Trashed mouse sprite > big crash

jimbob · 15 March 2012, 16:45

This disturbing thing happened last night. Attached is a photo of a corrupted mouse sprite following the real mouse pointer around the screen.

Click image for larger version

Name: trashedspritedetail.JPG
Views: 542
Size: 120.7 KB
ID: 30879

I've previously seen this flicker up briefly but figured it was no big deal, maybe an indivision glitch. This time though the thing was solidly displayed nearly all the time and shortly after I took the pic, the amiga froze, then crashed to a black screen, no guru.

Repeated CTRL-A-A brought up yellow error screen. I had to power cycle twice to get it to boot again. I've seen similar to this once before but not noticeably with the mouse thing. Also on that occasion, the first power cycle brought up a red screen.

Multitasking was probably heavier than I've tried before. Three screens, WB playing mods+miamidx, Dopus and AWeb.

A600, ACA630, Kick3.1 in maprom, Indi ECS, Classic WB ADVSP.

Any thoughts?

Amiga1992 · 15 March 2012, 16:55

These things usually appear when there's some memory corruption. I'll let a more knowledgeable mind to speak, though.

Washac · 15 March 2012, 17:32

Never had one or seen one, but there are mousepointer viruses.

jimbob · 17 March 2012, 06:33

Damn, just happened again. Identical sprite weirdness>yellow screen>power cycle>red screen.

Red screen then recovered on it's own to a normal boot. Maybe a corrupted/missing maprom after the yellow CPU error?

Anyone know if either miami, Aweb or prism2.device have any severe bugs? These are things I've not used until recently when I've started to see this.

Perhaps it is time to reseat the ACA630?

How would I begin to look for the cause of memory corruption? Pretty clueless here I'm afraid.

I doubt it is a virus, there isn't much on the amiga but classicWb + KG packs. I'll look into the virus checkers now though. I hear those pointer viruses will usually be giving you the finger or something ruder anyway.

Amiga1992 · 17 March 2012, 11:02

You can use a memory test software.
Maybe you can try one of these
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/MemUtil
http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/sysdiag-0.1.4

But since Jens has made the memory superfast, I don't know if these programs would fail just because of the nature of the memory or not. It might be best to ask him.

I haven't had these errors with any fof those programs, but you might wanna check disabling them. Also, running a virus scan won't hurt.
http://aminet.net/package/util/virus/vht-vc25
http://aminet.net/package/util/virus/vht-vckey

jimbob · 17 March 2012, 12:22

Thanks Akira, I'll check those out. Now it's happening quite often.

The weird thing to me is the mouse sprite. It looks completely identical every time it happens, and stays like that for some time before the freeze and crash. Seems like something specific getting set off each time.

Questions for people who know the hardware. What could cause the mouse sprite colours to be redisplayed in a seemingly random, (but identical each time), pattern directly below the real pointer. Am I right to think that the garbage in the pic above is a standard sprite sized square?

Amiga1992 · 17 March 2012, 12:40

Well if whatever i causing this is writing the same values to the exact same place in memory, you could be having the same thing over and over. Probably it is some shitty program doing something and not your hardware at all.

rkauer · 20 March 2012, 02:22

I saw this problem before using software that remaps graphics to FAST RAM. Do you are using any program like this (OS3.9 Workbench patch doesn't count).

Amiga1992 · 20 March 2012, 10:30

Yeah maybe something like fblit

jimbob · 20 March 2012, 20:00

Hmm, don't think I'm using anything like that on purpose but I thought of FBlit too. It is included in ClassicWB ADVSP which is what I have installed.

I had look at it's configuration GUI and frankly I'm none the wiser as to whether it is turned on or not.

Anyone know what it is doing by default on classicWB?

Amiga1992 · 20 March 2012, 22:36

Fblit does only one thing, that is, load graphics in FastRAM rather than Chip RAM.

Problems with this could indicate a fault on your Fast memory, but not necessarily. I was having similar graphic corruption when using Fblit on my system and it turned out my memory was faulty.

I don't know about ClassicWB, I just make my WBs myself, so I can't help there, but you might want to try turning it off. All the fancy icons will eat up your RAM though.

jimbob · 21 March 2012, 18:08

Well it seems to have stopped and I've no idea why

Looks like Fbilt is enabled by default in classic WB. I turned it off and turned off maprom. Boot to cli prompt only and ran those memory testers for a good while with no errors reported, (not 24 hours, maybe 6 hours total).

Had a big long amiga session varying Fblit and maprom on and off. Error did not recur. Had one guru in about 12 hours.

8100 0005
4020 75F0

I think, might have been 8000, doesn't mean much to me I'm afraid.
So this problem I now class as fixed itself, somehow, for now at least. Not entirely satisfactory.

Amiga1992 · 21 March 2012, 18:29

Did you virus scan the thing? Random errors like that some times occur with viruses.

jimbob · 21 March 2012, 22:15

Just scanned everthing with virusZ, included in classicWB. No virus reported but a bunch of errors on assorted WHDload games files. Checksum errors, corrupt data, etc. Hoping these are just funky file formats used by the slaves.

Amiga been running all afternoon with no problems. I have a suspect though. Just about to test it out. Recently was playing with .HV format HAM videos.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=63357

I reckon the HAMP.RUN player program must pull some nasty tricks to get 15fps from hard disc to screen, maybe it leaves some junk behind when it is done. It is the only new thing I'd been doing on the amiga before the trouble appeared and I haven't it used the last couple of days since the trouble vanished.

EDIT:suspect very suspicious in renewed bouts of crashola! Whether it is in a scrap with Fbit or a maprom or what I don't know but this program certainly seems to be the culprit.

Amiga1992 · 22 March 2012, 00:53

There you go! It's probably to do with it trying to access chip RAM but fblit telling it to go for the Fast RAM, or something like that.

jimbob · 22 March 2012, 10:29

Well I turned off Fblit and couldn't get it to crash or misbehave again. Turned it back on and while it didn't crash properly again over quite a long time, there was some graphics corruption in Alien Breed, and some more WB mouse sprite corruption. I'm pretty sure now that HAMP.RUN does not play nice with FBLIT.

Seems like if you play an HV video with Fblit in operation, there is a good chance a horrible crash is coming down the road at you. There is some asm source included with the video player. Attached if anyone feels like taking a look.

HAMVIDasm.txt

jimbob · 29 March 2012, 14:42

Bugger, seems I was a bit hasty to accuse the HAMP.RUN program. Just happened again. I still think this program can hasten the process but isn't really the cause.

This time, after the same mouse corruption started to appear I got a bunch of recoverable alerts.

0100 000F 4000 7372

I was actually able to continue in between these. Then I noticed that workbench title bar was reporting about 270 megabytes of chip RAM.

At this point, repeated CTRL-A-A brought just a black screen. Had to power cycle to get it to boot again. This time I was treated to a green screen, which recovered on its own to boot normally.

Amiga1992 · 29 March 2012, 15:41

You are having serious RAM problems. I never seen such a thing.
Have you tried talking with Jens ?

jimbob · 30 March 2012, 13:13

Well I think the ACA is now past warranty so Jens would have no obligation, plus I don't feel the accelerator is actually faulty since at other times it works trouble free for many hours. This makes it too difficult for me to find the problem.

Reseating the card seems like a good idea, but then if the trouble comes back, is that because it needs reseated again or some other problem is recurring. I'll probably do this anyway. I also have a spare A600 I could try.

Could also be psu/temperature/software problem. Too many variables and not enough knowledge on my part to find the cause.

This is a bummer, I mean part of the fun for me of pimped out A600s is putting it all together, case mods, ironing out the troubles, but the main point is to have fun using the thing.

Amiga1992 · 30 March 2012, 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimbob

Well I think the ACA is now past warranty so Jens would have no obligation

I don't mean your card is faulty but he could shed some light to teh problem. It surely is some issue regarding Fast RAM.

15 March 2012, 16:45	#1
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Trashed mouse sprite > big crash This disturbing thing happened last night. Attached is a photo of a corrupted mouse sprite following the real mouse pointer around the screen. I've previously seen this flicker up briefly but figured it was no big deal, maybe an indivision glitch. This time though the thing was solidly displayed nearly all the time and shortly after I took the pic, the amiga froze, then crashed to a black screen, no guru. Repeated CTRL-A-A brought up yellow error screen. I had to power cycle twice to get it to boot again. I've seen similar to this once before but not noticeably with the mouse thing. Also on that occasion, the first power cycle brought up a red screen. Multitasking was probably heavier than I've tried before. Three screens, WB playing mods+miamidx, Dopus and AWeb. A600, ACA630, Kick3.1 in maprom, Indi ECS, Classic WB ADVSP. Any thoughts?

21 March 2012, 22:15	#14
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Just scanned everthing with virusZ, included in classicWB. No virus reported but a bunch of errors on assorted WHDload games files. Checksum errors, corrupt data, etc. Hoping these are just funky file formats used by the slaves. Amiga been running all afternoon with no problems. I have a suspect though. Just about to test it out. Recently was playing with .HV format HAM videos. http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=63357 I reckon the HAMP.RUN player program must pull some nasty tricks to get 15fps from hard disc to screen, maybe it leaves some junk behind when it is done. It is the only new thing I'd been doing on the amiga before the trouble appeared and I haven't it used the last couple of days since the trouble vanished. EDIT:suspect very suspicious in renewed bouts of crashola! Whether it is in a scrap with Fbit or a maprom or what I don't know but this program certainly seems to be the culprit. Last edited by jimbob; 21 March 2012 at 22:43.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Out of this Little Big World - Little Big Planet	s2325	Retrogaming General Discussion	3	05 April 2015 05:09
Trashed synth Beep() sounds	hexaae	support.WinUAE	0	13 December 2010 16:24
Trashed screen when returns from WHDLoad	hexaae	support.WinUAE	46	07 January 2008 00:12
Big Big Boxes	BinoX	Hardware pics	6	27 July 2006 02:35
BIG BIG BIG WINUAE CRASH (with .dmp file included)	The Rom Alien	support.WinUAE	4	31 August 2004 20:26

15 March 2012, 16:55	#2
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	These things usually appear when there's some memory corruption. I'll let a more knowledgeable mind to speak, though.

15 March 2012, 17:32	#3
Washac Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: UK Southern End Posts: 704	Never had one or seen one, but there are mousepointer viruses.

17 March 2012, 06:33	#4
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Damn, just happened again. Identical sprite weirdness>yellow screen>power cycle>red screen. Red screen then recovered on it's own to a normal boot. Maybe a corrupted/missing maprom after the yellow CPU error? Anyone know if either miami, Aweb or prism2.device have any severe bugs? These are things I've not used until recently when I've started to see this. Perhaps it is time to reseat the ACA630? How would I begin to look for the cause of memory corruption? Pretty clueless here I'm afraid. I doubt it is a virus, there isn't much on the amiga but classicWb + KG packs. I'll look into the virus checkers now though. I hear those pointer viruses will usually be giving you the finger or something ruder anyway.

17 March 2012, 11:02	#5
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	You can use a memory test software. Maybe you can try one of these http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/MemUtil http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/sysdiag-0.1.4 But since Jens has made the memory superfast, I don't know if these programs would fail just because of the nature of the memory or not. It might be best to ask him. I haven't had these errors with any fof those programs, but you might wanna check disabling them. Also, running a virus scan won't hurt. http://aminet.net/package/util/virus/vht-vc25 http://aminet.net/package/util/virus/vht-vckey

17 March 2012, 12:22	#6
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Thanks Akira, I'll check those out. Now it's happening quite often. The weird thing to me is the mouse sprite. It looks completely identical every time it happens, and stays like that for some time before the freeze and crash. Seems like something specific getting set off each time. Questions for people who know the hardware. What could cause the mouse sprite colours to be redisplayed in a seemingly random, (but identical each time), pattern directly below the real pointer. Am I right to think that the garbage in the pic above is a standard sprite sized square?

17 March 2012, 12:40	#7
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	Well if whatever i causing this is writing the same values to the exact same place in memory, you could be having the same thing over and over. Probably it is some shitty program doing something and not your hardware at all.

20 March 2012, 02:22	#8
rkauer I hate potatos and shirts Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sao Leopoldo / Brazil Age: 57 Posts: 3,482	I saw this problem before using software that remaps graphics to FAST RAM. Do you are using any program like this (OS3.9 Workbench patch doesn't count).

20 March 2012, 10:30	#9
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	Yeah maybe something like fblit

20 March 2012, 20:00	#10
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Hmm, don't think I'm using anything like that on purpose but I thought of FBlit too. It is included in ClassicWB ADVSP which is what I have installed. I had look at it's configuration GUI and frankly I'm none the wiser as to whether it is turned on or not. Anyone know what it is doing by default on classicWB?

20 March 2012, 22:36	#11
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	Fblit does only one thing, that is, load graphics in FastRAM rather than Chip RAM. Problems with this could indicate a fault on your Fast memory, but not necessarily. I was having similar graphic corruption when using Fblit on my system and it turned out my memory was faulty. I don't know about ClassicWB, I just make my WBs myself, so I can't help there, but you might want to try turning it off. All the fancy icons will eat up your RAM though.

21 March 2012, 18:08	#12
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Well it seems to have stopped and I've no idea why Looks like Fbilt is enabled by default in classic WB. I turned it off and turned off maprom. Boot to cli prompt only and ran those memory testers for a good while with no errors reported, (not 24 hours, maybe 6 hours total). Had a big long amiga session varying Fblit and maprom on and off. Error did not recur. Had one guru in about 12 hours. 8100 0005 4020 75F0 I think, might have been 8000, doesn't mean much to me I'm afraid. So this problem I now class as fixed itself, somehow, for now at least. Not entirely satisfactory.

21 March 2012, 18:29	#13
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	Did you virus scan the thing? Random errors like that some times occur with viruses.

22 March 2012, 00:53	#15
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	There you go! It's probably to do with it trying to access chip RAM but fblit telling it to go for the Fast RAM, or something like that.

22 March 2012, 10:29	#16
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Well I turned off Fblit and couldn't get it to crash or misbehave again. Turned it back on and while it didn't crash properly again over quite a long time, there was some graphics corruption in Alien Breed, and some more WB mouse sprite corruption. I'm pretty sure now that HAMP.RUN does not play nice with FBLIT. Seems like if you play an HV video with Fblit in operation, there is a good chance a horrible crash is coming down the road at you. There is some asm source included with the video player. Attached if anyone feels like taking a look. HAMVIDasm.txt

29 March 2012, 14:42	#17
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Bugger, seems I was a bit hasty to accuse the HAMP.RUN program. Just happened again. I still think this program can hasten the process but isn't really the cause. This time, after the same mouse corruption started to appear I got a bunch of recoverable alerts. 0100 000F 4000 7372 I was actually able to continue in between these. Then I noticed that workbench title bar was reporting about 270 megabytes of chip RAM. At this point, repeated CTRL-A-A brought just a black screen. Had to power cycle to get it to boot again. This time I was treated to a green screen, which recovered on its own to boot normally.

29 March 2012, 15:41	#18
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,577	You are having serious RAM problems. I never seen such a thing. Have you tried talking with Jens ?

30 March 2012, 13:13	#19
jimbob Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Location: Kilmacolm Age: 45 Posts: 632	Well I think the ACA is now past warranty so Jens would have no obligation, plus I don't feel the accelerator is actually faulty since at other times it works trouble free for many hours. This makes it too difficult for me to find the problem. Reseating the card seems like a good idea, but then if the trouble comes back, is that because it needs reseated again or some other problem is recurring. I'll probably do this anyway. I also have a spare A600 I could try. Could also be psu/temperature/software problem. Too many variables and not enough knowledge on my part to find the cause. This is a bummer, I mean part of the fun for me of pimped out A600s is putting it all together, case mods, ironing out the troubles, but the main point is to have fun using the thing.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)