EA stability

[skiwi]

With EA 17 in the pipeline my wish is for more stability, and optional phone home error reporting
(those long in the tooth will recall this from some time back).


My experience is that EA disappears (crashes) without any warning (i.e. crashes are not caught and no error message or log file is created) at least weekly and generally several times a week (EA 16.1.1627).


The purpose of this post is is ask if you observe crashes and at what frequency.


Simon

[Eve]

With EA 17 in the pipeline my wish is for more stability, and optional phone home error reporting

After a beta version is released is the worst time to make requests (or wishes).

My experience is that EA disappears (crashes) without any warning (i.e. crashes are not caught and no error message or log file is created) at least weekly and generally several times a week (EA 16.1.1627).

The purpose of this post is is ask if you observe crashes and at what frequency.

Sounds like you get more crashes than I do, even when I'm trying to reproduce the few crashes that get reported and writing the code.

[Geert Bellekens]

I must admit that I haven't seen that many crashes over the last period of time.

Probably less than once a week, but maybe slightly more than once a month.

I do know however that, when writing addins or scripts, you have to be very careful. It only takes one uncaught exception to make EA crash completely.
I had to build in a type of "catch-all" mechanism to make sure no exceptions would ever escape to EA.
So the crashes you are experiencing might be caused by whatever add-ins or scripts you are running.

There are a few instances where I can pretty reliably make EA crash. This is when using the schema composer with my add-in the Message Composer.

In my tests EA v15.2 has proven to be more stable than v16, and the 32 bit edition is more stable than the 64 bit edition.

Geert

[skiwi]

I do know however that, when writing addins or scripts, you have to be very careful. It only takes one uncaught exception to make EA crash completely.
I had to build in a type of "catch-all" mechanism to make sure no exceptions would ever escape to EA.
So the crashes you are experiencing might be caused by whatever add-ins or scripts you are running.

There are a few instances where I can pretty reliably make EA crash. This is when using the schema composer with my add-in the Message Composer.

In my tests EA v15.2 has proven to be more stable than v16, and the 32 bit edition is more stable than the 64 bit edition.

Geert

We are not using any add-ins (other than the OOTB ones). And not using schema composer.
With no phone home, or exception reporting capability it is difficult to demonstrate to SparxSystems that we have stability issues.
If I had to guess I'd some some are related to network issues (we use Pro Cloud Server).
At a minimum EA should not just 'disappear', it should provide an error message.

[wivel]

I can second Geert's reply. I mainly work in EA 15.2 with a direct database connection, and I hardly ever have any EA crashes. It is very stable both at the office and from home via VPN.

Have you tried to connect directly to the database to see if you get the same results?

Henrik

[skiwi]

We don't normally use the direct DB connection
(as PCS is recommended, and because we frequently get "Operation is not allowed when object is closed" errors when using direct DB)


I have run using a direct DB connection and I am still encountering crashes.


It would be very useful if there was some logging I could turn on.

[Sunshine]

We don't normally use the direct DB connection
(as PCS is recommended, and because we frequently get "Operation is not allowed when object is closed" errors when using direct DB)

I have run using a direct DB connection and I am still encountering crashes.

It would be very useful if there was some logging I could turn on.

Have you looked at the windows event log, specifically the application log? It may have some more clues at why your particular environment is less stable than others.

[qwerty]

It would be very useful if there was some logging I could turn on.

Looking at what Sparx delivered in the past in the area of logging I would say that Death Valey is an oasis in comparison.

q.

[ea0522]

As I'm sometimes experimenting with some scripting, I'm not that surprised EA also sometimes hangs.
Usually, starting a new repository will solve the issue, until recently.

What I'm now experiencing is that EA silently hangs without responding to any input whatsoever.
It is repeatable as it is happening as soon as I try to "Insert Related Elements..." using the right-clicked menu from an element.
The same behaviour is seen when I try to show the Properties of a diagram.
The behaviour looks like the pop-up window is opened but not visible. The non-responsiveness is the same when another pop-up is opened and input is not possible outside that pop-up until the pop-up is closed.
The problem is that the non-visible pop-up window cannot be closed when it is not visible...

The only solution is to use the windows task manager to end the EA task and start again.
Using the same repository on another system does not show the same behaviour, that works as usual.

I tried to repair and even re-install the running version of EA being V16.1 - build 1628 - 64 bit.
I'm not able to install EA to a previous build of V16.1 (I believe it was 1598).

Looks familiar to anyone? Should I report this as a bug?
Thanks.

[Elpis]

The purpose of this post is is ask if you observe crashes and at what frequency.

I use EA 1628 and observe sometimes (once a day, on average) unexpected EA close (without any message, so I assume it's a crash), while developing model-addin. Usually it happens when invoking the addin menu, after re-activating (updating) it. So I guess, my crashes somehow relate to EA scripting engine.

[skiwi]

Just to stress that we use a "vanilla" install of EA. We are not developing scripts or SQL queries.


Here is an example from the error log. [reported]
I don't see as many error log entries as I observe crashes.


Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Error
Date:          4/07/2024 4:26:24 pm
Event ID:      1000
Task Category: Application Crashing Events
Level:         Error
Keywords:     
User:          xxxxxx\xxxxxx
Computer:      xxxxxx
Description:
Faulting application name: EA.exe, version: 16.1.0.1627, time stamp: 0x64acb5ed
Faulting module name: EA.exe, version: 16.1.0.1627, time stamp: 0x64acb5ed
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000273d061
Faulting process id: 0x0x3A54
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DACCBA72174820
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Sparx Systems\EA\EA.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\Sparx Systems\EA\EA.exe
Report Id: 8047b6c2-fa58-4ca6-87e4-a51139911199
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Error" Guid="{a0e9b465-b939-57d7-b27d-95d8e925ff57}" />
    <EventID>1000</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>100</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2024-07-04T04:26:24.9858071Z" />
    <EventRecordID>128634</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="23568" ThreadID="36480" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>xxxxxxx</Computer>
    <Security UserID="xxxxxxx" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="AppName">EA.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="AppVersion">16.1.0.1627</Data>
    <Data Name="AppTimeStamp">64acb5ed</Data>
    <Data Name="ModuleName">EA.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="ModuleVersion">16.1.0.1627</Data>
    <Data Name="ModuleTimeStamp">64acb5ed</Data>
    <Data Name="ExceptionCode">c0000005</Data>
    <Data Name="FaultingOffset">000000000273d061</Data>
    <Data Name="ProcessId">0x3a54</Data>
    <Data Name="ProcessCreationTime">0x1daccba72174820</Data>
    <Data Name="AppPath">C:\Program Files\Sparx Systems\EA\EA.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="ModulePath">C:\Program Files\Sparx Systems\EA\EA.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="IntegratorReportId">8047b6c2-fa58-4ca6-87e4-a51139911199</Data>
    <Data Name="PackageFullName">
    </Data>
    <Data Name="PackageRelativeAppId">
    </Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

We also observe other errors

• The program EA.exe version 16.1.0.1627 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed.
• <Data Name="ExceptionCode">c0000409</Data>
• <Data Name="ExceptionCode">c000041d</Data>

[DeBAAT]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but... how do you get that error log?
Need to define some settings? Available in a specific log file somewhere on disk?

[Geert Bellekens]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but... how do you get that error log?
Need to define some settings? Available in a specific log file somewhere on disk?

I think those come from the windows event viewer.

Geert

[skiwi]

Geert is correct
these come from the Windows Event viewer

I used the following Windows Application Event Log query

Use the XML tab on the Folder Current Log dialogue

Code: [Select]

​<QueryList>
<Query Id="0" Path="Application">
<Select Path="Application">*[EventData[Data[@Name='AppName'] and (Data='EA.exe')]]</Select>
</Query>
</QueryList>