Random Quitting

[Fred Perkins]

Our office has been having the random quitting problem sporadically for awhile but it is now becoming too much. I?ve heard other discussion of the problem but no solutions. The problem is that the program will quit at random intervals. For some people it has been over ten times a day. Occasionally there is a type 2 error message but not always. We have 14 users and most have been having the problem but some haven?t. We are using Mac OS 9.2.2 and VectorWorks 9.5.1. If there is not a solution, or a fix coming soon, I will have to think about going back to 8.5 which will be a major hassle.

[MikeN]

Switch to PC with WinXP Pro and 9.5.1 - Super stable!

[Joe Newell]

That's right!!what a great idea.Throw away all your nasty mackintoshes ignoring the immense cash outlay you made to purchase them in the first place. Shell out more cash for shiny new PCs (complete with a whole host of their own problems) and completely ignore the source of the problem.

Super super stable!!!

[Fuge]

I don't know what exactly everyone's experience has been with VW9.x.x, but I have found working with VW 9.5.1 in OS9 to be pretty stable given that you allocate a ton of ram to it. I find VW's doesn't start working good until it's given a minimum of 300mb's. Also I jumped into OSX about 5 weeks ago and have found VW's to be even more stable there. I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised and have yet to crash VW's.

Dave

[CipesDesign]

Fred,

Are you all using VW's over a network??? Maybe there is something other than VW or the basic OS that is to blame. PLC

[krw]

I have been having the same problem with vw quitting and getting a type 2 and type 11 error. Has anyone figured out the problem? My file are on a network and I have 150 mb alotthed to vw. I am using vw 9.5.1 on mac os 9.2

[TiTaNiuM sAMuRai]

I switched about half a dozen or so McOS9.1/2 machines from vw8.5.2 to 9.5.1, allocated 32k / 100k (VM on, 128MB physical), and I had no complaints. On my OSX.1.4, I usually get unexplained quitting when purging or revert-to-save'ing, and my machine has 512 physical.

[Fred Perkins]

We are not using the files over the network, they are on the individual computers. The memory allotment to the program varies from 100 to 400 MBs and the computers are a variety ranging from Cubes to Dual gigs.

[Guest]

Error Type 2 is usually a memory addressing error. Either there isn't enough memory allocated to the program, or there is a conflict with another extension, or there is too much memory allocated and not enough memory for the system to run its necessary functions.

To check your memory allocation settings, go to the VW folder, highlight the VW application. Go to File>Get Info. See what you have set for the min and preferred. If the preferred is less than 50,000, you probably need to allocate more by increasing this number. Depending on how many other applications you run while VW runs, if you have VM turned on and how much built in memory you have will determine where to draw the line with increasing that number. Generally I don't go over 180,000 unless absolutely necessary.

[Fred Perkins]

Thanks for the reply Katie, but unfortunately RAM allocation can?t be the problem because it is happening in a variety of cases where the physical RAM varies from 500 MB to 1.5 GB and the program allotment varies from 100 to 400 MB. It could be an extension conflict, but we run fairly basic systems.

Updating the Carbonlib seems to have helped today, but that might have more to do with the phase of the moon. Since updating the Carbonlib there has only been one quit which is not great, but it is considerably better than the crippling ten time a day. I was under the impression that this was a somewhat common problem for other users, so I am surprised that you have not encountered it before.

[kla_anders]

it used to happen to me a lot also but I'm pretty sure it was an extensions problem. Ended up upgrading my OS.

[losolin]

I am unaware of any similar problems of the nature you describe in our office where we run 10 VW9.5.1 stations. We recently upgraded the CarbonLib extension on all our systems, but whether that would have anything to do with it I can not say.

Our office is using various G4 configurations with anywhere from 64 to 90MB ram reserved for the program on systems ranging from 256MB to 512MB. The common OS is 9.2.1 and we all open and save files from a networked MacOS file server.

[Fred Perkins]

A couple of the worst Quitters did need a new carbonlib so we'll see if that offers any help.

[Guest]

If you are running a fairly basic setup of extensions, check to make sure you have the most recent version of the extensions. It could be that one is not the most recent version and is causing a conflict. A big conflict we've noticed is video drivers. If you have only one video card in your computer, some of the Macs came with two sets of video drivers. One was the ATI card and the other was the NVIDIA card. By just have that installed, it can cause a conflict. If you have one or the other, go back and remove all the associations with the other card that you don't have.

Generally speaking though, an error type 2 is 99.9999% of the time either mem allocation - having too much or too little, or an extension conflict.