Family Historian User Group

Like others have reported before I have been encountering (in the last 3-4 weeks) this particular problem. It happens just shortly (about 15 secs) after FH has been opened. Usually I find that on the second attempt (occasionally the 3rd attempt) at opening the program the problem goes away and FH will happily run for the rest of the day.

Following previous threads I have tried to discover what the root cause of the problem is and so I thought I would throw this info into the melting pot;

1) I'm on FH 5.0.7 running under a fully up to date Windows 7 with all latest updates.

2) To ensure that neither my Firewall or Anti-virus (both Sophos) are implicated I switched both of them off. With both switched off the FH 'not working' problem still happens.

3) I've checked my Data Execution Prevention settings and they are set to 'Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only' as is recommended for FH.

4) My FH file is not large, only 238 individuals.

5) In the last few weeks I've concentrated primarily on adding media and I wondered if the increase in media has anything to do with it. Even so I've only got 394 media items, mostly jpeg's with some tiff's.

So, compared to the massive FH files others have reported I'm still very small scale, yet the 'stopped working' issue arises for me despite that. So perhaps file size is not a factor.

In the meantime for me at least the issue is nuisance value, FH will work at the second or third attempt. However it remains a worry, what happens if the problem becomes intractable?


ID:6532

Do you have an NVIDEA graphics card?

If so please try the latest drivers direct from Nvidea.

Full details for above are at How to (Re-)install Family Historian under Family Historian Installs But Won't Run.

Does the problem occur if the default startup Project is the Family Historian Sample Project?
See File > Project Window > More Tasks > Samples > Reset Sample Project.

Try adjusting the Tools > Preferences > General > Advanced options after checking out the Help.
Perhaps untick Auto-load Thumbnail Images When opening Project

Thanks Jane and Tatewise for your feedback on this issue.

No, I don't have an NVIDEA graphcs card, its an ATI Radeon HD 700 Series which I've been using for the last two years. The 'not working' issue only arose about 4 weeks ago. Are there any known FH issues with this card?

I did check out the 'How to (Re-)install Family Historian' link but as I mentioned neither of the possible fixes quoted there are applicable. I don't have special DEP settings and the 'not working' problem still occurs when both my anti-virus and firewall are switched off.

I haven't tried opening with the sample project to see if the same thing occurs, I'll check that out, also suppressing auto-load of thumbnail images and get back here with the results. I'll do that tomorrow just after re-booting the computer which is when I normally load FH.

Exactly what error message do you get?
Is it error popup Family Historian has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.,
or does the FH window heading simply say Not Responding?
In the latter case, does it resolve itself if left for a few minutes?

Since the problem appears shortly after a reboot, try waiting a few minutes before running FH.

Apart from adding some Multimedia, have there been any other significant PC changes?
Have you moved your FH Projects to a new location, such as an external disk drive?
Have you started using synchronisation tools such as Dropbox or Windows Live Mesh?

Some progress on this issue.

After booting up the computer this morning I started Family Historian. Following Tatewise's suggestion I made it open the Sample Project instead of my own project. All was well, no dreaded 'not working' message.

Next, keeping FH open, I made FH close the Sample Project and then open my own project. Once again all was well. Before closing down FH I changed the advanced preferences to untick the 'Auto-load Thumbnail Images When opening Project', then I exited FH.

Then I rebooted the computer and opened FH again, this time selecting my own project to open. All was well, no 'not working' error, and when I clicked on View 'All Media' all the thumbnails popped one by one (quickly) into view.

All this was done with both my Firewall and anti-virus switched off in order to remain consistent with yesterdays tests, even though yesterdays test seemed to exonerate these two items.

Tomorrow I will repeat these tests but with the firewall and anti-virus active and report here what the outcome is.

Although no failure occurred today I don't feel able to pin the cause of the 'not working' problem on any particular thing.

Thanks Tatewise, I posted my latest note and then saw that you had just posted one on this issue too!

The message I've been getting is 'Family Historian has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.'

Re waiting a few minutes after a reboot one of the things I tried recently was waiting 2 hours after rebooting. Then I opened FH to see what would happen - the 'not working' error duly appeared!

Re PC changes, there have been no hardware of software changes (other than auto Windows updates), nor have the locations of any Family Historian files been altered.

I do use a Synchronisation tool, Microsoft Synctoy and have been for the last two years. I use it to synchronise 'My Documents' to an external drive.

Microsoft Synctoy should not be the problem, because I believe it must be run manually when required, and does not start automatically at PC boot.

Everything is pointing towards the new Multimedia image files in your FH Project.

In the faulty mode, with the default Advanced setting, try the following:

Try View 'All Media' and see if you can identify which thumbnail FH stops on, when the error message arises.

Although there is not an enormous number of image files, are any of them particularly large, say greater than 5,000 KB?
Including the Project & Media folders and image filenames, are any image file path names particularly long?
Try temporarily eliminating any such exceptional cases.

Perhaps Jane or Simon could throw some light on what may be happening.

As you say Synctoy must be run manually which I do at the end of the day.

I agree with you that the suspicions are on the media files, but given that the 'stopped working' error doesn't always appear it leaves some element of doubt in my mind.

Re checking which thumbnail FH stops on in 'faulty' mode, it often happens that the error occurs before I get to looking at the media. Once the error happens FH is no longer operable, I am only given the option of closing it. However, I will try and get the media window open before the error happens and see what that reveals.

Thanks for the idea of checking file sizes, I did so not expecting to find a problem, however, to my surprise there was one file of 7.95MB which I have now cut down to size! If that was a contributory factory then maybe the problem will have gone away on the next reboot/load of FH (tomorrow now).

A few file names are longish, by far the worst being 'JeanieBuchananGrayHeathfieldCliffordVincentHopwoodHarrisonApril1983PEO53.jpg' which I could easily cut back. However it's probably better at this stage just to make one change at a time, otherwise if the problem does go away we can't be sure what the cause was.

Although I agree with you that media files are under suspicion I can't hep wondering why this morning, after opening the Sample Project, then closed it to open my own project, no problem occurred. If the problem is due to a miscreant media file wouldn't one expect it to fail every time? Likewise why does the problem not occur on a subsequent load of FH after the error occurs, maybe its connected to a memory allocation failure on first media loading?

Here are the latest tests to try and discover why the 'stopped working' issue arises. For today's tests both the firewall and anti-virus were active, FH preferences set back to have media thumbnails loaded automatically and no other application programs were open. The only thing changed since yesterday was that a 7.95MB jpeg in the Media folder has been re-sized down to 3.27MB

1. Opened FH and chose the sample project - no problems.

2. Closed the sample project (but not FH) and opened my own project - no problems.

3. Restarted the computer.

4. Opened FH and chose my own project - no problems.

One might assume the above results implicate the 7.95MB jpeg as the cause of the problem. However that particular file had been present in the Media folder since May this year - several months before the 'stopped working' issue first appeared, so I don't feel the issue is as straight forward as that.

Normally when I open FH I usually have other applications open, such as Photoshop and Bridge. Photoshop in particular is greedy on memory so maybe the 'stopped working' issue is caused by FH failing to get the memory needed? As my main focus in the last few weeks has been to add media files to FH it maybe that the FH media folder recently got to the point that when Photoshop is open FH can't get the memory it needs to load all the thumbnails.

Tomorrow I'll test this theory out by having Photoshop and Bridge open before launching FH to see what happens.

Sounds like you are on the right track.

I think V5 introduced new ways of pre-loading media image files.
So it may be useful to know the date when you upgraded to FH V5.0.0 and subsequently to FH V5.0.7.

Calico Pie would be able clarify what resources such as 'main memory' or 'graphics card memory' might lead to the stopped working error.

I've looked back at my update record for FH and it is as follows;

upgrade from v4 to v5.0.0 on 7 Apr 2012

upgrade from v5.0.0 to v5.0.5 on 26 Jun 2012

upgrade from v5.0.5 to v5.0.7 on 30 Jul 2012

These are the dates on which I downloaded these versions and I would have installed them on the same day.

I didn't keep a record of when the first 'stopped working' incident occurred but I'm pretty certain it happened for the first time in the last 5-6 weeks, not earlier. The first time it happened I just viewed it as 'one of these things that happen on computers from time to time'!

Based on today's test the 'Stopped Working' problem looks like a memory allocation problem, at least in my case.

Computer Boot 1
---------------

Before launching FH I opened Photoshop and made it open a very large 16 bit image.

Then I launched FH - it crashed with the 'stopped working' error. When that happens the only option you are given is to close FH, which I did. I immediately launched FH again, (with Photoshop still open), this time all was well.

Then I closed down the computer.

Computer Boot 2
---------------

This time I launched FH with no other applications open at the same time. All was well.

Therefore it does seem to be a memory allocation problem that causes the 'stopped working' error in my case.

Interestingly, in the Computer Boot 1 test, notice that the second attempt to load FH, with Photoshop still open, worked fine. This suggests that perhaps memory had been released from Photoshop to FH but that FH had not waited for the OS response that indicated memory had now been released.

However, I leave it to the experts to decide what this really means! If anyone wants me to do any other test I'll be happy to do so. In the meantime I'll be keeping my eye on this and if I find anything that contradicts my conclusions I'll post it back here.

You are having almost identical problem to what I had a few weeks ago. I contacted Technical support, who said I was the only one that had contacted them so they didn't think it was a major issue. I found that with another program running, didn't matter which, even the task manager was enough. As soon as I looked at any multimedia and tried to re size it, FH crashed.

I also found that it was not restricted to FH 5.07 it was also happening on a laptop that had not been upgraded.

The outcome was that they gave me an upgrade which cleared the problem. Refer them to their ref no: 243369

Gordon, that sounds conclusive.

Could you E-mail Calico Pie support as identified near bottom of their Support Overview page.
i.e. support@family-historian.co.uk

Summarise the problem and refer to this FHUG thread for details.

Thanks Mike for the Calico Pie link and to Keith for letting me know I'm not alone!

I've summarized the problem in an email to Calico Pie support along with a link to this thread. Once I hear from them I'll report back here what they say.

Thanks Mike for the Calico Pie link and to Keith for letting me know I'm not alone!

I've summarized the problem in an email to Calico Pie support along with a link to this thread. Once I hear from them I'll report back here what they say.

Interestingly I've had the same problem. All was OK using 5.05, but the first time that I ran 5.07 I had the same error message a few seconds after starting, and of course no option but FH closing. I have also tried with other programs running, particularly Firefox, which keeps a process running for several minutes after closing the application and Photoshop. It makes no difference whether they are running or not - FH 5.07 just cannot run!

David

David, have you checked out How to (Re-)install Family Historian under Installation Errors.

Ensure you have eliminated the more likely causes due to Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and NVIDIA graphics card OEM drivers

David, have you checked out How to (Re-)install Family Historian under Installation Errors.

Not yet, as it's a bit of a faf I was hoping for a quick fix!

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and NVIDIA graphics card OEM drivers

I am reasonably certain the first is OK, though I will check again, the second definitely doesn't apply.

David

David Said:
Not yet, as it's a bit of a faf I was hoping for a quick fix!

I didn't intend that you reinstall, just check the Installation Errors, but why would it be such a faf now installing V5 is so easy.

David Said:
I am reasonably certain the first is OK, though I will check again

It is worth checking as it appears DEP sometimes changes on its own.
Instead of adding FH to the list of DEP exceptions, you can set 'Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only'.

I'm getting good support from Family Historian Support, leading to a possible cause and fix.

They have suggested that I try turning off the Thumbnail Caching option in Preferences General Tab, Advanced? I take this to mean...Auto Load thumbnail Images When Opening Project which is at -

Tools/Preferences/General/Advanced/

This, so far, is allowing the program to load & run OK.

David

Yes, that was suggested by me, and used by Gordon early in this thread.

This now sounds a lot like Gordon's problem.
It may be worth checking the file sizes in your media folder to see if there are any very large media files.

but why would it be such a faf now installing V5 is so easy

It's only through researching this problem that I now realise how much easier re-installation is. Good news!

It is worth checking as it appears DEP sometimes changes on its own.
Instead of adding FH to the list of DEP exceptions, you can set 'Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only'.

Tried that, to no avail.

I'm having a very helpful response from Calico Pie, & they've now asked for a copy of my recent backup so they can explore further.

BTW, I'm used to using UBBC tags on other forums, but they seem to work differently here. How do you do a partial quote and include the 'author said' bit?

David