (as it was then) to be really rather unstable. Zap is quite crashy, with odd messages like “Not an error block” (if there are any useful messages shown); but worst of all, randomly when my weather station software tries to talk to the hardware via SerialUSB, the machine eventually freezes (reason not known). I know it’s that because of the timing.

But, mostly, Zap continually crashing annoyed me. So, I’ve reverted to the 15th July build.

Hardware: Pi2 with ARMv7; so I can’t see Long Descriptor changes being an issue here, as this device only has 1GB onboard.

Hmm…

I believe I’ve found the guilty party. Removal of one of the OPro applets, ‘Custom’ has restored things to normal.

Doing it as a process of elimination, I was grateful that the filename began with ‘C’ as there are 56 applets and each one required 2 reboots to avoid contamination by boot files.

I’ll have a quick look to see if there’s anything really obvious, else throw it in David Pilling’s direction.

Thanks for the contributions.

If I mess with *WimpVisualFlags from a TaskWindow, then my ridges are drawn in the usual yellow.

If I select and apply any theme, they turn light blue.

On my BB -xM the ridges now appear blue whereas on the Pi 4b they remain yellow. Settings are the same (I hope).

I believe I’ve found the guilty party. Removal of one of the OPro applets, ‘Custom’ has restored things to normal.
Doing it as a process of elimination, I was grateful that the filename began with ‘C’ as there are 56 applets and each one required 2 reboots to avoid contamination by boot files.

Just in case you are not aware if you double click on an active applet, it will add a – sign to end of applet name and this disables the applet from being used, you then only really need to re-launch Ovation Pro.

@Frederick as an aside you should really only have the applets you normally use within the Applets folder inside Ovation Pro, or at least if you must have them all in there for some reason, disable the ones not in normal use by double clicking on them so they have a – at the end of the applet name, and thus disabled.

FFS! I surrender.

FFS! I surrender.

I have only been trying to help you! In case you were not aware of the way to disable applets in Ovation Pro so they are not running unless needed. Oh well I will not bother in future.

Doing it as a process of elimination, I was grateful that the filename began with ‘C’ as there are 56 applets and each one required 2 reboots to avoid contamination by boot files.

Linear search vs. Binary :)
Testing half of the total failing set at once reduces the sequence. If you test a batch of 28 and there is no failure you absolved 28, test the other 28 and get a fail, then test 14 of those 28.

Worst case, test both halves, so two tests per level:
28,28, 14,14, 7,7 4,3 2,2 1,1

The Ovation Pro applet !Custom which causes this problem uses the RISC OS ‘tile_1’ feature. My program PinWay also uses the ‘tile_1’ RISC OS feature and if RISC OS 5.29 (5-9-2021) is loaded also causes lots of RISC OS and programs to go haywire. It seems that the ‘tile_1’ feature is to blame. What has been changed in RISC OS with the ‘tile_1’ feature?

What has been changed in RISC OS with the ‘tile_1’ feature?

Add themeable icon bar tiles dated 10 July, which ties in with this