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xp resource issue w/esignal

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  • xp resource issue w/esignal

    Took me a long time to track this problem down, thought I'd add a note in case anyone else runs into the same issue.

    I'm running esignal 7.7 on XP, 2.8gig processor, 1gig ram (I had the same problem with esignal 7.6).

    With other apps running on the same machine (web browser, etc) after a few hours the menus in esignal would start to disappear. First they are cut off (not displaying the whole menu), and eventually the menus are completely blank and I'd have to kill and restart esignal to recover. At the same time, I was unable to launch any new applications on the machine, even task manager. When I'd try to launch a new app, the hourglass would flash briefly, but no windows would launch. Occasionally, though not every time, esignal would crash. Closing down apps would buy more time with esignal, but eventually a reboot is required to recover and start clean.

    In monitoring cpu and memory usage during the problem, I've never seen more than 800meg memory allocated (out of 1gig ram + 3gig swapfile). I've seen the problem with as little as 400meg allocated. cpu use is consistently less than 10%.

    The problem turned out to be a desktop heap limitation. XP ships with a default desktop heap of 3072k, which esignal can easily chew through, especially if there are any other apps running on the machine at the same time. I modified heap size to 10240k and have not had any problems since. Tuning desktop heap is described in the following MS knowledge base article:



    Hope this helps...

    denali

  • #2
    Hi denali,

    I have not had this problem, but this is excellent information to post for reference, thank you. Are you running XP sp1 or XP sp2?

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    • #3
      Hi Steve,

      I'm running SP2...had the problem with SP1 and installed SP2 hoping it might fix it but didn't.

      Incidentally, this problem is easy to reproduce using multiple instances of esignal. It appears to allocate ~1meg of heap when it starts, and goes up from there. I found with the default 3072k heap, and no other apps running, I could start 3 instances of esignal, then the fourth fails (hourglass flashes but no window). I increased heap to 6meg and could start 6 instances of esignal, etc.

      Here's something else interesting: starting 3 instances of esignal allocates only around 200meg ram. Yet no more can be started without tuning heap. So I'm kinda wishing there was a note about this on the esignal site where it lists the 1gig ram power user requirement, since it's possible to run into the heap limitation long before running into a ram limitation.

      denali

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      • #4
        The other way to run into this limitation is apparently to run eSignal for a long time, colllecting cquotes on minis, etc. I find that whenever the consumption would get to ~400mb, the menus would start shrinking.
        Last edited by atlas; 11-01-2004, 06:35 PM.

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        • #5
          Very useful information - thanks for posting that. I love hacking the registry just to see if XP will start on the next reboot if for no other reason - just kidding
          Standing on the shoulders of giants.

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