Reported v4.23/v4.22: crashing at various points during scanning multi-page documents to tif

[carusoswi]

I've searched the forum and have discovered that others are having some similar problems, some reference to dual/quad cores, but no definitive explanation as to why installation of Irfanview onto a new computer (dual core running XPsp3) would involve this problem. The program crashes unexpectedly - but it does crash at various points during my process of scanning multi-page documents to .tif. Generally, I like to then open the .tif file and use Irfanview to save as a .pdf at which point, I delete the larger .tif file.

This has worked flawlessly for me on other computers, one of which has hyperthreading but is single core.

Suggestions would be welcome, or, if there is an explanation somewhere that I should review, please point me in the right direction.

Irfanview is such a quick and useful program that I now consider my system incomplete without it. Obviously, I need to correct this problem as it plays havoc with other documents that I have open at the time.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Caruso

[Frank]

Please tell us more about the problem details and as we can reconstruct this bug!

It is necessary to know the causes of an error, in order to call it also an bug!
Otherwise it's not an bug!

Finally the moderators, the administrator or Irfan are not clairvoyants!

[carusoswi]

Please tell us more about the problem details and as we can reconstruct this bug!

It is necessary to know the causes of an error, in order to call it also an bug!
Otherwise it's not an bug!

Finally the moderators, the administrator or Irfan are not clairvoyants!

Frank:
I am a consumer of good computer software, not a software engineer. What additional information would be useful to you in addressing the problem I describe?

If it helps, here is exactly what I do with Irfanview:

I open the program.
Pull down the menu to acquire . . . .
Irfanveiw is preconfigured to use my HP Laserjet 3100.
I scan . . . for some reason, I must always select "invert" for the HP or I get a negative view of the scan.

Usually, I have 3 - 20 pages to scan. When the scan is complete, I close Irfanview, then, browse to the new file, right click on it, open it with Irfanview, then, save as to a pdf file.

90% of the time, this procedure works fine. 10% of the time, I get a blue screen without warning. The blue screen occurs randomly throughout the process - that is to say, I cannot reliably reproduce the problem by moving the mouse, touching the keyboard, the problem cannot be ascribed to any one process . . . sometimes it happens when the scan is completed, sometimes it happens as I open the .tif file to convert to pdf, thankfully, often it doesn't happen at all.

Of course, when the machine crashes, I lose any unsaved data, and all my other workstations are kicked offline, whatever processes they were running are interrupted.

I am probably not giving you the info you need, so, if you will tell me what you need and how I go about retrieving it for you, I will gladly comply.

I'm no mind reader, either.

Thanks for your reply.

Caruso

[Skippybox]

Is this problem isolated to the scanning session, or does opening and saving files when not scanning reproduce it too? In other words, does IrfanView ever crash for you during any other task?

If this is really disruptive, why not return to 4.20 if that works/worked?

[MItaly]

10% of the time, I get a blue screen without warning. The blue screen occurs randomly throughout the process - that is to say, I cannot reliably reproduce the problem by moving the mouse, touching the keyboard, the problem cannot be ascribed to any one process . . . sometimes it happens when the scan is completed, sometimes it happens as I open the .tif file to convert to pdf, thankfully, often it doesn't happen at all.

Of course, when the machine crashes, I lose any unsaved data, and all my other workstations are kicked offline, whatever processes they were running are interrupted.

Very strange: on Windows XP and on every other NT-family OS an application crash shouldn't crash the whole system, since each process lives in a restricted environment in ring 3 and with its own address space. I think that the problem may lie somewhere else, maybe in the RAM or in a defective device driver (maybe the scanner driver?). Could you please post the infos of the blue screen, especially the ones highlighted in the image below?

[carusoswi]

Very strange: on Windows XP and on every other NT-family OS an application crash shouldn't crash the whole system, since each process lives in a restricted environment in ring 3 and with its own address space. I think that the problem may lie somewhere else, maybe in the RAM or in a defective device driver (maybe the scanner driver?). Could you please post the infos of the blue screen, especially the ones highlighted in the image below?

Answers to questions:

Irfanview will crash randomly during various phases of my scanning operation. Sometimes it crashes during the scan (but very rarely). Often, it crashes just after the scan completes and I have dismissed the scanners dialog box. I scan to multiple page tiff's, and then, to save space, I reopen them and save as pdf's. Most crashes occur between the point where I try to close the tiff and where I have saved as pdf and am ready to exit Irfanview.

I will post the info from the blue screen. Is there a way to capture that screen? If not, I will copy it manually.

Thanks for the replies, and I do realize that Irfanview may or may not be the culprit, here.

OTOH, I uses the computer for a number of tasks, and it has never crashed other than when I am working with Irfanview.

I don't really care what software or device is causing the problem - but would love to isolate that cause and correct it if possible.

I must say that, for me, Irfanview is the absolute best application for the tasks to which I apply it.

I used to scan from Photoshop, open InDesign, import the file (or muti-page files one page at a time) and export to pdf from there.

Irfanview is a huge time saver for me.

I also use it to open and print large architectural drawings. It does a tremendous job.

So, even if the problem lies squarely with Irfanview, you will here no blasphemy from me.

Caruso

[carusoswi]

If this is really disruptive, why not return to 4.20 if that works/worked?

I can try that again, however, I believe the first version I loaded onto this machine was 4.20.

If I didn't mention it, older versions (whatever version they were) ran fine on my previous computer. This current computer is relatively new, and the problem did start after I switched computers.

My previous computer was a single core machine.

This one is a dual core.

Both run XP Professional.

Caruso

[MItaly]

Answers to questions:
I will post the info from the blue screen. Is there a way to capture that screen? If not, I will copy it manually.

No, there's no way to capture it, but you can make a photo of the screen with a camera.

[Skippybox]

So, 4.20 didn't work for you either on your machine before 4.22/4.23?

Tell us what happens when you start Notepad,

1. Choose Open
2. Hover over a TXT file
3. Cancel
4. Repeat steps 1-2

If you have no TXT files, either make one first, or choose "All files" and hover over a different file in the procedure.