Access Violation (8.1)

ShawnLaraSteele wrote on 3/8/2009, 12:49 AM
Occassionally I get AV messages. I get the bugs happen, but I wonder two things:

1) Since Vegas is going to crash anyway, why doesn't it just let Windows Error Reporting catch the error, that way at least there's a dump someone could check.

2) Since they don't bother to use WER, is there some other way Sony gets feedback about these errors? If not, how do they improve their product?

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 3/11/2009, 12:18 AM
1) I have been running Vegas on a variety of PC's since Version 3 and everything in-between. It has NEVER crashed.

2) The dump is meaningful ONLY to the programmer and then only under controlled conditions. Posting the dumps here is a huge waste of effort.

3) If there is a bug, then it has to be repeatable. If you can reliably set up conditions to produce an error, AND someone else can duplicate those conditions, then, and only then, do you have a bug. The engineers and programmers can't fix a problem that they can't duplicate.

Steve Mann

By the way, an access error means that the program that reported the violation (presumably Vegas in this case) tried to access RAM memory that another program has claimed for its use. There's no way anyone can tell what program is using that memory. It may be a poorly written driver, a program that doesn't properly close (leaving memory marked "in use"), or a program that is running but changed the memory at the violated location without first allocating it from the O/S. Maybe a virus or trojan. Who knows?


ShawnLaraSteele wrote on 3/12/2009, 12:53 AM
I meant there's no way to get the dump to the programmer :)

I am amazed you've never seen a crash, obviously we must be doing something different :)

Its a bug if it crashes, regardless of how easy it is to repro. It might be hard to fix, but its still a bug.

My AVs are either vegas or the codecs/etc. that it's using, Generally AVs are pointers pointing to the wrong place, often because of a bug in the application, although they can also happen for drivers and very strange reasons.

It'd still be nice if Sony gave themselves a way to get their own crash dumps :) Or allowed Windows Error Reporting to catch them and then ask Microsoft for the reports. (WER reports are VERY helpful, and often can find fixable bugs... but only if they are sent in.)