matteosistisette

I am trying Max/MSP/Jitter for Windows XP - I have downloaded the 30-days trial - before I buy it.

I have been playing around a little bit just for a couple of days and it already happened twice or maybe three times that it suddenly crashed without a reason.

Well, when a program crashes it is *always* without a reason, since a program should never ever crash (it should give error messages and stops operations gently)... However in this case I mean it crashed at random moments while I was doing nothing erroneous nor even anything special, nor resource-consuming.

For example doing something as trivial as clicking on a message box to edit it - and with just some super-trivial patch loaded.

I am a little bit worried, as I don't think I am willing to pay $800 or more for a software that isn't even stable.

Well, when a program crashes it is *always* without a reason, since a program should never ever crash (it should give error messages and stops operations gently)... However in this case I mean it crashed at random moments while I was doing nothing erroneous nor even anything special, nor resource-consuming.
For example doing something as trivial as clicking on a message box to edit it - and with just some super-trivial patch loaded.

I am a little bit worried, as I don't think I am willing to pay $800 or more for a software that isn't even stable.


crashes-under-windowsxp

> Save the trivial patch that crashed as txt and post it.

It's not the patch. It's not a specific patch.

I mean, there's no specific reproducible action that triggers systematically a crash.

It just crashed at random times while doing basically nothing.

For example this last time I had a help patch open and inactive (that is, with no metro turned on or other stuff nor anything that was "doing" anything), and on a clean patcher I created a message box and clicked on it in "unlocked" mode (so as to edit the content, NOT trigger the message, which however still wasn't connected to anything so couldn't cause anything to happen) and Max just closed, without even generating a crash report or dialog. Just closed.

No externals installed however, just a fresh clean max/msp + jitter install.

> crashes, you have a problem with your hardware or with xp but

I don't know how you can be so sure of that.

However, if there's a problem with the hardware, a stable software would detect it and generate some error message.

You're right in that it may be Window's fault, however.

> Hi,
>
> Save the trivial patch that crashed as txt and post it.

It's not the patch. It's not a specific patch.
I mean, there's no specific reproducible action that triggers systematically a crash.

>  If Max still  
> crashes, you have a problem with your hardware or with xp but
> surely  
> not with a clean Max install.

I don't know how you can be so sure of that.
Basically you are assuming that.

You're right in that it may be Window's fault, however.


> A program *always* crash for a reason, actually because 

There are mainly 3 reasons I can think of why a program can crash:

2) An erroneous input or erroneous behaviour of the user

3) A malfunctioning in another software (such as the operating system) interacting with the program, or in the hardware

However, reason (2) is a special case of reason (1), since a program should ALWAYS check for input validity, and in case of incorrect behaviour of the user should respond with error messages and such things. Indeed erroneous input is just one more kind of input. In extreme cases a software may suspend its activity, but if it crashes (and if it is not for reason 3) it is a bug by definition.

When I said "without a reason" I meant that it was not case 2, and that's for sure, and that I don't think it's case 3, thought I cannot be 100% positive of the latter.

99% of the times, when a program crashes, it is because of a bug of the program. Even when it is in consequence of an error condition generated outside the program (i.e. in a call to some operating system funcion or something like that), OFTEN the external part is not malfunctioning but rather correctly reporting an error that the program is not handling correctly - that's a bug.

Obviously I am not saying it is the case of max in this case, as I cannot know that.

And if it crashes so often that you even have some statistics at hand, then it's quite unstable.

Thousands of users may be right, or they may be wrong.

However, thousands of user are right/wrong saying what??

Thousands of users are saying that they've never seen max crash? I don't discuss that. I've seen max crash, so it does crash unless I am having allucinations - which is even possible.

> A program *always* crash for a reason, actually because 
> they're 
> programs. 

Yeah, obviously.
There are mainly 3 reasons I can think of why a program can crash:
1) A bug in the program
2) An erroneous input or erroneous behaviour of the user
3) A malfunctioning in another software (such as the operating system) interacting with the program, or in the hardware

99% of the times, when a program crashes, it is because of a bug of the program. Even when it is in consequence of an error condition generated outside the program (i.e. in a call to some operating system funcion or something like that), OFTEN the external part is not malfunctioning but rather correctly reporting an error that the program is not handling correctly - that's a bug.
Obviously I am not saying it is the case of max in this case, as I cannot know that.

If it crashes, it is not stable.
And if it crashes so often that you even have some statistics at hand, then it's quite unstable.

Thousands of users are saying that they've never seen max crash? I don't discuss that. I've seen max crash, so it does crash unless I am having allucinations - which is even possible.


Well, there are lots of reasons why Max can crash, and not all of 

them are Max's fault, although some of them are. If you're using 3rd 

party objects which don't check the validity of their input, that's 

not our fault. But if you're using our objects, and find a crasher, 

it will be fixed, assuming that you can help us to reproduce the crash.

It might bear noting that it's relatively easy to check for all 

possible input in a program which is based on fixed structures. Since 

our users can change the order of modules more or less freely, it's 

kind of challenging to test every possible configuration of objects, 

All that said, there are lots and lots of people who use Max on 

Windows XP every day without crashing, so there's likely something 

specific to your hardware, OS or Max installation which is causing 

your trouble. Luckily, we have a support team in place to help out 

with this kind of stuff - you might want to employ their services.

Am 26.07.2007 um 17:07 schrieb matteo sisti sette:

Well, there are lots of reasons why Max can crash, and not all of  
them are Max's fault, although some of them are. If you're using 3rd  
party objects which don't check the validity of their input, that's  
not our fault. But if you're using our objects, and find a crasher,  
it will be fixed, assuming that you can help us to reproduce the crash.

It might bear noting that it's relatively easy to check for all  
possible input in a program which is based on fixed structures. Since  
our users can change the order of modules more or less freely, it's  
kind of challenging to test every possible configuration of objects,  
to understate the situation a bit.

All that said, there are lots and lots of people who use Max on  
Windows XP every day without crashing, so there's likely something  
specific to your hardware, OS or Max installation which is causing  
your trouble. Luckily, we have a support team in place to help out  
with this kind of stuff - you might want to employ their services.

>> Max *is* stable. When it crashes, ...
>
> If it crashes, it is not stable.


I have been using Max on XP for years so I can attest to its 

stability, it works great. There is most likely some driver 

issue or system issue on your computer. Did you check the Event 

Viewer (Administrative Tools) to see if there was an error 

logged? Do you have any virus checking software running? Do you 

have the latest drivers for your hardware installed? Did you 

have any previous versions of Max installed? 

I have been using Max on XP for years so I can attest to its 
stability, it works great. There is most likely some driver 
issue or system issue on your computer. Did you check the Event 
Viewer (Administrative Tools) to see if there was an error 
logged? Do you have any virus checking software running? Do you 
have the latest drivers for your hardware installed? Did you 
have any previous versions of Max installed? 


Am 26.07.2007 um 16:42 schrieb matteo sisti sette:

>> crashes, you have a problem with your hardware or with xp but

> I don't know how you can be so sure of that.

Well, beside using Max professionally for many projects I have been 

teaching Max for 6 years and I met so many people with these sort of 

questions, and I installed Max on many systems xp as well as osx. On 

some systems, especially xp I had problems but they could always be 

solved often with the help of this forum. They never had something to 

This forum is a great information source as there are many very 

experienced users including the people from C74 spending their time 

to help others. If you insist on blaming Max for the crashes instead 

of doing what people have told you, you might loose this source 

>>  If Max still
>> crashes, you have a problem with your hardware or with xp but
>> surely
>> not with a clean Max install.
>
> I don't know how you can be so sure of that.
> Basically you are assuming that.
Well, beside using Max professionally for many projects I have been  
teaching Max for 6 years and I met so many people with these sort of  
questions, and I installed Max on many systems xp as well as osx. On  
some systems, especially xp I had problems but they could always be  
solved often with the help of this forum. They never had something to  
do with (clean) Max.

One last advice:
This forum is a great information source as there are many very  
experienced users including the people from C74  spending their time  
to help others. If you insist on blaming Max for the crashes instead  
of doing what people have told you, you might loose this source  
before you experienced the value of it.

I've found Max on XP to be pretty sensitive to what audio driver I'm using on my system. With ASIO4All I had low CPU use but a lot of "random" (ie, not reproducible by following the same steps) crashing, even when doing seemingly harmless things like you say. With WDM drivers CPU use increases substantially on my system, and everything (especially GUI objects) slows down. Right now I'm using a firewire soundcard with its own ASIO drivers, and all the problems I had before went away right after I started using the new driver.

I don't know if that will help you, but it might be something to think about. Do you see any difference if you have the dac enabled/disabled?

I've found Max on XP to be pretty sensitive to what audio driver I'm using on my system. With ASIO4All I had low CPU use but a lot of "random" (ie, not reproducible by following the same steps) crashing, even when doing seemingly harmless things like you say. With WDM drivers CPU use increases substantially on my system, and everything (especially GUI objects) slows down. Right now I'm using a firewire soundcard with its own ASIO drivers, and all the problems I had before went away right after I started using the new driver. 

I don't know if that will help you, but it might be something to think about. Do you see any difference if you have the dac enabled/disabled?


crashes under WindowsXP