Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => Bugs and Issues => Topic started by: skiwi on December 01, 2022, 01:34:59 pm

Title: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 01, 2022, 01:34:59 pm
I've (finally) got 1605 (64bit) on Windows with PCS access to SQL Server.


I'm finding it is not very stable - closing (i.e. crashing) with no message on average daily!


Do you have a similar experience.
I'm reluctant to roll it out as is?
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: BobM on December 01, 2022, 07:17:00 pm
yes 1605 had this issue,

try 1622 instead
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Sunshine on December 01, 2022, 07:38:53 pm
Didn't have any crashing with 1605 and sql server in our environment.
Update, it's 32 bit
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: BobM on December 01, 2022, 08:33:50 pm
Didn't have any crashing with 1605 and sql server in our environment
It was quite frequent (Sparx suddenly stopping)
It is very hard to reproduce but, in our opinion, it had something to do with copied elements which included glossary terms
I can't remember exactly but I think I tested both procloud and direct access to the SQL database

I'm curious what skiwi his experience is when it happened
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Richard Freggi on December 02, 2022, 02:17:33 am
16.1 (build 1622) crashed repeatedly on my machine while running queries on the *.qea local repository on the SQL scratchpad.  I was writing a new query, so probably I had an issue in my SQL, but still: no error message, application just closes (disappears).  Happened maybe 8 or 9 times in 1 day.  I finished my query and now it runs fine.

Definitely not as stable as my old EA 13.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Geert Bellekens on December 02, 2022, 04:08:09 am
I agree, I've seen more crashes in v16 than in v15.2.

I can't really put my finger on it, as it happens at seemingly random moments, but definitely less stable than 15.2

Geert
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 02, 2022, 10:38:19 am
Well its now crashing on me frequently.
It's difficult to report when there is no crash message, no error dump, or no option to turn on "phone home (https://sparxsystems.com/forums/smf/index.php/topic,9716.msg144038.html#msg144038)".


It's also difficult to identify a cause.
All of the crashes are when I am working in diagrams.
Recently I had selected several items and was moving them together, crash.
The last crash I pasted from a Word Doc to a notes field in the side column and away she went.
Crash. Just closed an entity whose note I had updated, then boom.
Crash. In diagram just clicking between entities to view their notes in the side pane.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Eve on December 02, 2022, 12:15:21 pm
Difficult to say much when you don't have a reproduceable cause and I haven't seen it in my usage of EA.

My (reluctant) recommendation is to enable "User-Mode Dumps" (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/wer/collecting-user-mode-dumps)

I'd recommend setting it to a mini dump and collecting a few to give us the best (but not guaranteed) chance and being able to identify the cause(s).

PS. EA has never had custom error reporting. So the option to send a crash report would be going to Microsoft, not us. I don't know what they do with them, but it's not going to help.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Sunshine on December 02, 2022, 03:59:18 pm
Nothing in the windows event log?
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: BobM on December 02, 2022, 06:19:44 pm
The last crash I pasted from a Word Doc to a notes field in the side column and away she went.
Crash. Just closed an entity whose note I had updated, then boom.
Crash.
We had the exact same behavior
The problem is if you try again it won't crash the next times, try 20 times and it crashes the twentieth time

Nothing in the windows event log?
Yes, supplied all of them to Sparx (it's always the same message for every user) but it hasn't made it clearer for them to find out the root cause
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Geert Bellekens on December 03, 2022, 12:55:33 am
I found a reasonably reproducable crash with EA v16.1.1622 in the 64 bit edition.
This doesn't seem to happen in the 32 bit edition.

When I generate a few schema composer schema's with my Message Composer, EA crashes hard.
It never happens on the first generation, but often on the second or third one.
The error in the event viewer:

Faulting application name: EA.exe, version: 16.1.0.1622, time stamp: 0x637c546c
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.18362.1533, time stamp: 0xd6055cfe
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x000000000008d17f
Faulting process id: 0x129e0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d90652acfa90c0
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Sparx Systems\EA\EA.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: ca51ff8c-635a-4cd7-9cab-ee85a7f5a959
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:


I've sent this info, plus the mini-dump to support.

Geert
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 05, 2022, 06:18:03 am
I'm working on getting mini-dump turned on, but it requires admin priv to change the registry, and therefore level 2 support, and opsec support,  ....
lol, and I can't run the event viewer - again its restricted in my corporate env

Imagine if EA had an option within it that could be turned on to capture crash dumps!
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Eve on December 05, 2022, 08:31:29 am
Imagine if EA had an option within it that could be turned on to capture crash dumps!
I'm imagining. The result would be that as soon as organizations of all kinds that restrict this kind of thing immediately revoke their authorization to use Enterprise Architect.

It's reasons like this that I only reluctantly recommended it.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 05, 2022, 01:04:53 pm
lol  ;D
imagine that.
Anyway, did get minidumps enabled,
and coincidentally EA obliged very soon after, so a dump is on its way to support. Thanks.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 06, 2022, 06:46:30 am
Progress report - 14 crash dumps submitted and counting ...


looking forward to hearing from Sparx EA support  ;)
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 07, 2022, 11:51:52 am
Problem must be a doozy (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doozy), in use EA is not staying up for more than an hour.
I can say it doesn't matter whether I am accessing our DB (SQL Server) via PCS or directly.
Pretty close to the point where I will have to roll it back if I don't hear anything.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 08, 2022, 01:31:12 pm
After 27 crash dumps I gave up on 16.0.
I was able to get build 1622 manually installed in the hope the problem would have been fixed.
But it only took a few minutes until crash 28 occurred.


I have been thinking the crashes only occurred when I was manipulating diagrams,
but I was disabused of this when it crashed as I edited an entity in the properties windows.


ah well
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Eve on December 08, 2022, 01:51:44 pm
I haven't seen all of your stack dumps, but the ones I saw didn't provide anything useful.

Have you tried the 32 bit version? I don't think I've seen that many crashes in 16 and I was using the early development 16 64 bit version consistently for almost a year before it was released.
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 09, 2022, 09:38:22 am
Thanks.

Managed to get 16.1 1622 32 bit installed and its stable.

Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: Paolo F Cantoni on December 09, 2022, 01:01:34 pm
Thanks.

Managed to get 16.1 1622 32-bit installed, and it's stable.
Yes, we've found that also...

Paolo
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 09, 2022, 03:54:40 pm
Thanks.

Managed to get 16.1 1622 32-bit installed, and it's stable.
Yes, we've found that also...

Paolo
I'll quality that, down to one crash in an afternoon (and mini-dump dispatched)
Title: Re: Stability of 1605
Post by: skiwi on December 19, 2022, 08:59:17 am
Update: I have now been able to send off mini dumps.
Apparently they show "nothing useful"


Amazingly I was able to (after a time) get the ability to run PrcMon and ProcExplorer and see the event log and have provided all these dumps to support.
I am now hoping to hear from them and find out what the issue is.
I do think it is related to working a lot in diagrams (memory leak or dangling pointer anyone?)


The 32 bit is relatively stable (i.e. not as stable as v15)