Skinstudio crashes after 10 minutes, everytime.

By Night Train Posted December 20, 2005 06:06:40

NOTE:::

eople running warez version and having problems, please go the heck away. Don't spoil this thread! Find your own. I have waitied to post this problem because of all you buttheads making the developers lives miserable because you are a dumbass.

The latest 2 builds of Skinstudio crash after 7 -10 applies of the skin I am working on (or any skin).

As already reported, Skinstudio is very slow to open. If I forget to wait about 30 seconds and click on the skin I want to edit, it freezes and can only be closed with task Manager. If I wait about 30 seconds for all the skins to load in SKS then it will start fine.

After 6-10 applies of the skin I am working on, Skinstudio crashes. Sometimes I get a out of memory warning but most of the time it just stops painting properly and I have to close Skinstudio. Restarting Skinstudio fixes it. Sometimes I will go to edit an image and Photoshop or Paint Shop pro will stop painting properly. if I close Skinstudio everything goes back to normal. Must be a leak of sorts. It started with the last build (4.99 something) and continued into the latest build.
Any work around for this? I can't get a screenshot becuase Something related to Skinstudio prevents me. I can take screenshots when things are working fine but when the problems start, No screenies.

Also, Windowblinds will randomly switch to classic scrollbars, progress bars and some other things. It will randomly happen while I work on a skin. If I apply Xp default skin, unload windowblinds, restart windowblinds, it normally fixes the problem and my scrollbars return. When they go bad, they cannot be seen in the preview window of Windowblinds config. It is all random. Sometimes I can apply the Aura skin and the scrollbars will work fine for that skin, but not others I have made. This is not a sure thing though. Sometimes the Aura scrollbars switch to classic as well.
It might be tied into Skinstudio but I am not sure because it has happened at times when I am not using Skinstudio. Yesterday while browsing the forums, my PC sort of stalled and boom I lost the scrollbars, progress bars and some window frames convert to classic. In that case only a reboot returned everything to normal.

I recently had a major malfunction resulting in a reformat so everything is freshly installed. The problems I mentioned all happened prior to the reformat as well.
I did notice (for the record) that windowblinds is applying skins 100 times faster since the reformat and reinstall of windowblinds.

In the past 2 months or so I have uninstalled and reinstalled windowblinds and or Skinstudio 5 -10 times and the result is the same everytime.

Any assistant is greatly appreciated. It is starting to get annoying. If I spend 15 minutes working on a skin, I will spend 10 minutes getting my scrollbars back or restarting Skinstudio and I could use that time. LOL

Have a great Holiday guys and gals. Thanks for all the hard work throughout the year.

XP sp2...Freshly installed. All windows updates installed. I am currently only running Windowblinds, Skinstudio, and Icon packager. Currently running NO anti virus software. I uninstalled it to test a conflict with Natural Desktop and haven't reinstalled yet. Natural Desktop wouldn't work with Macafee (Greenreaper, has this been fixed yet?).

Not sure what else to add but ...you say, I do.

WindowBlinds 5.0 System Information Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+ TRAY+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

You have 2 monitors.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
(Plug and Play Monitor) 2 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT

Wblind.dll 2005/12/07 20:01:12
Wbsrv.dll 2005/11/28 15:52:00
Wbconfig.exe 2005/12/07 19:09:54
Wbload.exe 2005/11/25 19:30:58
Wbhelp.dll 2004/09/18 16:37:00
Wbui.dll 2005/12/06 21:29:06
Tray.dll 2005/11/02 13:28:26

+51 Karma 53 Replies 16 Referrals

bump

I get some of the same symptoms, NT. Especially with scrollbars, which mine just plain become invisible. Also, when adding text fonts on two occasions, the fonts for the entire skin disappear from SKS. Even installing fonts will not fix. When starting a "new" UIS2 skin to create, or when loading a skin within SKS, it wants to delete all "normal" fonts and colors and all "focus" fonts and colors. This is annoying because I already deleted them the last time I opened the skin, which is one I am working on. The only fix to this has seemed to be to save after each and every deletion, then zipping the skin (finished or not) for distribution.

*bump*

your were sliding

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Thanks Bichur.

scorpio logic...I have experienced all the things you mentioned. I wasn't sure about the fonts but I am now that someone else mentioned it.

I got an email from a little birdie (Thanks again little birdie

)
It was suggested that I exclude Skinstudio in windowblinds exlusions. Skinstudio was already in the list so I figured what the heck, lets give it a try. I removed SKS from the list and everything seems to be working better. No crashes yet. It seems to have cleared up the font problem too. Go figure.

Still a slow startup though. Thats no biggie as long as I remember to wait. It's not as easy as you think when you have opened Skinstudio a million times before.

Now that the Holiday is over and I am back into Skinstudio..

Nothing has changed. SKS still crashes very frequently. The newest build of Windowblinds doesn't seem to have any effect. It is quite slow changing skins now.

I am losing my scrollbars more frequently. A reboot, load XP default skin and then back to my skin fixes it. My taskbar goes 3/4 classic. The areas where quick launch and taskbar buttons changes to classic. The start button and system tray stay skinned.

Would appreciate any feedback.

Pfieuw, Thought it was me NT. Having the same problems with SKS. WB not sure. Sometimes my topbar is back to default but minimizing and maximizing restores it so I'm not sure. Found out opening the uis file using the explorer works a little faster but still freezes up after a while.....no good

Yeah, I lose the top bar also Cliff. Just clicking on it brings it back but that's the first sign that SKS is gonna crash on me.

In case this helps... active and inactive windows are not painting properly. A window will be partially painted until I move a window over it and then it will be ok. It paints very sloppily. 1/2 active and 1/2 inactive until a window is passed over it.

Quite often when selecting a color using the "capture color" tool, I get a not enough memory warning and I have to close out SKS using task manager.

Font setting are still not being saved when saving a skin.

there were no changes in SkinStudio recently that would warrant this kind of behaviour.

The problem you are describing happened to me sometimes when I was using firefox which seems to be leaking like there was no tomorrow but since I switched to Opera all my resource problems have stopped. Can you tell me if you're running Firefox on par with SkinStudio? Also thanks for reporting the depraciates in the default skins. I'll correct the problem and we should have a new build as soon as Kris gets the cxhance after coming back from holiday.

Ugg! Just when I thought most of the bugs had been worked out and I was about ready to try this beast.
Think I'll hold off a bit longer.

I'm not trying to bring up the warez thing, NT, but it's a bit disheartening to hear some of the same symptoms being described for legit users as the hacked version users got.

Yeah, it is disheartening Pic. I just went through a reformat becuase something went very wrong. I use all legit stuff but it did have some similarities. Normally I would dump the software and walk away but I trust Stardock to correct any problems. Besides, I tried quitting skinning, It didn't take.

Skinstudio... I only use Internet Explorer 6. No other browsers installed. However, there may be a link between IE and Skinstudio. I had my hunches that opening IE with SKS running was adding to SKS crashing. It is only a hunch based on the timing of the crashes. Excluding SKS in WB options doesn't help at all.

Ouch ... a reformat. Know what you mean, had to do one myself a while back, but that's an unfortunate result occasionally of running beta software.

SkinStudio, when will we see the final (non-beta) release. I think I would like to wait on that build before I install. A first for that .. I usually always install the betas. But you know what they say: "Once bitten, twice shy".

bump (cause I don't know what else to do)

WB 5 has been running pretty well for me, but I really
dread using SKS anymore. Nigh Train, I have been experiencing
the exact same problems you describe running SKS.
At this point, Notepad seems to be the only solution for me.
Adam needs to fix SKS .... the sooner, the better.

We should ask the question .... Is there anyone using the latest builds
of SKS that can say they are NOT having the problems Night Train described
above (crashes, slows to a crawl, doesn't paint properly, etc)?

Excellent question, brewman! I'll wait with you on the answer.

How many skins have you got open and how much memory do you have?...

I've just been messing with SKS for over an hour, having numerous skins open, making changes, saving, applying etc and cannot reproduce any of the problems noted. However...

I noticed each skin open added 30Mb to memory, and once I had about five skins open just moving the cursor around caused my CPU to get to 50%+. I also note I cannot exclude SKS from being skinned... so maybe this is a WB5 problem with painting the SKS UI???

Wizop Fuzzy..99% of the time I only have 1 skin open. Memory is not an issue but it does seem as if something is leaking. I am looking for anything as I continue to work. Knowing what to look for is a different story.

SKS was by default included in the WB exclusions but still continued to paint SKS. I removed it from the exclusion list and then re-added it and it stopped painting SKS. It was classic and so was photoshop and paint shop pro. SKS still continues to crash though. Odd thing is , in the past I have added or removed SKS from the exclusion list and there was never any change. Now, for the first time (that I remember) it paints classic when added to the list.

I usually have photoshop up with SKS.
One skin active ... sometimes two .... three is a no-no.
System memory not an issue.

Been wanting to try my hand at skinning, but SKS has been crashing on me since I bought Object Desktop two years ago, Funny, did not have trouble till I paid out the cash. I understand this sould have nothing to do with SKS. Still, I am happy with OD. Thanks a bunch to brewman and others. Still I would like to try my hand at skinning WB.

I'm running WB4.6, and SkS 4.90, build 1084. I haven't seen any 'problems'.... but I really haven't used it much lately. There is the one thing though........ it takes much, much longer to load a skin in SkS, than it used to.

Maybe the shot below will help a little. Right now I am running the Aura skin and I have all the same problems. The screenshot shows a skin I am working on. Aura has classic scrollbars but thew taskbar is fine. Xp default skin works fine. In the preview window of windowblinds configuration there are no previews of windows. Just start panels. Text such as load skin from disc, apply this skin now..etc show but no window frmaes around the text. Let me know what else to add.

Running the Aura skin, I open my skin in Skinstudio. I apply my skin through SKS and everything is ok.The scrollbars come back, the taskbar is normal, etc. Applying through windowblinds configuration does not fix it. The problems remain.

Sorry to be a pain in the butt guys. I don't want to be.. I just want to get some of these things fixed so I can go on with life as usual.

NT: What card and drivers are you using?

I can confirm the problem with the slow opening which indeed is a bug that was introduced in the last build, other than this I cannot really reproduce the crasheds here. I'll keep trying though.

Also the SkinStudio not being skinned is not a problem with it itself. It's WB that's painting those. so it looks like it gets corrupted somewhere. Can you check if it's skin specific or if it happens with any skin for you. Often problems like that tend to be related to some skins errors like overlapping or negative margins etc. The taskbar being unskinned is definitely not a SkinStudio bug.

I hope we can have a new SKS build up right after the New Year.

I really didn't give the graphic drivers much thought until I saw the image in #21. For what it's worth, nVidia series 8 drivers trash PSP and for all I know, SKS. The last good drivers without the nVidia bug is 77.77. For anyone who is having problems and wants to try it: ftp://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/