Windows 2000 (or citect) Problem

Jarno · Mar 1, 2004

Hello,
A customer has some problems with his citect V5.30.00 system. The OS is Windows 2000 SP 1. The problem is that the citect application all of a sudden hangs itself. Even if he only looks at the screen. The only thing he can do is reboot his system.
I have been searching the internet for available service packs for windows 2000 and for citect. And I have found some, but I am not sure if there is a need to install them. I don't want to make things worser. I am also not too familiar with citect. Maybe there is another problem. I can imagine Windows has some.
Has anyone seen this problem before? What did you do? Does anyone have tips for me?
Thanks in advance.
Jarno

PS. I don't think this has anything to do with the VIPA plc, that's why I don't mention about it.

Pierre · Mar 1, 2004

It is best to start an install of any new system with the latest OS available.

Once this is done, I prefer NEVER to touch it again, no new SP or whatever.

When did this trouble happened. Did Citect ever worked fine before or what is always like this?

What about Export. Does the system do some export of data? It often brings in some trouble. For instance, if you do some ODBC export and the Data base gets BIG then you could be running into some problems like hanging screen.

To check this simply, you could check the frequency of the screen hanging. If it happens every 8 hours then you just rename the database and replace it with an original EMPTY one. If you prvent the tourble from happenning you could fix this.

Jarno · Mar 1, 2004

Thanx for your quick reply.
The time interval is very different. Last friday it happened 5 times. The whole weekend no problems, until monday 12:30. In the previous month it happened "only" twice.
It used to be a stable system. Last december the hard drive crashed unfortunately. A colleague reinstalled everything, he only used an older version of citect, 5.30 instead of 5.40. He also did not install all service packs for windows 2000 available.
I made some changes to the program, but I don't think that could harm the system.
And there is no other database involved, as far as I know. But I will check this option one more time. It's pretty quiet out here...

FranN · Mar 1, 2004

I must confess that I know nothing about Citect but have a reasonable handle on Windows 2000. This is where I would start -- with the OS. First, go to my computer and left click. Then on the C:\ drive, right click and select properties. About 3/4 down on the General page, select "Disk Cleanup". After it calculates what needs to be done, place a checkmark on the left side of anything that comes up with a value on the right.Now click OKAY and Yes on the nest Popup menu.

Now click the TOOLS tab and select the "Disk Defragmenter" amd right click the C:\ drove selecting Defrag. Only defrag after you have performed the Disk Cleanup.

If the drive is partitioned, then perform the same on that drive as you did on the C:\ drive. There are other things that can be done but this would be a start. Reboot the computer and see if there is an improvement. Please repost if you need nmore help.

Fran

JesperMP · Mar 1, 2004

Such things can be DEVILISH to troubleshoot.

Radical remedy:
Get another PC and install everything from scratch. Install all the latest updates.

If everything seems to work well for a longer period of time: Make a disk image of the harddisk. If things start to go bad again, use the image to get back to the "good" installation.
Also, try to standardise on the exact same PC.

edit: I just want to mention that the problem could be with the PC, not the software, like the power supply giving up, RAM modules not properly inserted etc. etc.

BobB · Mar 1, 2004

A couple of suggestions.

Option 1

First install the latest Windows 200 service pack.

Second install the latest Citect service pack.

If you contact Citect, they can arrange for you to go online and pick up the pack. The Citect package must be in maintenance for this. The service packs from Citect have a list of fixes for each service pack.

Option 2

If Citect is in maintenance, extract from the computer 2 files, debug.log (Citect crash file) and drwtsn32.log (Windows crash file). E-mail these 2 files to Citect and they will investigate and respond to you with at least an indication of the problem. There support is very good.
beerchug

Jarno · Mar 2, 2004

Thanx for all your suggestions. I will try them and if it works out OK I will report it here.

Pierre · Mar 2, 2004

Jarno said:
... if it works out OK I will report it here.

That would be nice for a change!

(not intended to blame you but every one (myself included) have a tendancy to just go on without telling us the results)

Jarno · Mar 2, 2004

Well, my first action was not succesfull. I made an upgrade from version V5.30.00 to service pack a. The problem is still there.

New information:
The program is probably build in V5.40. The other system also has this version. Maybe that this causes a problem. So, i am running a program that was originally build in V5.40 on a Citect V5.30 PC.

Greetz from Twente

wpuckett · Mar 2, 2004

check your ini files make sure all your parameters are set properly

BobB · Mar 2, 2004

Jarno, versions of almost all software these days is not backward compatable. That is possibly causing most of your problems but may not be. I would still try my option 2. As mentioned, Citect support is generally very good.
beerchug

Jarno · Mar 3, 2004

I already thought about the compatibility and I can imagine this could help a lot. I only have to wait till the man who owns the original program returns from vacation.
The file debug.log does not exist under this name on the system. I also couldn't find an other .log file with some usefull information in the citect directory.
The drwtsn32.log says something about ctdraw.exe. But these "errors" where due to the fact I changed the program, I believe.

BobB · Mar 3, 2004

The drwtsn32.log indicates what has caused windows to crash and may be the source of the problem. Funny thing is ctdraw.exe is the graphics builder for Citect and unless you are performing changes to the system by opening Citect Explorer, ctdraw.exe should not be running, as far as I know.

The debug.log file can be found by using the Windows search function, but I guess you probably know that. It is only generated if Citect crashes. If I remember correctly, it is either in the Citect or Windows directories somewhere.
Here is another file you could look for CITECT32_EXCEPTION_210104_14042.zip ( where the first and secondset of numbers are the date and time when citect crashed).
beerchug

Jarno · Mar 5, 2004

There is no debug.log file on the computer, instead there is a syslog.dat file, which contains error information. It seems that there are problems with an Unit which is not responding. I think i will contact the citect support, hopefully they have some usefull.

Jarno · May 14, 2004

It has been a while,... but the problem has been solved. We only had to reinstall citect and restore the application. Until now, it still works fine...

Windows 2000 (or citect) Problem

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