LiveCode 9.5.1 quits unexpectedly

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ekami
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LiveCode 9.5.1 quits unexpectedly

Post by ekami » Mon Jan 27, 2020 2:58 pm

Hello from France
LiveCode Indy 9.5.1 + macOS 10.12
I have little stack ( 742 Ko) created with LiveCode 4, i can still open it and create a standalone with LC 6.6.2 .
I have opened it today in LC9 to make some changes; but the combo menu objets any many other objets have lost their "graphics alignments", but this is not a big issue.
The major problem is when a close the stack (or a sub-stack that whas initialy a drawer, seems that drawers still not exist in LC ?), LC 9 crashes immediately. Of course, making any standalone is impossible because LC crashes before finishing building it.
Every time i come back to LC, nothing seems to work; this is really hopeless (that's the reason why i switched fo FileMakerPro many years ago…)
Can i send you the stack just to tell me if it's corrupted or only a LC bug ? (but i absolutely need the assurance that my stack won't be opened by anybody !)
Best regards, Joan.

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by dunbarx » Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:25 pm

Hi.

If it works reliably in v6 but crashes in v9 the team will want to see it. This is most unusual.

If you want us to try it out before, send it along. I do not know to do so without opening it, however.

Craig

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by ekami » Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:59 pm

Thanks for your fast reply.
Can i send you the stack as attachment here in this forum ?

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by jmburnod » Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:16 pm

Hi ekami,
Can i send you the stack as attachment here in this forum ?
Yes. You have to zip your stack and click to "attachments" at the bottom.
Best regards
Jean-Marc
https://alternatic.ch

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by FourthWorld » Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:16 pm

Have you tried any logging to isolate where the crash occurs?
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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by ekami » Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:36 pm

RESOLVED : LC was quitting because i added a "quit" statement on closestack in order to quit the standalone when the main window stack is closed.
This statement was probably omitted when creating the standalone in older versions of LC.
I checked "Destroy stack" in standalone settings, that does the job (can you confirm this checkbox is created for this ?).
Now i must fix why the combo boxes are so bad drawn (up lines of the object missing, no native options to center text up, centered, down, can't outline the object, global margins (still no options for top/left/right/down margins ??) , resulting horrible screen display (even worse on retina display !)
This is a big lack of LC compared to FileMaker: in FMP, the objects are perfectly drawn, the inspector is easy to find and use, and the zoom function is native (no need to play with geometry manager). Sorry, but I'm very very far to quit FMP for LC…
I apologize for the inconvenience in the forum. Please excuse my bad english (i'm french)
Best regards, Joan.
Edit: impossible to fix the text margins of combo boxes : when i save the stack before creating standalone, all text margins of the combo box are lost !
My standalone doesn't looks pro at all ! This is a huge display bug still not corrected until…years, WTF is happening here ?
Edit 2 : Memory lacks ?? I quit LC and re-open my stack to create a standalone, and LC displays a DLOG "A stack "revMacCursors" is already in memory. The LiveCode UI does not distinguish stacks wich have identical names, so editing these stack files while both are in memory could result in data loss".
So LC doesn't purges correctly the ram when it's quitted or WTH is happening here when LC opens ?
Sorry, i give up creating any other project with LC: I'll be back in a few years, but honestly, every time i go back to LC i plan to abandon it.

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by dunbarx » Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:33 pm

So we have someone who is less than impressed with LC, but mainly, it seems for reasons of look and feel, as opposed to power and flexibility.

I live fully within LC, having no need at all to "present" a visual package to anyone. To take an example of what Joan was complaining about, assuming it is a valid point, how does one dress up a combo box? Overlay a graphic or image? Functionality, apart from text display issues, does not seem to be a problem, just its looks.

If issues such as the macCursors thing is enough to drive Joan away from the platform, then I think there is nothing to do about it.

Craig

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by jacque » Tue Jan 28, 2020 6:48 pm

Joan, I think a little more experience and help from us will solve most of your issues.

I'm not sure what you mean by the margins of combo buttons, maybe a screenshot would help. If you saved your changes they will remain, so there is something else happening. Perhaps you didn't save the stack in the latest file format.

If you added the Mac cursors to an earlier stack build, they are now embedded in the file. LC is reminding you that the IDE also uses the same cursor library and there may be conflicts. You can either ignore the warning (because you probably aren't making changes to the cursor stack) or you can remove the copy in your own stack file. LC will add it to your next standalone without changing your source stack. Removing the copy from your own stack will eliminate the warning.

Much of your frustration is because you are still learning. It will get better.
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw dot com
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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by FourthWorld » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:10 pm

How does the cursors stack get copied into a stackfile outside of building a standalone?
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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by ekami » Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:01 pm

Many thanks for your responses.
- I started with HC 1.0 to 2.4 and switched to FMP after it's abandon, and i spent lots of money with LC until the version 1.0, but as LC is not my main dev environment, i'm still a beginner with LC, because even if i can re-use all the concepts learned with HC, it's variety of object classes, extended language and possibilities are very far from HC.

- My stack is saved as "Legacy Lc 7.0 stack"
- I've never added the revMacCursors to my stack, but even when i delete it in the project Brower, it's sometimes added before creating the standalone.
- I have another stack called "Answer dialog" (see attachment) that is sometimes added before creating standalone, producing a nice "infinite loop", and after a few returns to validate the DLOG, LC finally produces… an incomplete standalone.
- The combo boxes loose their margins when closing the stack before creating the standalone: of course, when when the stack is opened again, the changed margins are here. These are unacceptable bugs !
I finally deleted all the combo boxes and replaced them with simple text fields (adding a few hours of work for changing all scripts using these objects…)
- I noticed some issues with the IDE :
- Grouping some objects and ungrouping them works, until when changing the properties of an unique object changes the properties of all the previously grouped objects ("multiple objects" still displayed in property inspector) The "property inspector" doesn't works correctly.
I know that the IDE is coded with LC, i think this was probably a very very bad decision because the scripts of the stacks used by the IDE are still deeply buggy.
- Sometimes the "Pointer tool" mode doesn't works ! when i select an object, it reacts as in "Browse tool" !
These are the few bugs encountered in only one day. I don't imagine how many others are hidden, but some of them (like combo box display) seems to be here from years without any correction.
Sorry, but LC IDE is unreliable and looks/feel really "amateur" with it's profusion of palettes: no comparison with the FileMaker Pro inspector.
I know the tremendous job made by LC team to get here, but without a "solid rock" IDE (and a native zoom window function), i can't considered LC as a pro dev tool, and can't consider recommending it to novice coders.

I have a pair of big projects to code, and it would be a thrilling adventure creating them with LC, but i finally won't take this risk.
Maybe i'll get back in LC one of these days to see if the IDE has been re-written from scratch.
Thanks for reading my approximative english.
Best regards, Joan.

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by jacque » Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:58 pm

The 7.0 file format is old, and some changes you make in LC 9 will not be saved if you save the file in 7.0 format.

The cursors and answer dialogs are added when building standalones, and some others too, but their additions should never be included in the source stack. Remove them from the source, save it, and turn off automatic inclusions in the standalone settings. Use manual inclusions and add only those things you need.

Work in LC 9.5.1 and save your stack in that file format.

When the property inspector doesn't change to show the correct objects, see if the padlock is closed. If the padlock is in a lock state it will not change. Click the padlock to unlock the inspector and then select a new object. The inspector will update.

If you are editing a stack that is a palette or a modal, they are always in browse mode. You must change the stack back to toplevel to do normal editing with the edit tool.
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw dot com
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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by ekami » Wed Jan 29, 2020 7:22 pm

Hello jacque, thank's for replying.
- I saved my stack as "LiveCode Stack" and "Legacy LiveCode Stack 8.0", with the same result: the combox boxes are still systematically bad drawn after saving and re-opening the stack. I was supecting that the problem was my "old" stack, but the problem exists with fresh stacks and the last version of LC (tested on 2 different Macs).
I've made a small video and placed in my pCloud : see it by yourself :
https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code ... R5GFTfAhBy
- Automatic inclusions have always been turned off, this doesn't impeechs LC to add some randomly : this is a bug.
- The padlock of the property inspector is always opened: the bugs i've noticed are real.
- The bug with the pointer tool working as browse tool arrived on the main stack, a toplevel stack : this is a bug.
Best regards, Joan.

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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by jacque » Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:02 pm

I see what you mean about the combo box now, that was a good video. Thanks. I confirm that's a bug, you could enter a bug report here:
http://quality.livecom.com. The bug is that the button does not retain its margin settings when redrawn and also does not honor the default margins when created. You can work around the problem by setting the margins in script on each launch, but that is not ideal. It shouldn't take long for the team to fix this once they know about it.

I have never seen LC add inclusions into the source stack without instructions to do so, so if you have a reproducible recipe that would help determine the problem. The revCursors stack may be left over from a bug in an earlier version of LC. Since duplicate stacks can cause confusion about which stack is the target, you could try removing the extra stack using the message box instead of the project browser:

Code: Select all

delete stack "revCursors" of stack "myMainstack"
That will ensure the stack is removed from your souce stack rather than the one in the IDE. Then save the source stack. This has never failed for me.

I have seen sporadic instances where the hilite in the tool palette does not match the chosen tool, and what looks like the browse tool is behaving like the edit tool, and vice versa. This is a bug but I have never found a repeatable recipe. If you have one and can describe it to me, I'll be happy to submit a report because this has bothered me too. Restarting LC resolves the issue.

What problems do you find in the property inspector? In LC 9.5.1 it works well for me. In LC 9.6dp2 there are some significant issues that the team already knows about, which will be fixed before the final release.
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw dot com
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Re: LiveCode 9.5.1 crashes when closing stack

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Jan 29, 2020 10:10 pm

ekami wrote:
Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:36 pm
RESOLVED : LC was quitting because i added a "quit" statement on closestack in order to quit the standalone when the main window stack is closed.
Glad you found a resolution to this. I'll change the thread title to reflect what's known, so others who may be looking for similar solutions can better anticipate this circumstance.
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