Computer hangs and crash on the refine tool, v1.9.2.1035. Win 10 pro

[Jan TW]

Everytime i try to refine, the computer hangs. I start the computer several times again but with no luck.

[Chris B]

Hey Jan TW,

Can you try different Output settings and see if the app still hangs?

There have been a few issues over the years with Refine Selection however we cannot always reliably reproduce them.

[DRM]

I am also using Affinity Version 1.9.2.1035. Yesterday I clicked on "Refine" and Affinity blocked, although it used only about 1% of CPU, so no idea what it was doing. Maybe out of memory (I have 8 GB, but is there a limit)?

Today was worse. I tried to edit the same photo once more, and when selecting some distant mountains across the Salar de Uyuni salt flat (so low contrast), not only did Affinity block once more, but for the first time in years I got the "Blue Screen of Death". Data was sent to Microsof t and the system rebooted. I enclose the jpeg (4397) so the Affinity team can experiment themselves. The selection which crashed was along the line at the top 20% of the photo between the salt (at 3700 metres) and the distant mountains. The selection line was horizontal along the white salt until it reached the mountain on the right in the middle ground, where I tried to select along the ridge top. This has crashed Affinity twice (and Windows once), so you should be able to reproduce the problem "chez vous."

Please let me know if this helps!  David M.

[Komatös]

When Windows shuts down with a BSOD. Faulty system files and/or drivers are usually responsible.

My quick tip. Press Windows key + R. Enter sfc /scannow in the input line. Hold down Shift + CTRL and click OK.

sfc scans the computer for faulty (system) files and repairs them if necessary.
 

[DRM]

Dear Komatös, thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it over the weekend. However, that the BSOD arrived after Affinity blocked for the second time, and has not done so for many years, is enormously suggestive. The PC didn't crash yesterday, probably because I used the task manager to stop the Affinity application after a few minutes, whereas today I just let it run to see what would happen. And now I know.

It looks like Affinity is using some sort of system resource until it runs out. It isn't CPU, but maybe it is memory or threads, or? I don't know how Affinity is written, but maybe there is a race condition between several threads or processes. However, I am 99% sure that the proximate cause is the Refine function, perhaps provoked by working on a low-contrast image.

[Komatös]

In the event of a BSOD, an error code and the process that triggered the blue screen are always displayed. 
In addition to the error code and the process, it is useful to know a little more about the hardware used, especially CPU and GPU. 
 

[DRM]

 

About fifty years ago I could toggle in the bootstrap loader on a PDP11 using the keys on the front panel. I now feel like I am drowning in the complexity of Windows-10. Maybe I can blame Dave Cutler, whom I once met... The most relevant message I have found is this one, but without a minimum of training it is essentially impossible to decode the web of error messages, even after applying a filter. 

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xffff878eeb44f0a0, 0x0000000000000011, 0xffff878eeb44f0a0, 0x0000000000000002). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: ed3f0cc9-ee22-4bfc-8108-d519e0306f00.

I'll try and run a scan for faulty files shortly.

Concerning the PC:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz   with 16 GB of RAM (not 8, that was my last machine)

It has a 500 GB SSD for the o/s and user accounts, plus a 3 TB HDD used for image and music files and nightly system backups. There is also a networked WD 3TB disk which stores the last 5 copies of all changed files. 

The display is a calibrated BenQ 4K 32 inch driven by graphics card VCQP2200-PB 5GB GDDR5X (160-bit).

The o/s is Windows 10 Home, build 19043.1023. (Latest 21H1 with all updates). A/V is Bitdefender.

Applications: MS Office, PSE, Affinity, iTunes, Canon DPP, Acronis, Edge, FileMaker Pro, Brother Print. NO games or risky apps.

[Komatös]

0x00000050 or PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA

This Stop message occurs when requested data is not found in memory. The system generates a fault, which normally indicates that the system looks for data in the paging file. In this circumstance, however, the missing data is identified as being located within an area of memory that cannot be paged out to disk. The system faults, but cannot find the data and is unable to recover. Faulty hardware, a buggy system service, antivirus software, and a corrupted NTFS volume can all generate this type of error.

Possible solutions: Update Intel drivers, update GPU driver, test your memory, disable BitDefender for testing purposes, 

[DRM]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my various messages. I ran the sfc scan as suggested. In fact I had to run it twice, because the window closes by itself when the scan finishes (which I think is odd), so if you aren't watching it you don't know what happened. Anyway, the second time I sat and watched and it reached 100% without any error messages.

As to the bugcheck, almost all those I ever remember seeing were due to an attempt to address an illegal location. Presumably the error must occur in the execution of system code (as you suggest, a driver or service), otherwise the application could crash and not the whole O/S. However, as the bugcheck occurred whilst Affinity was in a blocked state, and the blockage occurred twice when attempting "Refine" on the same area of the same image, I would still put money on a bug in Affinity. Presumably it makes a system call with illegal parameters which are not checked ? (If I remember, the European Space Agency crashed their first Ariane 5 launch by not checking the range of an input parameter.)

I guess the most sensible thing for me to do is to wait and see if I get a BSOD in any other circumstances before digging deeper, although it would be interesting for someone from Affinity to try to replicate what I did as I sent the jpeg and details of what provokes the problem. Irrespective of the BSOD, the fact that Affinity blocked twice at the same point surely indicates that there is a bug in their code, especially as I was not the first person the see a problem like this?

Schönes wochenende, David M.