flash9f.ocx crashes

[Jonathon Stierman-2]

Has anyone experienced random crashing on their Flex apps after long
usages?  One of my apps is causing IE to shut down after running for a
few days -- it's a kiosk-esque app, so it does commonly run for an
extended period of time.

The error from the Application event log:

Faulting application: iexplore.exe, version 7.0.6000.16608
Faulting module: flash9c.ocx, version 9.0.45.0
Fault address: 0x0000286f

I've been able to reproduce this on two machines (both Pentium Win XP
SP2 boxes) with varying versions of IE and Flash9*.ocx.  

I've found a few reports of this happening to other applications.
Re-installing the Flash Player has "sometimes" fixed the issue, but
nobody is able to tell exactly what is causing the problem -- Is it
something specific in the application?  Something with the Flash Player?
Something with Windows XP/IE?  

Has this happened to anyone else on the list?  Did you find any
information on a reliable fix?

Thanks!

Jonathon

[Alex Harui]

Use the proflier to watch for memory leaks.

 

________________________________

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
Behalf Of Jonathon Stierman
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:56 AM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: [flexcoders] flash9f.ocx crashes

 

Has anyone experienced random crashing on their Flex apps after long
usages? One of my apps is causing IE to shut down after running for a
few days -- it's a kiosk-esque app, so it does commonly run for an
extended period of time.

The error from the Application event log:

Faulting application: iexplore.exe, version 7.0.6000.16608
Faulting module: flash9c.ocx, version 9.0.45.0
Fault address: 0x0000286f

I've been able to reproduce this on two machines (both Pentium Win XP
SP2 boxes) with varying versions of IE and Flash9*.ocx.

I've found a few reports of this happening to other applications.
Re-installing the Flash Player has "sometimes" fixed the issue, but
nobody is able to tell exactly what is causing the problem -- Is it
something specific in the application? Something with the Flash Player?
Something with Windows XP/IE?

Has this happened to anyone else on the list? Did you find any
information on a reliable fix?

Thanks!

Jonathon

 

[Jonathon Stierman-2]

I did run a profile last night.  As far as I can tell, everything is
normal...

 

Peak Memory: 3486 k

Current Memory: 1482 k

 

3486k isn't anything that should be causing the system to run out of
memory and crash.  There aren't any class instances hanging around that
shouldn't be there.  Memory doesn't "staircase up" after the GC runs.
Everything appears to be collected properly.  Unless I am
mis-interpreting the data... If someone feels so kind as to take a look
at a snapshot and confirm my interpretations, here's an image of what
I'm analyzing.  I left the profiler on over-night, and this is what I
came in to in the morning - so there are *lots* of cumulative instances
for a few classes: http://jonathon.wmtstaging.com/profile.jpg 

 

This app does load static .swf's on a timely basis (every 2 seconds or
so).  I vaguely remember hearing that loading external .swf files can
cause memory issues - could that be the case?  And would those leaks not
be present in the profiler?

 

On a related note - "Peak Memory: 3486 k."   What exactly does that
mean?  When I've watched the app run inside IE7 or Firefox, the browsers
memory usage increases far more than 3 megs worth.  Is there really that
much browser overhead when running Flash apps?

 

Jonathon

 

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
Behalf Of Alex Harui
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 12:39 AM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: RE: [flexcoders] flash9f.ocx crashes

 

Use the proflier to watch for memory leaks.

 

 

[Jonathon Stierman-2]

No other ideas?

 

Is there any more information I could give that would be helpful?

 

I did go through the application and make all event listeners use weak
references.  I also updated the Loader object to cache items.  So rather
than constantly load and unload external .swf files, it load and saves
them once, and checks for existing references before going out to
download again.  Results in a slightly higher overall memory
consumption, but hopefully more stable.

 

Jonathon

 

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
Behalf Of Jonathon Stierman
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 12:37 PM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: RE: [flexcoders] flash9f.ocx crashes

 

I did run a profile last night.  As far as I can tell, everything is
normal...

 

Peak Memory: 3486 k

Current Memory: 1482 k

 

3486k isn't anything that should be causing the system to run out of
memory and crash.  There aren't any class instances hanging around that
shouldn't be there.  Memory doesn't "staircase up" after the GC runs.
Everything appears to be collected properly.  Unless I am
mis-interpreting the data... If someone feels so kind as to take a look
at a snapshot and confirm my interpretations, here's an image of what
I'm analyzing.  I left the profiler on over-night, and this is what I
came in to in the morning - so there are *lots* of cumulative instances
for a few classes: http://jonathon.wmtstaging.com/profile.jpg 

 

This app does load static .swf's on a timely basis (every 2 seconds or
so).  I vaguely remember hearing that loading external .swf files can
cause memory issues - could that be the case?  And would those leaks not
be present in the profiler?

 

On a related note - "Peak Memory: 3486 k."   What exactly does that
mean?  When I've watched the app run inside IE7 or Firefox, the browsers
memory usage increases far more than 3 megs worth.  Is there really that
much browser overhead when running Flash apps?

 

Jonathon