Altium project crashing randomly.

[Psi]

Hey, one of my Altium SCH/PCB projects is crashing randomly.

Altium has always been stable before so im guessing there is some component or track in the current project which is causing the problem.

Does anyone have tips for location the issue?


Details
- Happens randomly but can occur once in a 30min-to-3hour period. It is not repeatable.
- Doesn't seem to happen when working with any component or pcb area in particular.
- Happens in Altium 9 and Altium 10 (slightly different error window)
- Only ever happens during a switch between SCH and PCB (or PCB to SCH).
- When it occurs Altium will lockup for 5 seconds, then a small popup scrolls a progress bar 5 times or so (repeating) and then another popup appears saying 'Catastrophic failure'

Once the fault has occurred i get this error repeating every time i switch tools 
sch<--->pcb.
I can save my work fine but altium needs to be restarted.

[tautech]

Running similar to you.
Had problems with old versions too and ongoing until I updated my box.
Now I have a reasonable video card, no more problems.
All that I have seen in the past, suspect video the card first.
Grab latest drivers is where I would start.

OTOH I have had Win updates really F*** things up for some programs, so don't exclude that possibility too.

[alexanderbrevig]

If your project is of sufficient size (and if this started happening recently about the time where the project grew) I would suspect a memory issue. Either with your RAM, or the disc if you happen to use SSD.

Does it happen with tab change, or open/close of the documents?
I'm interested to know if this happens if you always close the one file before opening the other.

Also, if this only happens for one particular projects I would not assume an hardware error unless you can pin point the difference to something that's hardware related (memory footprint, 3d model usage [i.e if you use high polygon count models that need to load into VRAM]). If you use versioning you could also double check that the files are ANSI/Windows-1252. Probably not a problem, at least not one that would cause random crashes - unless it happens after a save or something like that.

[Psi]

Thanks.

The project isnt very big,  2 layer pcb, 80x80mm board, mostly 0805, a few QFN and TQFP, one DFN.

I do have net ties in this board which ive not used before. I guess those could be buggy.
Anyone got a 2way net tie library they know is good?
Im using this one
https://code.google.com/p/altium-designer-addons/wiki/NetTieLib

I would suspect a memory issue. Either with your RAM, or the disc if you happen to use SSD.

Does it happen with tab change, or open/close of the documents?
I'm interested to know if this happens if you always close the one file before opening the other.

I have recently upgraded to a Intel SSD and reinstalled windows.
The issue was happening before then, so its not a OS or HDD issue.
Ram is possible, i will run memtest tonight to check.

My PC is a overclocked Q6600 core2 quad running at 3ghz.
(I'm 99.99% sure it's not the overclock causing the problem, its rock stable in games and every other app)
Ram is 8GB
OS is windows 7

It happens when i click on the tap to change between sch/pcb yes.
But it also happens if i have the SCH/PCB window open on a separate monitor and just click focus to that window.

I'm not opening/closing files, just moving between SCH and PCB tab/window. It appears to be tied to that event.

[tautech]

There's a few clues IMO in your reply.

You indicate it happens when Win is asked to make a window(other monitor) or tab "active".

On your re-install have you used manufacturers or Win drivers for your video card ?
Won't matter if the card is seperate or on-board, IMO use the manufacturers drivers only

[tautech]

You could open the Task Manager and watch CPU logging to see if there is something strange tied to you CPU.

[alexanderbrevig]

Because this happens only for this project I would definitely be suspicious of the plugin. It's probably goofin' up something when it receives an event for on focus.

I also think it's worth a try to update the drivers for your GFX.
Check if the library you use has been updated too, or look for similar bug reports.

[Psi]

I'm using a nvidia 760, so graphics should be all good.
I will install the latest drivers just to be sure.

[free_electron]

memory leaks.

shut down ALL other software on your machine. especially web browsers like internet explorer , Chrome ( HORROR program in terms of memory allocation. open a single chrome instance and 3 or 4 threads are running each hogging hundreds of megs ), Firefox ( another memory hogging horror ).  and adobe acrobat.

that should bring altium stable.

[tautech]

memory leaks.

shut down ALL other software on your machine. especially web browsers like internet explorer , Chrome ( HORROR program in terms of memory allocation. open a single chrome instance and 3 or 4 threads are running each hogging hundreds of megs ), Firefox ( another memory hogging horror ).  and adobe acrobat.

that should bring altium stable.

Thats suprising,64 bit Win 7, I3 3.3G CPU & 12G ram and I can have whatever I like running as well including 10+ Chrome tabs, couple of Adobe readers, email, etc. etc.

But "memory leaks", I'll tuck that away in the grey matter just in case it's needed.

[Psi]

I can believe that other apps have memory leaks, but they shouldn't be able to write to memory allocated to Altium.

Its far more likely that there is a corrupt object in my altium project somewhere.

[T3sl4co1l]

Try to generate a minimal failing test case.

Remove files from the project.

Delete components, wires, traces, footprints, etc.

Compile and update.

Copy bits (files, components, footprints, etc.) into a new project and see if it can be reproduced that way.

Etc.

This won't be a simple process due to the fault condition (fails within 30mins+), but it's a good way to figure things out.

Tim

[jmarkwolf]

I've always had occasional Altium lock ups when I have other graphics intesive programs open simultaneously.

Close other programs, as suggested previously, and see if prob changes.