EZCad keeps crashing

[Kev Williams]

And getting worse lately. Today about 5 times while changing hatch routines. Sucks if you don't have the job saved...Not exactly sure why it's crashing, it's not even an 'installed' program. And it's been crashing during art/text editing.

However, the reason I'm concerned NOW is it just crashed in the middle of engraving! THAT's a new one, and can be particularly bad on someone's spendy suppressor, which is what I was engraving! Murphy did show a little sympathy by having it crash while I was test engraving instead of actual engraving...

Anyway, what to do? I can reload the drivers but most of the crashes occur when the drivers aren't in play. Unless the drivers load registry info? All I know is, the program will run in demo mode with no drivers loaded.

It's one thing to have it mess up my editing, but crashing in the middle of engraving is not cool. And I still didn't have the job saved, AND I'm using the rotary- trying to align new engraving to old to finish a job would be a nightmare...

Any ideas on what I should try? I running 2.5.3, and I also have a downloaded 2.7.6 version, but it won't work with my Dongle. Maybe Triumph has a newer version, I'll have to ask them...

Do files auto-backup? If so, where might they be located?

This is the event viewer log, one of the earlier ones today-

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 3/2/2017 11:47:32 AM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: KevsFiberPuter
Description:
Faulting application name: EzCad2.exe, version: 2.1.2.0, time stamp: 0x4d832e46
Faulting module name: NcPath.dll, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x4d7d8301
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00001d90
Faulting process id: 0xb4
Faulting application start time: 0x01d29382dd2e41eb
Faulting application path: D:\Triumphlasermini150\EzCad2.5\EzCad2.exe
Faulting module path: D:\Triumphlasermini150\EzCad2.5\NcPath.dll
Report Id: b0fbace6-ff78-11e6-9474-00e04c806233
Event Xml: (etc etc)

================
Just rebooted the laptop, don't need this, got TONS o' work to do!!

TIA for any help and advice! :)

[Gary Hair]

I have had ezcad running on my first fiber for just over 2 years and the other one for just over 12 months - never had either one crash. My guess is that it's something to do with your computer/os and nothing with ezcad. FYI - both of mine are running Win10 and have nothing installed besides ezcad and its drivers.

[Bill George]

Have you added or changed a Font recently? Sometimes a bad one will cause a crash. Since this is really not an installed program like you pointed out, its a funny deal.

[Scott Anders]

Disable PCI express > power link management in your windows power options, solves many issues, also make sure your Graphics card driver is up to date, also solves many issues. Be keen to see how you get on.

[Kev Williams]

Been wondering if it's more the computer than the program. The laptop is a Chinese Hasee with a 16 bit Win7 on it. Never had any problem with it. Don't do anything with it except run the fiber, and I keep Corel open for editing.
My EZcad won't even run on this Win8 (like that's any stretch)..
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Probably won't work on 10 either, but I'll never know ;)

I have an old HP laptop with Vista that surprisingly enough, runs pretty good, I could try it easy enough. I also have a nice running Dell running a 64bit 7 enterprise , it's what I ran the garage with until I had go back to XP to run the GCC :D - I tried EZcad on it, but didn't care for it- now if only I could remember why... I think mostly it was a matter of free space, it took up too much of it...

Yes on the fonts, I have about 1200 that I keep on each computer, I loaded all those up when I got it. I've probably added a half dozen extras since then.

Just rebooted and have been doing the same things that I was doing before, doesn't want to crash now. Wonder if always hibernating may be part of the problem? My Corel X4, if I don't occasionally just shut it down and restart it, it will eventually crash because of memory or 'resource' issues.

IF I get it to crash again, I'll get a screenshot of it...

Scott, I'm going to disable that PCI express and hope that helps!

[Scott Anders]

Also disable any usb power saving modes in the power settings. But it was the pci setting that stopped mine from having issues.

[Bill George]

Ditto on what Scott said. I never let my shop machine laptop do any power saving while on the power supply. And yes USB ports can go into a power saving mode. Funny it would do that now?

[Kev Williams]

First thing I do with every 'work' computer is change any and all 'power off' times to 'never', so that's been done :)

took me awhile to locate the PCI settings but I found them and turned them off :)

This all brings me back to my machine's 'funny' engraving-- Hope this is clearer than mud, but ----

does anyone know if the computer feeds engraving data 'on the fly' while engraving, or if the data is uploaded to the machine and stored into memory before the machine reads it? As in, if I send a job of 3 words, the 'engraving data', but I want black to loop twice and blue to loop 3 times, and all engraving to repeat 8 times, which I consider NOT engraving data but simple instructions on REPEATING the engraving data-- My question is, is the engraving data and/or instructional data stored on the machine, and the engraving simply repeats the per the instructions, OR, is everything the machine does, every pass, loop and repeat, all continually forwarded from the computer?

I'm still trying to troubleshoot my funky engraving, as it did it again not long ago while engraving a steel rubber-seal mold--
-note the shadows-
355254355255
After which I decided to go ahead and install the new scan head Triumph sent me.
And guess what? After having the thing here 2-1/2 months I finally open the thing, only to find the the lens collar is bent.
No biggie, I'll just take it off and use the old one...
355256

Nope. Can't remove the bent one. My and my boys tried with all our might by hand. So Yolanda at Triumph gave me the go-ahead to use 'extreme measures'.
So I got some wood, some cotton cloth, and loosely clamped the thing in my big table vise. And not even my trusty 16" pipe wrench will budge the collar. I can move the whole table and everything on it, but not the collar...
I'm sure a good whack with a BFH would dislodge it, but whacking high precision galvanometers with hammers probably ain't a good idea...
A little heat to the collar ONLY, avoiding the head proper maybe? The thing is nothing but a doorstop as is, and not sure if anyone in China will have any better luck with it...

[Bill George]

My guess if its not a left hand thread (it might be since the lens is RHT) its Locktite. Locktite will soften with some heat, maybe from small tip heat gun like used for de-soldering? I have a soldering heat gun setup but I would check again with your China source before attempting something like that.

[John Kleiber]

Kev,

I owned a computer sales and service, networking etc company from 1983-2005.

If I was setting at your computer I would probably do any number of the following in no particular order;


Check to see when the last windows update was made - MS is notorious for changing things we do not even know we are agreeing to.

Check your restore point if active - you may try going back in time before the issue occurred

Run ccleaner - a free registry cleaner or Norton Registry clean

Google your version of Windows to determine if MS offers a memory checker. (Caution - save your stuff, a reboot to DOS may occur). See if you can find a checker free or buy one online. EZCAD2 I think very inneficient with its memory use. You could be pushing it to a failed section of the memory.

Run msconfig - determine what running and systematically turn off startup items to see if problem corrects.

Bootup in safe mode with USB support - see if issue corrects

Any error that you see, copy and past it into google - first rule of trouble shooting, Your not the first one to have the problem.

Right click on the EZCad icon - try to run as administrator, look into the compatibility mode options

Microsoft probably has a Performance Monitor - initiate it and see whats happening internally with HDD and Mem

How about cooling fans - is the unit getting warm? Do you feel warm air blowing out?

Does the issue happen at any particular point in the day or after a long time running?

Any equipment recently installed on the same circuit during the time failures started to occur?



I hope this helps.

-John

[Bill George]

Kev, Did you get it fixed??

[Kev Williams]

Well, on the crashing, so far so good- however, I've been running only 2 jobs since,which aren't all that 'graphically complicated'. When the multi-crashing was going on I was continually un-doing and re-doing hatch routines and colors, and while doing that is when most of the crashes happened. But since apply the above suggestions and rebooting- which I need to do more than once every 2 months ;) -- no crashes, no goofy engraving, does what it's supposed to!

[Bill George]

Good News!

[Scott Anders]

Excellent news Kev.