Crash resulting in 0kb file. So frustrated!

[PedroTavares]

I've been experiencing consistent problems with
M020, mostly having to do with Unhandled
exceptions, though at other times we've seen an
error stating that the volume we're saving to is
full (it's not) which isn't resolved until we do a
'save as' with a different file name, on the same
volume or elsewhere.

This isn't isolated to just one user or machine
it's affecting at least two machines and two
users, possibly more...

What compelled me to post today was a crash that
left one user's file corrupted. It literally
erased EVERY piece of data from the file. The
xmcd file is now 0kb and unsalvageable as far as I
can tell. I'm not sure what to do at this point,
we've performed countless reinstalls.

I wonder if part of the problem with us and why
it's so difficult to find support has to do with
the fact I've never encountered anyone else that
uses the software the way we do. We're a
structural engineering firm and I don't know if
the software is usually utilized the way we use
it, though I don't think we're really pushing the
envelope as far as MathCAD's capabilities are
concerned.

Has anyone experienced similar issues and resolved
them? I'd love some suggestions.

[RichardJ]

Mathcad 14 crashes regularly. For me, I would say several times a day, every day. This behavior seems especially prevalent when I'm doing anything with symbolics. I save my work regularly, and often make a backup copy of any important worksheet that I'm working on. So far (famous last words!) I have not had a file destroyed, but you are not the first to report it.

Another approach that can help is to shut Mathcad down every 30-60 mins and restart it

Richard

[StuartBruff]

On 1/21/2010 4:56:15 PM, rijackson wrote:
== Mathcad 14 crashes regularly. For me, I would say several times a day, every day.

Interesting. I very rarely get M14 crashes ... in fact, I can't remember the last time it did (not that that means particularly much, given the beat-up collection of off-gray matter I possess).

OTOH, I rarely do any symbolics in it, given it's prediliction for taking eternity to come up with a result that needs careful interpretation.

Stuart

[RichardJ]

On 1/21/2010 8:13:40 PM, stuartafbruff wrote:
>On 1/21/2010 4:56:15 PM, rijackson
>wrote:
>== Mathcad 14 crashes regularly. For me,
>I would say several times a day, every
>day.
>
>Interesting. I very rarely get M14
>crashes ... in fact, I can't remember
>the last time it did (not that that
>means particularly much, given the
>beat-up collection of off-gray matter I
>possess).

Well, maybe I was being a little mean yesterday, but when I wrote that Mathcad had in fact just crashed. I don't work all day every day in Mathcad, but when I do work all day in it I expect at least one crash.

>OTOH, I rarely do any symbolics in it,
>given it's prediliction for taking
>eternity to come up with a result that
>needs careful interpretation.

It does definitely seem to be linked to symbolics for me. When I have been playing around with symbolics for a while a crash is so likely I view it as almost certain. Large data sets seem to up the chances too. When it crashed yesterday I was in a worksheet that reads in three data files with about 350,000 points each. I was clicking around in the second y-axis of a graph that was displaying zoomed in sections of all three data sets, when it was suddenly bye bye Mathcad....

Richard

[ptc-1368288]

Crashing it the first point PTC must doctor. Mathcad 11 does crash occasionally, but rarely. It does for me on very long work sheets, thus the warning memo at the top of the work sheet:

When you open this work sheet
1. DO NOTHING
2. wait few seconds
3. drag the scroll bar down to the very bottom in one shot !
4. wait until the last plot is complete
5. scroll � page by � page back up
6. navigate, copy/paste each section of interest.

Mathcad crashing by itself or mutually with Windows ? that is the question for this century. As a user, it is clear that Mathcad could not be used as the brain of a supervisory system for Plant Process Control & Optimization ... would be too risky.

jmG

[RichardJ]

It just crashed again. This time when I tried to grab several 2D graphs, with the intention of deleting them. The worksheet reads in 4 files, each with about 350,000 points. The plots showed various aspects of the data. So crashing when messing with 2D graphs with lots of data in them seems to be a recurring theme.

Richard

[ptc-1368288]

Gorgeous description.
As long as Mona keeps logging.
I noticed a somehow similar crash in Mathcad 11. Sometimes when copying a long work sheet and pasting in a blank sheet ... zap. In that case my conclusion was to always let Windows sand clock to terminate.

jmG

[AlvaroDíaz]

On 1/21/2010 4:56:15 PM, rijackson wrote:
>Mathcad 14 crashes regularly ... several times a day, every day. This behavior seems especially prevalent when I'm doing anything with symbolics.

Sometimes I think that this 'anything' actually include things like thinking in symbolics or see more than two times the control and the period keys 😉

-------------
On 1/21/2010 4:06:05 PM, pedromt wrote:
>Has anyone experienced similar issues

Yep.

>and resolved them?

Nop. But I do this:

- If mathcad hangs, but remains open, then I always save as different name, something like filename_ver_to_check.mcd and never overwriting the original. This is more an intention, because I use Ctrl+S to saving, and the impulse wins (the hand faster than the brain).

- For those "sensible" files, specially in working groups, I set the file attributes to read only, forcing renaming and the use of the explorer to overwrite, this if mathcad not hangs, in which case I reopen the file to check it.

- I don't use, but there are programs that can make a backup for today() date and file extension.

Regards. Alvaro.

[PedroTavares]

what exactly is the point of MathCAD's autosave
feature? It doesn't behave in any way I'd expect of
an autosave, or at least like I'm used to as with
Autodesk's products.

[RichardJ]

How do you expect it to work?

I personally don't have any expectation. I know what I would like it to do though, which is not what it does now. It needs to save to a separate backup file, which is what CorelDraw does. So if I have a worksheet called "MyWorksheet.xmcdz", the autosave needs to save to "Backup of MyWorksheet.xmcdz".

Richard

[Ninetrees]

I think we have asked for this previously. I tried renaming a M14 file with an extension like .xmcd01, but M15.0.2.5 would not open it.

I'd definitely like to see sequenced backups, but I'd like to be able to set the format. One of my programs makes backup files that are date-numbered, which I like, but unfortunately they use ddmmmyyyy, so as I go from Jan 31 (for example) to Feb 01, the files get sorted in the wrong order, and there is no sort order that actually works for that format. Why they persist in using this format escapes me.

I can imagine that we would all like several different implementations. It's not difficult to implement. I'd be happy if I could get filename.nn.xcmd, or something similar. I usually use the date in the filename anyway, so this would work fine for me.

As it is, I must remember to periodically save my file with a new name so that when something goes wrong I have a good copy. And, yes, I get frequent crashes that seem to be related to using the symbolic engine. Maybe a configuration flag that does a save-before-run? That would save many frustrating hours for me.

Rich
http://www.downeastengineering.com/

[ptc-1368288]

"It needs to save to a separate backup file, which is what CorelDraw does."
________________________

That's what ORIGINLAB does too, it tracks down to the last key entry and updates so, the "backup". A long standing request, a must for serious users.

jmG