BUG: MA 3.2 won't exit, remains running as icon on taskbar

[CheriePie]

Has anyone else had this issue where Marine Aquarium fails to exit properly and remains running in the background, with its icon on the taskbar? When this happens, you can't even close it by right clicking on it's taskbar icon and clicking Close Window, which does nothing. Instead, I have to launch a Task Manager and manually kill the process.

Basically, I've been unable to run Marine Aquarium 3.2 on my Dell Studio XPS laptop for about 2 years now, pretty much ever since I moved to this new laptop from my old one. I was hoping that overtime something would change enough on my system that would allow it to start working right again but no such luck. And yes, I've updated my graphics drivers several times over the course of the last couple years and unfortunately it hasn't made the least bit of difference.

My laptop is a Dell Studio XPS 1645 with an Intel Core i7-720QM Quad processor at 1.6GHz and 6GB DDR3 memory. Graphics card is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 with 1GB of dedicated video RAM and display is 15.6 WLED. Operating system is Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit.

Is there anything in my config above that you would say is definitely the culprit? I'm sure several of you are running 64-bit Windows 7 so I doubt that's it. When it first stopped working I drove myself crazy trying to get it back, updating graphics drivers, running without Kaspersky Internet Security, and basically bringing my system down to nearly bare bones in an attempt to get Marine Aquarium to exit properly, all to no avail. Since I don't think I ever took the time to detail my problem out here, I figured I'd do so now since I am missing my little fishies!!

PS - Happy Holidays to All!

[Jim Sachs]

What happens when the Aquarium window is active and you press Esc?
What happens when you right-click the Aquarium window and try to use the mini-menu to exit?

[patscarr]

Interesting problem Cherie. I hope it gets worked out.

[CheriePie]

Pressing Esc exhibits the behavior I detailed above.
Using the in-app mini-menu to exit is pretty much the same, with the addition of a small 3x3 ish window remaining on the desktop (about the size of the mini-menu) in addition to the taskbar icon. But again, it needs to be shut down via my task manager.

A few other things to note. Turning off panning and/or sound doesn't make a difference, nor does adjusting the video frame rate waaaaay down. I'm sure there's a million other things I've tried over the course of the last couple years--and possibly several I haven't thought of as well--so any ideas on what to investigate, or logs I can send for debugging, just let me know. I use TaskInfo as my task manager which gives me a good deal of detail about the system and it's processes, most of it which can be written or saved to a file. Plus the usual system logs of Windows 7, though I haven't seen anything useful in there.


PS - Yup, I did just update my location from Boston, MA to SF Bay Area, CA. Moving across the country was just one of several things that's kept me from taking the time before now to more thoroughly troubleshoot this by writing out here.

[Jim Sachs]

To shut down, the program sends Windows a WM_CLOSE message. For some reason your computer is failing to process this message. I have no idea why. Is MA3.2 the only program exhibiting this behavior? Did any earlier versions of the Aquarium also do it?

[hillover]

Just a thought - are you perhaps using an add-in "Window Manager"? Some of those provide the capability to prevent windows from closing and/or "minimize on Close". That's probably not your problem, but worth asking.

Also - do (other) Screen Savers exhibit the same behavior?

[CheriePie]

Sorry for the delayed reply. Holidays got in the way... Hope you all had a great one!

To answer the question posed by Jim, I can't recall exactly when this problem started. I seem to think it was only with v3.2, but it may have actually started with 3.1. I'd have to see a timeline of the dates of each release to know for sure. I seem to recall it working fine on my previous laptop (also a Dell) but not working on this one at all from the moment I set it up. However, this all occurred right as I was packing up my life, selling our house, and moving across the country so I didn't have time to document it more thoroughly.

And also, no I'm not using an add-in window manager. I'm not that familiar with them however so maybe one of the other apps I run regularly might provide a similar service? Though I do recall back then starting up with nearly all my startup items disabled and still getting this behavior. I'll go ahead and confirm that again though now that it's been a few years. Safe Mode alone I know would have problems because it doesn't load the full set of video drivers, but I'll use Ace Utils Startup Manager or Windows own msconfig to configure it down to the bare bones startup again and confirm the same behavior. I'll report back after I've had a chance to do that, hopefully later tonight or tomorrow.

PS - no other screen savers have exhibited the same behavior but then again, the only other ones I have on my system are the ones built into windows.

[Jim Sachs]

Thanks for helping us troubleshoot.

[CheriePie]

Okay, well I've used autoruns to bring my laptop back to bare bones, loading only essential drivers (including video and other hardware stuff) in addition to Windows stuff, and still the same behavior.

I am almost certain that the problem is just with the hardware on this laptop though because I loaded it up on my husband's laptop and it worked just fine, with all his other apps and extensions still in place (and he runs a lot of the same memory resident apps as me like Rainlendar and Magic Notes.

I'm not quite sure what to try next for troubleshooting. Suggestions?

[Jim Sachs]

I'm stymied.

[hillover]

Is the BIOS the latest version?

Also Chipset software, keyboard and touchpad drivers?

Dell Urgent Patch/Upgrade 3/1/2010? [grasping at straws]