I don't know where else to post this and tried to search for related postings but was unable to find anything...
I am experiencing a LOT of sudden lock ups/crashes while using several different Portable Apps, Thunderbird and Firefox being the most common (probably because I use them the most) but not just them. This results in my having to go into the Windows Task Manager and kill the Portable Apps menu process. I cannot simply close the Portable Apps menu as it wants to write something out to the USB thumb disk drive and it cannot. (that's a bad design IMHO - whatever is preventing the Portable Apps menu from closing, shouldn't... The menu should always be able to close and do a recovery if necessary the next time it starts up!) Then I have to remove the USB thumb drive and re-insert it. (Another bad design of Portable Apps IMHO, is the fact that Windows thinks the device is still in use when these crashes/lockups happen, so it will not allow the device to be safely stopped and made ready for removal. I, the user, have no way to inform Windows that the device is NOT in use any longer! A better design would be for the Portable Apps menu to allow a forced closure, clean up Windows state knowledge as best it can, about the status of the thumb drive, and shut itself down. Upon restart of the app it can then do whatever is necessary to recover. This would be far better process than simply forcing the user to resort to having to pull the thumb drive out regardless of what state it is in....) Anywise, upon re-insertion of the thumb drive, Windows thinks the file system on it is corrupt and will do a scan disk to repair it, which takes a bit of time, and in my case I am having to jump through this hurdle almost every time!
I have tried a couple of different thumb drives and I get the same behavior so I don't believe this is a problem with the thumb drives themselves. I don't have problems with other USB devices so I don't believe this is necessarily hardware related (i.e. my laptop). I dunno if there are driver specific issues related to the type of device plugged in to a USB port, is there? Is so how would I go about tracking down the problem and getting it fixed? The only other thing I can think of that is in common, is the Portable Apps infrastructure itself... But I would guess that is mostly a menu display and app launching platform, and has little to do with the actual running of the applications, unless there is some sort of driver supplied by Portable Apps itself?
Sure would appreciate any help offered in tracking this down, as it stands this is almost making using Portable Apps impossible due to the instability and unreliability.
Marc...
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Well I do have this occur often with FFP (my drive is slow), but my default FF does this too...
Here, I'll break this down...
Well, TB and FF are kinda resource hogging, maybe too many plugins...
The current PA menu (1.1) does write stuff on close. It cannot perform recoveries like regular systems because you can't put the recovery data on the drive if it's broken, and the platform may never go on the same PC again, so putting the recovery data on the hard drive isn't an option either.
Well, neither can the menu. Technically the bad design you described is a windows flaw, not a Platform flaw.
Once again, forced closure would not be possible because there's no place to put the recovery data like Windoze does. If it was forced to be closed, then it can't make recovery data.
Are you sure the thumb drives are relatively fast? Of course, Windoze doesn't expect programs to be on flash drives... Of course there isn't a driver from PortableApps. Drivers require admin rights. I'm pretty sure it's a Windoze problem, not a PA Platform Problem.
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Ok I will try an respond to these points in kind, thanks for taking the time to reply.
1. Perhaps plugins are a problem but I doubt I have too many... Only got a couple in Firefox, AdBlock and FireFTP... Nothing extra in Thunderbird unless you count the Walnut theme. I do have Thunderbird configured to work with quite a few email servers in separate accounts... And I have already started limiting myself to just running one app at a time so as to reduce the stress on Windows or whatever is causing the crashes...
2 - 4. I have to strongly disagree with you that Portable Apps cannot do anything about a crashed thumb drive. (and I am speaking as a long time software design engineer myself now..) You are looking at the problem wrong and with somewhat of a myopic view. Just because the thumb drive's driver has crash does not mean that the Portable Apps menu should simply give up. IF the driver is failing to let Portable Apps write out recovery or other information to the drive THEN Portable Apps should determine what IS the most graceful way to wrap things up. Forcing the user to just give up and yank the thumb drive out is NOT graceful! Instead Portable Apps should clean up as best as it can, inform Windows that all apps launched from it have terminated (and terminate them if necessary) and force the closure of the Portable Apps menu itself. Don't worry about not being able to write recovery info, or any other info out to the thumb drive at this point, that is a lost cause (unless you are clever enough to figure out a way to automatically reinitialize/restart the thumb drive's driver on the fly...) Warn the user that things have failed, and proceed towards providing the most graceful "forced closure" that can be accomplished. It is the designers responsibility to give the users the best answer that guides him/her to the best solutions, even in the face of a failure such as this one. Otherwise you leave the choice in the hands of inexperienced novices and the choices they may make will probably not be the best ones....
5. Perhaps the thumb drives are slow but I didn't read any specifications/requirements on them, in order to use Portable Apps... And yes this could be one of the many thousands of Windoz bugs/design flaws - if indeed it is not able to run programs from slow devices.. Sigh.. But don't throw up your hands or tell users that they might have an "unsupported" thumb drive... If an app is going to impose requirements, then make sure they are easily found and easily understood.. In fact, the Portable Apps software itself could provide a bit of diagnostics software to determine if a thumbdrive will be feasible and warn the user up front if it is found to be lacking.... The worst answers to give users are answers which involve finger pointing and/or telling the user it is he/she that is at fault. Guide the poor user to a good solution! Don't ever tell him/her that the fault lies in their ignorance of what is or is not suitable or correct usage, especially after the fact when a problem has been discovered. MOST of the times it is NOT the users fault, rather it is the designers/developers who have failed. The problem I have exposed here is one of the types that is typically made by inexperienced programmers or understaffed teams. A failure condition(s) has NOT been handled well and these are often the most poorly/least tested use cases.
My original question remains unanswered - What is the best way to isolate and track this crash problem down? I have searched for things like log files (couldn't find any thing useful) bug reports, and documentation (hmmm) From this posting I gather I need to be looking at thumbdrive specs, if so what are the requirements?
Currently I am using a Corsair 4Gb thumbdrive with the external keypad lock. (I rather like that feature just in case I should loose it. Internal encryption is less optimal as I may wish to use this on both Windoz and Linux systems soon.) If anyone knows for a fact that this thumbdrive is unsuitable to use with Portable Apps I would appreciate knowing that as well.
Marc...
I think that an ejectscript would do wonders for you.
Hm... I think I know what's happening! There is no speed requirement, but nowadays a fast flash is a must. It could be that the apps are causing the problem because they have stuff to write at the end! Then the launcher waits for it!!! (Wow, I figured all that out in 5 seconds :P).
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Awwww This little hidden gem may be the "force closure" variant that I was looking for.. Didn't see it on the Portable Apps applications page.. Will give it a try and see if it helps.. Thanks digitxp for the pointer..
I am glad you might have gained some insight into the problem, perhaps with a little further insight the PortableApps team might be able to incorporate this ejectscript trinket into the closure process of PortableApps when it detects a write hang has occurred? I note the error message that comes up when I attempt to close PortableApps is something about "attempt to write to PortableApps menu.ini failed" (boy do I wish ALL error message popups allowed the user to cut and paste them!!!!) and this annoying popup message keeps coming up repeatedly (after clicking the OK button to dismiss it) until I get to the Task Manager and kill the menu application. (Even the unrelated act of invoking the Task Manager causes this popup error message to come up again! Believe it or not!!!) So I KNOW PortableApps is aware that a write failure is occurring, therefore it COULD either automagically or with the user blessing it, invoke the ejectscript during the close process... In this way the user need not be an "expert/guru/oracle" and telepathically grok the fact that ejectscript exists and how/when to use it... PortableApps should simply guide the user to this beauty as a possible (good) solution when the USB thumbdrive has failed, and offer to invoke it for him/her. (preload it in memory! don't wait until the thumbdrive has failed then try to read the script off of the thumbdrive.)
BTW This is the sort of thinking that should be done when proper use case studies are done before an application is designed/developed... All probable/known error conditions should be explored and a user friendly strategy for handling them developed up front. Even if the actual implementation of these is delayed, for some features, at least a skeleton message could be presented to the user letting them know that a solution is coming and what can be done about it manually in the meantime... This sort of error message, the one I am getting from PortableApps, is the worst kind to give users, in effect it is simply saying "I can't do that, I can't help you or give you any guidelines, I am not going to do even partially what you desire, but I will annoy you!!" I suspect this particular error message was generated by default in some Windoz library/driver but that usually happens when the app has either failed to anticipate such an error may happen and/or provided no handlers for it. It may be the case that Windoz or the driver implementators have not provided an easy mechanism for allowing the app to handle such errors (lord I KNOW that is no big surprise, Microcrud and their vendors often provide notoriously bad/inadequate software interfaces) but in most cases a workaround can be found....
Marc...
Sounds like a full USB drive problem or insufficient RAM on the host or a bad cluster on the host system's hd which impacts the host system's Windows Swap file.
Most (all?) portable apps were designed to run on a Windows hd and the process of making them portable short circuits some of those designs. Recovery is not possible to the reasons noted above by digitxp.
Try limiting your use of the portable apps when running them. Don't open too many FF windows, or too many app windows in general. Note too how many tasks the host machine is running in addition to your portable apps.
Ed
I use portable apps extensively, often with several on my key being used at the same time. I went through a period where files were regularly corrupting, and programs failing. I tracked it down to a flaky LG 8Gb USB key. I still use a (new) LG 8Gb key - which works fine. The old key was only fit for the rubbish bin. My USB key environment is very robust & reliable. So, try another key. Throw the old one away. The portable apps on this site are not unstable or unreliable.
Kim
Thanks Kim for your reply and thoughts.
As I originally mentioned I have tried 3 different USB keys/thumbdrives and experienced this crash on all three. It is possible that all three do not meet the necessary specifications/requirements of Portable Apps, and I am willing to try another. But I would like to know first what specifications I should be looking for? If the Corsair one that I am currently using (see my previous response to digitxp) is not suitable then I will be quite disappointed as it is the only one I found with a security key pad on the case.
Marc...
I don't have anything useful to add Re: your PortableApps troubles, but I thought you might find this link interesting. It references a Dutch site with instructions for bypassing the keypad and permanently unlocking a Corsair Padlock drive. If you want data security, you need encryption...
-hea
Thanks for your reply and thoughts Ed. Here is my answers -
1. USB is not full, approx 1gb of free space remains, 3gb used at the moment.
2. The host, my laptop, has 4gb of main memory, 200gb of hd with less than half used at the moment.
3. Will do a full disk scan tonight but since I don't have too many other problems I suspect the hd is fine. Will report back if it does indeed fix it...
4. See my reply to digitxp about recovery and limiting my use of portable apps. This crash can occur when only on FF window/tab is open or when only TB is running, or when only Kompozer is running...
5. As for having too many tasks/processing running, dunno but don't think so... I might have a couple other apps or windows open but not many. As for processes with who knows? What with all the unidentifiable/undocumented/mysterious Windoz started processes one sees in the Task Manager...
Marc...
Remember Toucan!!!
But I remember that most PApps won't work if you temporarily copy it off your flash, run it, then put it back.
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the copying/running/copying? I've moved PApps all around.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
Thanks again digitxp for your thoughts..
Yes I am aware of Toucan and am exploring it as a possible solution to protecting data stored on my USB drive. It may indeed give me all the protection I need at a (additional??) costly expense of speed, I am not sure yet... Another drawback is the way it does file backups/synchronizations which is why I am not fully committed to it yet. Toucan works strictly at a file scope level which does not work for Thunderbird which uses a mailstore database to store emails in. And Toucan does not provide a plugin interface that would allow me to employ a script to convert the Thunderbird mailstore to a mail dir format and back again during the encryption/backup/synch processes... But I have not ruled it out yet and may be able to partially find a solution I am looking for with it...
Marc...
as mentioned in your other thread you could compile your plugin into a script and run it in a script in version 2 (pre-release 2 should be out tomorrow btw.)
from time to time. I first experienced that with a dual channel high speed flash drive of 4GB . I never had the issue with my "high speed"2GB drive. I realized that the problem never occured with my drive plugged into a port attached to the mainboard, only with hubs belonging to periphery(monitor, front panel etc).
Perhaps it´s only a power supply problem with your laptop, occuring when the accus are down and there´s a lot of traffic on the USB port, so power supply isn´t that stable?
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This is most likely a hardware issue. These can be caused by malfunctioning flash drives (which you've attempted to rule out) but can also be caused by underpowered or shorted USB ports. If a port is underpowered, the flash drive will work but, over time and many reads and writes, will end up with corruption or simply disconnect. If a port has a short in it, the same will occur. Some ports will even overheat and cause issues only after lots of reading and writing.
Running software puts greater stress on a flash drive or USB port than just occasionally moving files onto or off of an external drive. This greater stress means that a given hardware issue is more likely to present itself.
The PortableApps.com Platform has no drivers within it. It just reads and writes files. But it does this often with some apps like Firefox.
I think the likely culprit here is your laptop's USB ports. It could be a short. They could be underpowered. Or they could be overheating internally.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks John for your reply and thoughts...
I do concur that this may be a hardware issue and your possible explanation of why makes a lot of sense. But you have given me an ugly answer if indeed this is the case. I am using an HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop, and believe HP is a pretty reliable vendor of hardware. and they have a pretty good reputation for selling good hardware products... I can put a question to their support staff and ask whether there are any known issues with the USB ports on the laptop but proving that to be the case would be quite an uphill battle I fear. If anyone knows that these laptops have a faulty USB hardware/power supply I would really appreciate knowing that. What I hear you telling me is to buy another laptop or get HP to own up to having sold me one that is faulty (or has failed somehow) That will be that answer I choose as a last resort, if all else fails... The solution that route proposes is quite ugly!
I will also ask if any of their users have similar problems when using an external USB hard drive, that too could prove interesting...
Marc....
What I'd recommend is trying those same drives on another PC for a bit and check the results. Since you've tried 3 different drives, chances are likely the issue doesn't reside there.
And just because you have a faulty USB connector on your laptop doesn't mean that all the HP laptops are that way. Computer hardware generally has an issue with between 5 and 10% of the units shipped depending on the brand. It's not uncommon.
One thing you could also try is to try different USB ports on your laptop. You may find that one corrupts your drives while another doesn't. Your laptop has 4 I believe split into pairs. It could be that one pair works fine and one doesn't. Try using the pair you don't normally use for your flash drive and see how it treats you.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Hi darkstar,
a good reputation of a hardware vendor is no garanty for the customer any longer, this times are gone
I have had a lot of trouble with external harddrives on my old laptop (crashes up to damage of the drives) in the past exactly because of underpowered usb ports.
The reason for that is simple, in order to get a cheaper prize for a laptop You have to accept some limitations...
Please try to use another machine as suggested by John in order to be shure that the problem is not related to Your laptop. By the way ... no one said You have to by a new laptop, I believe there is ever a way to find a friend or another friendly person to help.
I've made a simple google search and have found troubles with this laptop like this:
http://www.computercare.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=1580
If this 'ugly' case (hardware problems) is the source of the trouble this could give You a quick answer ...
If the problem on the other machine is not present You can stop searching and contact Your seller or, if the error is still present You will be shure that all is OK with Your laptop.
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
Here are some of my thoughts...
When an application 'freezes' and you use task manager to exit the app, there might still be a related process running. For example killing the launcher process before the app itself will not clean up data.
Another thought, if the laptop has USB 1 instead of USB 2 this might be an issue too due to the speed of the USB connection and the ammount of data written. Another thing might be the configuration where windows shows writing is ready while its still writing (monitor the drive light of the USB stick).
If an app freezes and you have ended it's main process, the launcher might start writing, not sure if that would cause problems..
When the drive cannot be removed because it is reported to be not ready and you remove the drive anyway, this will cause problems no matter what... If the drive is reported in use its not wise to remove it.
I don't know if my thoughts helped you to gain a bit of insight.