ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

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radio42
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by radio42 »

Thanks for the dump.
It indicated, that the error was caused by a corrupted (heap) memory.
This can happen by two main reasons:
a) for managed parts of the applications (.Net), this can only happen, when the .Net Framework itself causes the error and is buggy.
b) for unmanaged parts of the app it is caused by the related unmanaged (non .Net) parts itself, like e.g. the drivers being used

ProppFrexx itself is entirely written in C# using .Net. But it of course uses unmanaged parts, e.g. for the the audio processing part.

I find option a) very unlikely and would like to exclude that (as there is currently no know heap corruption error in the .Net Framework; as well as no other user reports such error).
As such, I assume, that the error happens during the audio processing. This is even more likely, as this is exactly reported in the dump file you reported - audio processing is just happening before the exception in the dump.

But this means, that I can not solve or help much with the error (as the error is not caused directly by ProppFrexx) - it happens outside of ProppFrexx ONAIR, e.g. in either your audio driver or a VST you are using.
If you are using a VST(s), try to remove/disable them to see, if the error still occurs. If not, you found it.
Else, try to update your audio driver, to see, if that solves the error.

Finally, the only other error reason (which is running in parallel in the debug dump) is a TitleUpdate of an ICEcast stream. During this operation, the UserAgent is determined, which is freely configurable in the general settings, section General/Audio. Have you changed that value to something weird? If yes, you can try resetting that to its default value of "ProppFrexx/4.0".
phonic
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by phonic »

I know ProppFrexx is a C# .Net application and have already checked for old of date or corrupted .net libs to rule out such problem. I've not had time myself to looked at the dump but I also doubt that would be the reason due to it happening on two very different systems. one being a HP Dedicated Server running windows server(without any dedicated sound card), and the other running windows 10.

However, both systems have one thing in common and that is they both use StereoTool for broadcast processing running via the DSP1 using the VST plugin. So this could be the issue(strange it's just started happening, but could be a bug that has been introduced in a recent release). I'll have a took on the StereoTool forums for anything related.
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radio42
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by radio42 »

To rule out Stereotool, you might simply deactivate it, to see if that disappears?!
phonic
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by phonic »

radio42 wrote: 31 Aug 2021 07:05 To rule out Stereotool, you might simply deactivate it, to see if that disappears?!
Yes that would be the easy option, but unfortunately it took 1 month to get the last crash dump and you can't simply turn off broadcast processing on a live system that brodcasts on DAB. To remove this from the equation I will look at routing ProppFrexx output to the standalone version of StereoTool.

You mentioned title updates, the system does send to ICEcast on multiple streaming servers and does indeed send title updates in different ways some via ProppFrexx encoders and for DAB via "OnSongTitleChange" that sends to a php script, and in the early days of development did crash and close ProppFrexx due to a silly bug in the code. I only wish I had taken crash dumps. I may also try and recreate that as well.
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by radio42 »

A heap corruption (as in the crash dump) means for example, that X bytes of memory is allocated, but the application is writing Y (y > x) bytes to it and as such writes outside of the allocated area. Which might overwrite other memory- causing a corrupted memory.
In .Net this is not possible. But outside of ProppFrexx it is.

So both of your candidates might be the reason - but I know, it is very hard to find the real cause. Almost by removing/replacing candidate by candidate can find it.
phonic
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by phonic »

radio42 wrote: 31 Aug 2021 13:20 A heap corruption (as in the crash dump) means for example, that X bytes of memory is allocated, but the application is writing Y (y > x) bytes to it and as such writes outside of the allocated area. Which might overwrite other memory- causing a corrupted memory.
In .Net this is not possible. But outside of ProppFrexx it is.

So both of your candidates might be the reason - but I know, it is very hard to find the real cause. Almost by removing/replacing candidate by candidate can find it.
I’ve had a look this evening at the crash dump and confident it’s the stereoTool VST plug-in and appears to have a bug. I’ll check if they have any updates or bug reports on this.
Last edited by phonic on 31 Aug 2021 23:35, edited 1 time in total.
phonic
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Re: ProppFrexx has started closing as random times

Post by phonic »

Yes, they’ve just released a new version and does include a bug fix for a memory leak along with many others, but leakage is lost memory not corruption. I’ll update anyway in the hope it does resolve the issue :)

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