25 days = no fish?

[Jav400]

OK Edgar I have one for you to figure out. I'm running 2k Pro, some system specs as follows: OS[Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 4 (5.0 - 2195)] Uptime[3w 4d 4h 50m 17s] CPU[2-Intel Pentium 4, 3198MHz, 512KB (0% Load)] Mem[Usage: 325/1023MB (31.77%)_[|||-------]] Gfx[NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT @ 1600x1200 32bit 75Hz] C:[14.63/111.78GB(13%)]

Just today I have discovered that the screensavers are now giving me a black screen and won't show up. I can hit the space bar after starting them and get to the settings screen and so on but thats it. I have ran DXdiag and passed all tests, other 3d apps run fine, games work fine, anything in open GL still runs fine, but all of the screensavers give a black screen. MA2, Goldfish, Sharks, the works, none of them will currently run and they are the only thing that I can find that won't. I figure a reboot would solve the problem, but I am searching for a reason since everything else works great, any ideas?

[feldon34]

This happened to me too. I don't know if the fact that my Win2k had been running for a few weeks contributed to this problem or not.

I also don't recall exactly how I fixed it but I believe a reboot was probably required.

[Jav400]

Well let me say that I finally rebooted and it took care of the problem. I still couldn't find anything else that was affected by the timeframe. I have no idea what could have caused this and will keep looking. If anyone else has any other ideas feel free to chime in.

[cjmaddy]

Michael, the nearest to that that I have had was with the 56.64 drivers, - but I know they worked fine for you!

As I reported on the 3D driver thread, there were others that got black screens at times with 56.64

Probably no help, - but the effect was similar, ...

Just to make it clear, it's not just that the stereo doesn't work, - even 56.64_winxp2k_english_whql.exe, on it's own, doesn't work when trying to run any of the screensavers, (MA2 MD, 1.1wide, AquaReal, etc!).

..... You did ask!

[Jav400]

Always glad for the input Cliff, but in this instance I'm not sure it applies. Everything ran fine for 3 weeks and 4 days, and then the screensaver just gave me a black screen after that time. Everything else still worked fine. Other Direct X functions worked the same still, games ran fine, Open GL ran fine, passed all the DX tests. The only thing that wouldn't run was the screensavers. Strange....................

[Edgar]

Let me know when you are able to reproduce it again. I don't know what could cause the screensavers not to work unless all the video memory were allocated by something else or Direct3D was already being used exclusively by something else.
Next time it happens, check the processes running to make sure nothing is using DirectX.

[Jav400]

Well here we go again. It would seem that for some reason 3 weeks and 4 days is the magic number. I am now on my computer at home and it has been running that long with the same results. None of the screensavers are running on this one now either. Since this same episode with the one at the office I know that a simple reboot will solve the problem, but it sure would be nice to know what the problem is..................

[jwdd]

I had the same thing happen to me. My computer had been running for 25 days and then all I would get was a blank screen. I am using XP Pro with a radeon 9200 video card. Simple reboot solved the problem.

[Edgar]

Interesting. So it happens on XP also. I will check the code to see if there is anything common among the screensavers that would cause that.

[Jav400]

Edgar,

I have been thinking and trying to figure out what might have changed on my system. I know in the past that my computer has ran longer than 25 days with no problems. ( Morgan and I have had impromptu competitions to see who could keep theirs running the most days and still be stable ) In the past I have hit over 6 weeks and everything be fine, and I know that Morgan has also. At that time the screensavers still ran or I would have noticed it then. The only 2 major things that I can think of that have changed since that time is the release of Jim's fish, ( not sure if anything else changed in the code then or not ) and I am now running DX9.0b ( 4.09.0000.0902 ). Maybe that would be a place for you to start?

Current stats on my home system are as follows:
OS[Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 4 (5.0 - 2195)] Uptime[3w 5d 15h 16m 31s] CPU[1-Intel Pentium III (Cu), 994MHz, 256KB (0% Load)] Mem[Usage: 164/512MB (32.03%)_[|||-------]] Gfx[NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra @ 1600x1200 32bit 60Hz] C:[17.19/31.84GB(53%)] Network Interfaces[#1 (3Com EtherLink PCI (100Mb/s) 368.54MB In, 43.40MB Out)]
and of course none of the screensavers, MA2MD, Goldfish, Sharks, etc will run. I am currently using the 56.72 series of nVidia drivers and also have installed the 56.72 set of stereo wrappers, which work fine for me.

In addition I also ran a stripper program from here http://www.iarsn.com/taskinfo.html which I have used before on occassion to remove processes and free up memory and see if anything was running that wasn't necessary and maybe that would start them running again. No luck, they still won't run.

[Edgar]

This is going to be very tough without a computer that is on for 25 days or more. Programming tend to make my computer unstable enough that I have to reboot more often.

You can help if you can reboot your computer and run it without the screen savers for a couple days. After two days then keep it on until it fails.

I want to know if the 25 days is caused by the screensaver or just the system with all the windows update caused instability problems.

If it is the screensaver, it should fail after 25 days from the time you let the screensaver run again. However if it fails on the 25th day from the reboot, then it is system related.

[feldon34]

I am also running DirectX 9.0b.

I don't want to shoot down any ideas, but I am not sure how it could be 25 days "after the first time the screen saver ran". Does the Aquarium write any temporary files or timestamps into the registry? Is the keycode partially timestamp-encoded?

I did not try to run an old version like .99E to see if it was version-related. And I did not try to run other products like Goldfish. I only tested MAT2 and MA2 (Jim's new fish).

Any timers of any sort in the Aquarium that freak out after 2 million seconds (which is what you have after 24 days)?

[jwdd]

I am also running DirectX9.0b.
In the past I have left my computer running for as long as 46 days without a problem. But that was with the previous version of MA2. The only thing different about my setup now is that I am using an lcd monitor using the dvi connection.

[Edgar]

There is a timestamp on the keycode but is checked only if the keycode is not valid.
Another way is to turn back the time on the computer when it fails to see if it is a timestamp check problem or set the time forward now to see if it fails quicker that way.

[cjmaddy]

For what it's worth, I tried moving the date forward various amounts, a couple of days ago, with no effects!
As I have already said elsewhere, all the nVidia drivers I've used up to and including 5303 have worked fine, - but all recent drivers after 5303, give black screen lockups when attempting to run any of the screensavers. - I assumed it was my system, ..... But?

[feldon34]

I also tried advancing the date -- no dice.

[feldon34]

I wonder if Edgar or Will can produce a modified version of the Aquarium that does a diagnostic "dump" which would produce a logfile that can be e-mailed to them.

[Jav400]

It would appear that I have lost my fish again. It has something to do with that amount of time. Here is my current specs. I noticed it about 5 minutes ago.

OS[Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 4 (5.0 - 2195)] Uptime[3w 3d 23h 25m 35s] CPU[2-Intel Pentium 4, 3198MHz, 512KB (14% Load)] Mem[Usage: 318/1023MB (31.09%)_[|||-------]] Gfx[NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT @ 1600x1200 32bit 75Hz] C:[14.76/111.78GB(13%)]

[Jav400]

OK, I rebooted and back they came again. This is strange.

[Edgar]

Yes it is.
Now, mark this day. Please don't use the aquarium for at least two days. Then start using it again and see if the the 25 days mark is when you rebooted or when you start running the aquarium again.