TC crashes when network drive is lost

[weaker]

Code: Select all

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Total Commander 7.50RC2
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Invalid pointer operation.

Please report this error to the Author, with a description
of what you were doing when this error occurred!

Delphi exception: EInvalidPointer
Stack trace:
7C812AFB
40D8C6  40DC7B  402D69  40B79E  40B8C1  40B917
414F06  5D1078  5D5F76  5D9291  443C62  >413EA4
443223  413EA4  4194E8  419580  69DA0D  
Raw:
40D8C6  40D8C6  40268C  402CF0  408F73  40D8C6
40D8C6  40D8C6  402712  40DC7B  402D69  40D325
403296  4030E8  602291  415961  4023B3  4023DB
4026A4  4036C7  60295D  415961  602A1E  402D2E
4030E8  4030E8  402D2E  4036F0  409011  403296
402D2E  402D2E  402D2E  402D2E  402D2E  402D2E
40268C  402CF0  408F73  402D2E  402D2E  402D2E
402712  402F77  402D5B  402D69  402F6C  408FF7
40329A  40329A  409262  40329A  4030AA  420CA2
40D54C  40DFD6  40DF90  40F16F  40EEAF  40329A

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Continue execution?
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Ja   Nein   
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The network cable has been disconnected when TC was open and network drive(s) were opened in tabs.
After continuing, the network connection could not be established again although the cable was plugged back in. So I quit TC to restart it and got another box with a red-white X. I forgot to write down the error code from that one.

System is XP SP3 with all updates. Network is Broadcom Gbit LAN.

[ghisler(Author)]

Is Total Commander installed on that network drive? From the stack trace it looks like TC couldn't read some resources from its EXE file.

[weaker]

Yes it is, I forgot to mention that. However I didn't get problems with 7.04a. Is that a bug then?

[ghisler(Author)]

No, it's not a bug, it's how Windows work! Let me explain:
When you lauch a program, Windows just maps it into memory, and reads program blocks only when they are needed (e.g. when you use a specific function). Now when the network connection is gone and you try to use a function which you didn't use before, Windows cannot read from the EXE file, so an error will occur.

TC 7.04a and older used the UPX EXE packer to pack the program file. Therefore something different happened: When launching totalcmd.exe, UPX started and unpacked the entire program to memory. Now when the network connection is gone, the entire program is still in memory, so the error cannot occur. Even if the program is swapped out to disk because of a low memory situation there is no problem, because the swap disk is usually on a local disk.

So in case of an unstable network, you need to either install TC locally, or use the UPX-packed version. Unfortunately I had to stop packing totalcmd.exe with UPX by default, because some stupid Virus scanners took a LOT of time to scan the program then. Therefore I will offer the UPX-packed version as a separate download when TC 7.5 final will be released.

[weaker]

Thanks a lot for explaining! So it is indeed a huge advantage for me to have the UPX-packaged version.

Thanks again for that great program!

[Samuel]

You may pack it with UPX on your own.

[weaker]

Yes, I know how I would do that. But if 7.5 comes in both flavours I can wait for the final version now that I know that it is not an error. But thank you anyway.

[ghisler(Author)]

No you can't, because TC will complain about a possible virus infection because of the invalid signature. Therefore I will make available the UPX-packed version as a separate download.

[Samuel]

Didnt thought of this.

[weaker]

Ah, OK. Didn't think of this either.

[ghisler(Author)]

The UPX-Packed version is available now! The following link points to an installer which installs just the new EXE file. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with it:
https://plugins.ghisler.com/img/tcmd750_upxpacked.exe

[StatusQuo]

Thanks for the link.
It's quite hard to find here - how about publishing it on the official download page (I didn't find it there)?

[ghisler(Author)]

It's available via the link in the file SIZE!.TXT in the TC directory now. I'm not yet sure where I should put it...

[StatusQuo]

I would first look for a link on the 32bit download page, then for a sub-category of it (32bit, 16bit, pocket, ...).
Or would it confuse normal users there, if they don't know about UPX?

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

It's available via the link in the file SIZE!.TXT in the TC directory now. I'm not yet sure where I should put it...

Note that this contains just the pain totalcmd.exe file, you will need to install also the rest of the files to use the program.

Does it really hurt so much?