* FH Crashing producing reports

[andrewbraid]

I am trying to produce a descendants by generation report for 1667 people.

Every time I try I get the message that the program has stopped working and windows is searching for a solution (which it never finds!).

I am using FH 5.0.9 and Windows 8.1

I have searched on previous messages and as a result I have done the following
I have reordered out of sequence data
I have removed Uncategorised data
I have added FH to the DEP list
I have tested with the Sample Project and there is no problem
I have tried smaller reports on my project and there is no problem (I have not managed to find the tipping point)

I get the same result when I try to produce a book of the 1667 records but again it works with smaller numbers.

i know that other people have produced reports with larger number of records so what else can I try?

[tatewise]

I have just produced a 7979 page Descendants by Generation report for 2000 Individuals & 700 families. So it would appear not to be the quantity.

Have you tried with Installation Settings for the Report Options ~ use the Installation Settings button on every tab.
BUT first take care to preserve you current settings in a Report Type otherwise you may not be able to remember what they were.

How many Generations do you have set on the Main tab?
I wonder if it is perhaps some circular relationship that is producing an infinite loop of generations.

Try doing a binary chop on the Individuals to isolate which are causing the problem.
i.e. Try half the Individuals and if that works OK try the other half.
From the half that fails, try half of them to find which half fails, and repeat the process until you discover the offender.

[andrewbraid]

Mike

I have tried to produce the same report, with exactly the same project file, on my laptop which is running Windows 7.

It worked without a problem.

I am not sure that I have the same settings on each machine so I will investigate further but WIndows 8.1 may be the culprit.

[andrewbraid]

Spoke too soon.

I have added create index in my laptop and it crashes. Create index was set on my other machine so that might be the problem.

[tatewise]

You had a similar problem in Dec 2012 FH crashes when trying to open a book (10129)!

What has been your success/failure with these large indexed Books/Reports between then and now?

I will repeat my test with large data, but with create Index enabled this time.

[andrewbraid]

Mike

I have now tried to produce the report on the Windows 8.1 machine without an index. It does work but it took a relatively long time (c 1 min) but it happened almost instantly on my Windows 7 machine so it does look as though there may be more than one problem.

I have not really tried to produce a book since I last reported on the problem.

[tatewise]

I have repeated the 7979 page Descendants by Generation report for 2000 Individuals & 700 families.

On my Windows 7 PC it also takes about 1 minute, so the time taken is probably more to do with your PC hardware than Windows 7 versus Windows 8.

How do the two machines differ in terms of Processor GHz speed and Installed RAM GB?
To find out, hold down the Windows Logo key left of the space bar, and tap the Pause/Break key in opposite corner top right.
This displays the System Properties window and the figures you want are in the System section about half way down.

Having produced the report I then used the Report Options > Index tab and ticked Enable index.
That took a further 5 minutes or so to create the Index and increased the Report to 8075 pages.

I then closed this Report and Published it again but with the Index already enabled.
This time it took about 5 minutes to produce the 8075 pages whilst displaying (Not Responding) on the title bar at the top.

It might be worth explaining what (Not Responding) means.
Usually when a program is running & the blue circle is revolving, it should regularly tell the operating system (OS) it is busy.
If due to a programming mistake, the program does not communicate with the OS, after a while the OS puts (Not Responding) in the title bar.
It seems that in FH this mistake has been made when producing a Report initially with an Index, but not if the Index is added after the Report has been displayed.

So, try producing the Report without an Index, and then use Report Options > Index tab and tick Enable index to add it, but be prepared to wait a few minutes.

If that still fails to eventually produce the desired results, then use the binary chop technique I described earlier to discover which Individuals/Families are the culprits.

[andrewbraid]

Mike

The desktop machine (windows 8.1)) has an Intel i-3 2120T processor 2.6GHz and 4GB RAM

The laptop Windows 7 SP1 has an Intel i-3 2330M processor 2.2GHz and 4GB RAM

So on the face of it the laptop is slower!

I do get the not responding message on the laptop but not on the desktop.

On the laptop the way you suggest, that is produce the report without the index and then add the index, does work but on the desktop I can produce the report without the index (in just over 2 minutes and 409 pages) but as soon as I add the index it crashes - there is no time for the not responding message.

I have discovered (by accident) that if I do enable the index for People and tick include dates with names but don't include Places and Attributes IT WORKS. I then ticked attributes and it still works. When I also tick places it crashes.

This seems to have narrowed the problem down but I am not sure how to resolve it.

[tatewise]

Have a look at the Places indexed in the Windows 7 report and see if any are unusual, large, ... ?

On Windows 8 try the binary chop technique.

However, it is starting to look like a specific problem with the desktop setup.

You could try re-installing FH V5.0.9 and see if that helps.

Does the problem still happen if ONLY the Places index is selected?

If you can narrow it down a bit, it would help, but in any case it sounds like something to report to FH support, who may ask for a copy of your GEDCOM.

[andrewbraid]

I don't understand it. It has now started crashing on the laptop with places selected in the index. So I started chopping. The tree is very lopsided at the second generation with about 1,660 people on a single line and 7 on the others. When I try to do a report with the 1,660 it works but I can see nothing wrong with the places in the other 7 as all the places appear in the line that works.

I think I'll give up and not have places in the index. I don't really like how they are intermixed anyway. It would be better (in my view) to have separate indexes. A wish list item?

[tatewise]

I should have persisted with some lines of questioning I started way back.

How many Generations do you have set on the Main tab?

Are you selecting just one Individual with lots of Generations, or selecting lots of Individuals with only the default 3 Generations??

[andrewbraid]

I have 20 generations set but there are only 12. I get the same result if i change to 12 generations.

I am only selecting a single individual.

[tatewise]

My mistake, I assumed the second scenario.
In that the case the technique needs to focus on the number of Generations.

Try fewer Generations to see if there is a particular point at which it fails, and that gives somewhere to start looking for unusual Places.

It is odd that the laptop is now failing.
Are you sure you have been using the same data and same report settings on both PC?

If they both now fail consistently, it should be reported to support at family historian.

[andrewbraid]

Mike

I have cracked it!

The person I was using as the source of the report happened to have a place field in the birth record which was blank. I have now removed the blank place field and all is well.

Thank you for your patience. Is this a bug that should be reported? I seem to have found a lot this week!

[tatewise]

Yes, that is a bug that I have been able to instantly repeat with the Sample Project.
I am happy to report that bug, and the Not Responding problems to Calico Pie.

[andrewbraid]

Mike

I have been thinking about this. Would it be worth producing a Plugin to check for blank fields in Fact Sets?

One problem is that in the Property Box you cannot tell if they are blank or simply missing.

[Jane]

Clean all empty Place fields.fh_lua

(1.92 KiB) Downloaded 271 times

This should delete all empty place fields from Facts.

[andrewbraid]

Jane

Thanks. I will try it. I was thinking of one that would clear all empty fields. I occasionally have problems with deaths.

Andrew

[tatewise]

The problem is much more subtle than that, so BEWARE!!!

If the Place field were simply empty on its own, then FH would automatically delete it the next time it is closed and re-opened.
This mechanism applies to virtually every such sub-field, so the Plugin should NOT be needed.

Since it is not auto-deleted, implies that a subsidiary field is attached to the Place field, and if such an empty Place field is deleted, then its subsidiary data will be deleted also.
And this is what Jane's Plugin will do!!!!

The possible subsidiary fields include a Place Hierarchy, a Source Citation, a local Note, or a Note Record.
If you check on the All tab you will discover which it is.

Calico Pie have promised to fix the Report Index bug in the next FH Upgrade.

What exactly is the problem you have with Death Events?

[andrewbraid]

Jane

Should the plugin run without producing a report?

Mike

I think I have/had some individuals with death events but no facts attached. They may well be dead but I do not like to add the death without some evidence.

As an aside, I have discovered that many of the problems I have have come from records that I have imported from other sources. I think that, in future, I may reenter all information that I obtain from others.

[Jane]

> Should the plugin run without producing a report?
Yes I did not stop to write a report, but if you run it in the editor mode it will print what it did to the output pane.

[tatewise]

On behalf of Jane, I can confirm the Plugin produces no output, it just silently cleans Places.

Did you discover what was preventing the empty Place from being auto-deleted?

Yes, Events/Attributes whether Standard or Custom are the exception to the auto-delete mechanism. So even if they have no subsidiary data, they are retained.

A basic Fact Query would list all such empty Events/Attributes using Row Filters employing:
Exclude unless ... is true for each of the following Expressions:
=IsTrue(FactValue(%FACT%) = "")
=NullDate(%FACT.DATE%)
=IsTrue(%FACT.PLAC% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.ADDR% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.AGE% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.CAUS% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.NOTE2% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.SOUR% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.SOUR2% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.OBJE% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.TYPE% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.PHON% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT._EMAIL% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT._WEB% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.AGNC% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.OBJE2% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT.NOTE% = "")
=IsTrue(%FACT._SENT% = "")

[EDIT] The above has been created for download from fhugdownloads:contents:query_all_empty_facts|> Query:Fact ~ All Empty Facts.

You don't need to re-enter data, just review it, including checking on the All tab any unusual sub-fields.

[andrewbraid]

Mike

Thank you. They have thrown up several errors and inconsistencies