Mac SFP 3.1c and Modular III

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 7:11 pm

Just wondering if any other Mactintosh users are experiencing sudden crashing/quitting of SFP when working in Mod III.

I never noticed this problem before, mainly because I only recently upgraded to MOD III - but quite often when I have a modular window open and adding new modules (or in fact - just having it open and studying) , SFP unexpectedly quits.

I also have a strange graphic glitch when I move the open modular window to my second monitor - I get artifacts and multiple mouse cursors plastered all over the window after I move it (???)

Any help would be appreciated.

SFP 3.1c, OS 9.2.2, Quicksilver 867mhz, 896MB ram
19" + 17" monitors

---------EDIT --------
I know this ground has been covered before, but I originally thought it might be a memory issue . . . so I increased SFP's memory allocation from 20mb to 80mb and initially the crashing and graphic glitching went away. But the very next day, without changing anything - it's back.. so.... I'm at a loss.....

[ This Message was edited by: blgrace on 2003-07-13 20:20 ]

[ This Message was edited by: blgrace on 2003-07-18 03:35 ]

Post by **hubird** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 7:45 pm

don't have ModIII, so can't help you, sorry

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 5:22 am

blgrace, could you disconnect the 2nd screen just as long to rule out that this is not causing the trouble ?
What graphcard do you use ?
I'd suspect it somewhere in the graphics area, not the modular itself.
Some general background: Macs in their 'classical' form had a very reliable multi-screen handling, but SFP's graphic interface has a different origin - and it is far from being the greatest piece of programming on earth.
The graphcard manufacturers have their roots in a different way of programming drivers, too.
Probably something got stuck between the interface and the screen.
If it's memory related then it's generally not the amount, but the type of hardware memory. A mac application usually catches all memory size trouble and informs you accordingly.

hope this gets you on the way, Tom

borg · Post by **borg** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 9:05 am

strange...

a couple of weeks ago i had the same issues on my machine (g3 450mhz), well, at least the crashing (the cursor thing was solved after i upgraded to 3.1c) while giving flexor a try out run on mac. it occured really ad random, yes, even when doing nothing... and only after a long run (approx. one hour)

i was then using os9.1 and after i did the upgrade to 9.2.2, all failures where gone.
so i thought this could be the reason, but now you report the same on the latest 9x.

damn...
sorry to not being able to help.

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:52 pm

I'm away from my computer for a few days - so can't test anything now. But thanks for your replies.
Astroman - the graphic cards are the biult-in AGP x2 and a Rage ORION. The Orion only has 16mb of ram on it, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Can't work out why the problem disappeared after upping the memory alloc - then went back to its old tricks. Must have been a coincidence. Damn - hate those coincidences

[ This Message was edited by: blgrace on 2003-07-14 20:55 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 3:28 pm

blgrace, I re-read your statement about the error coming back next day, after you changed the memory alloc.
Could it be that it's related to time of use in the way that with a small mem set the error occurs earlier ?
That would be typical for a certain kind of programming errors which allocate 'illegal' memory locations.
As long as that happens 'inside' the application's data space it may not hit anything (and isn't noticed), but if system locations are affected then the machine crashes. The cursor icons indicate something in that direction.
I remember some tools for finding such errors, but I'm not shure if they are still usable under MacOS 9.

good luck, Tom

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 2:58 am

Hmmm... it's a totally random problem - sometimes I'll get the crashing within the first 10 minutes of use - sometimes I can run for 6 hours and no problems.
I played with the memory alloc again - put it back to 40mb and so far I haven't had the problem come back. There are ghosts in the machine. I probably need to think about reinstalling - but not until something catostrophic happens - naturally