I'm new to Mach4. I have it installed on Win 7 x32 using the Darwin/Parallel Port plugin. Mach4 is crashing on a regular basis, within 10 minutes of starting a job, sometimes as short as 2 minutes, sometimes while the job is running, sometimes after the job is done. I've had it crash on several different jobs, very simple things like cutting a rectangle or engraving some text. The timing appears to be completely random, but it happens relatively quickly and it eventually happens every time I launch the program.

Here is the error code that is shown at the crash:
__________
Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   BEX
  Application Name:   Mach4GUI.exe
  Application Version:   4.0.1.2568
  Application Timestamp:   55ac4500
  Fault Module Name:   dbghelp.dll_unloaded
  Fault Module Version:   0.0.0.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:   4ce7b7bc
  Exception Offset:   68e8bce2
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Data:   00000008
  OS Version:   6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID:   1033
  Additional Information 1:   0a9e
  Additional Information 2:   0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
  Additional Information 3:   0a9e
  Additional Information 4:   0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

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There is also an event view entry but that appears to offer no new information.

When Mach4 is running, I can use ProcessExplorer and confirm that Mach4 has no open handle to dbghelp.dll which makes this error very strange. What should I be looking for in the DMP file to find out what is wrong here?

-E

I don't know if it is related, but I was also experiencing crashes at the same frequency caused by atioglxx.dll. There was a solution offered here:
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,29604.0.html

That worked and the atioglxx.dll crashes stopped immediately. However these dbghelp.dll crashes continue.

I've noticed (but can't be 100% certain) that the dbghelp.dll crash doesn't happen if I open the program and let it sit idle for 10-20 minutes, and it doesn't appear to happen if I open the program and manually jog the machine around for a little bit and then walk away. It only seems to happen when I run some Gcode through the machine.

I've checked and Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is only enabled for "essentials Windows programs and services". This was a solution offered on some Microsoft forums where people were dealing with this same issue caused by other programs.

I'm not sure if this is by design, but when Mach4 crashes, the process remains active in the background even though the interface/window disappears. The remaining process does not stop even after trying to kill it with Task Manager and also ProcessExplorer. The only resolution I have after the crash is to shutdown the PC and reboot.

Any ideas?

-E

In the 30 days between my initial install of mach4 and now, Mach4 V2 was released. Supposedly the main purpose of V2 was to replace the licensing code with an in-house version but one of the added benefits was that this dbghelp.dll_unloaded crash has also been fixed.

Now if only I could get V2 to jog correctly with keyboard controls and remember my motor tuning settings after exiting the program, I would be much happier...

-E