AMOS Pro hangs on real A1200

[elanstra]

Hi all,


I got some issue that I cannot solve Any copy of AMOS Professional that I try (Amiga Format or downloaded from various places) hangs after a few seconds of been run. Sometimes I go as far as opening a file, but then hangs again. Most of the time hangs with the screen totally brown-ish and a cursor on the top left.



I tried with a clean 128MB CF with just WB3.1 files. I tried directly from the disks.


It works on WinUAE, but not on my A1200.
I also tested The Creator and it works.



I have an A1200 with 3.0 ROMS and 4MB Fast RAM.


What can be wrong? Thanks a lot in advance.

[Pyromania]

I bought AMOS Pro in the early 1990’s and I seem to remember it had problems with the A1200 when I got one a little later. I don’t think it worked on AGA machines, it’s been many years I hope I’m remembering that correctly. Do you have AGA turned on in your WinUAE config?

[roondar]

I think you might need an updated version, as I'm certain I've run AMOS Pro on an A1200 without problems. Seem to recall a patch and/or new version was issued to fix this problem for both AMOS and AMOS Pro.

[elanstra]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Do you have AGA turned on in your WinUAE config?

Yes, I have the chipset as AGA. That's why I'm quite surprised.

Originally Posted by roondar

I think you might need an updated version, as I'm certain I've run AMOS Pro on an A1200 without problems. Seem to recall a patch and/or new version was issued to fix this problem for both AMOS and AMOS Pro.

Anybody knows where I can get that updated version or a patch. I searched on Internet but I couldn't find anything.

[Lonewolf10]

Exactly which version of AMOS Pro are you trying to run?

[alain.treesong]

Of course Amos pro works on A1200.
For example you can use this version I am using a lot :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nch9p4fj59...020_1.adf?dl=0

[elanstra]

Originally Posted by alain.treesong

Of course Amos pro works on A1200.
For example you can use this version I am using a lot :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nch9p4fj59...020_1.adf?dl=0

Thanks a lot alain.treesong. You gave me hope... for a while


I copied your adf file into a disk and booted my Amiga 1200 (now with 8MB Fast RAM). It looked very promising. I was coding without any issues. But after about an hour, I started experiencing random hang ups. Sometimes while just typing (very simple programs) other times as soon as I right-clicked and open the menus.


Considering that it was working fine for an hour, one would think it's something related with the hardware on my Amiga. Maybe something gets hot and starts failing. But the part I don't understand is that after I reboot, I can use any other program (e.g. excellence!, GFA-BASIC, FinalCalc, AmiFTP, AWeb, SuperbasePro, SAS/C... to name some) and I can even play games without any issue.

[alain.treesong]

@elanstra

Perhaps it comes from the code itself that you do with amos ? Sometimes just a little bug can affect the stability of the system.
The problem you spoke about tells me that you run out of memory (chip memory for example). When memory is low, amos use simpler requesters. You can use "erase" command, "screen close" and "close editor" to try to save some memory

Hope it helps.

Aghnar

[saimo]

One weird thing that causes instability on my A1200 is setting the default screen depth to 1 bitplane (I mean the setting in the global AMOS preferences): that would break Dir$, Bell (and other stuff related to the music extension) and possibly something else I can't remember.

This is the official distribution by Francois Lionet himself.

[RoniWorlds]

If, with other programs and games, sitting on the Amiga for several hours is not a problem. I bet that you either have an unstable version of Amos for AGA or you use some scripts that require more CHIP memory and it is already missing. Alternatively, you can check to write scrypt and save it more often, and if it hangs, check if it behaves the same after retyping the script.

[elanstra]

Originally Posted by saimo

One weird thing that causes instability on my A1200 is setting the default screen depth to 1 bitplane (I mean the setting in the global AMOS preferences): that would break Dir$, Bell (and other stuff related to the music extension) and possibly something else I can't remember.

This is the official distribution by Francois Lionet himself.

I almost solved it, but only almost


I downloaded the official version, and it hanged like all the others.


Then I realised something strange. I could hand it consistently when inserting a floppy. I then realised that I thought I had a fresh WB 3.1 install, but in fact I did add anticlick. So I removed it, rebooted and all was working perfectly for a while. At some point I had 8 programs loaded from the samples and I was running all of them.


But then... hang again


I can only think that I'm using WB 3.1 from Amiga Forever. Could that really be the issue?


Unfortunately when I bought the A1200 didn't come with WB disks.

[elanstra]

Finally I think I found the issue.

Thinking about discarding non-standard things, I looked into my mouse. I'm using an DELL optical USB mouse connected via TOM Rev2 to the Amiga.

I've now connected the original Commodore mouse and no hangs anymore.

I hope stays like that. So far I've been a couple of hours writing code, opening and closing examples and running example programs without any issue.

Thanks a lot everybody for all the help. At least it kept me trying

[saimon69]

Not a coder but this makes me think something to do with CIA is bothering AMOS

[elanstra]

I think I can now say that my Amiga does not want to run AMOS, not matter what.

Everything seemed fine until I started trying to edit objects. Every time I load an IFF and move the mouse to the upper part of the screen, the computer hangs.

I think it's time for running some diagnostics. Though all other applications seems to work normally, I want to discard everything.

[saimo]

Disable all the extra stuff from startup-sequence and user-startup. If you still get crashes, boot without startup-sequence.
Also, check the Copperlist buffer size (in the Interpreter configuration program) and ensure that it is not minimal.

[elanstra]

Originally Posted by saimo

Disable all the extra stuff from startup-sequence and user-startup. If you still get crashes, boot without startup-sequence.
Also, check the Copperlist buffer size (in the Interpreter configuration program) and ensure that it is not minimal.

No luck


I made a fresh installed of WB 3.1 on another CF card. Tried to install AMOS Pro from disks and it hangs already during the installation. I tried four times. One time I got as far as the 3rd disk, but the other times hanged already with the first one.


I did some diagnostics with Advanced Amiga Test Kit and Analyzer 2. Not sure how reliable those software are, but nothing came up. I left the memory test for 3 hours running and nothing came as error.


I've now ordered a DiagROM v1.2.1 to see if somethings pops up.


But it seems I should move to Blitz.

One last thing: could it be related with having KS 3.0 and running WB 3.1?

[saimo]

If, as your post seem to imply, you get those random crashes even after booting without startup-sequence, yours seem a hardware problem. AMOS Professional definitely runs fine on A1200.
One more test you could do is disconnecting your CF card and run AMOS directly from floppy.

[elanstra]

Originally Posted by saimo

If, as your post seem to imply, you get those random crashes even after booting without startup-sequence, yours seem a hardware problem.

Indeed, that would have been the logical conclusion. But I'm still puzzled how no other software crashes. I use it heavily for programming (mainly SAS/C and dBMAN V) and word processing (excellence!). I did put some hours with DeluxePaint V. I play games with no issues (both WHDownLoad and directly from floppy). The only game I ever had a crash was Magica

Originally Posted by saimo

One more test you could do is disconnecting your CF card and run AMOS directly from floppy.

Good idea! I will test it. I was even thinking to replace the IDE2CF for an IDE HDD, for testing. Unfortunately I don't have at the moment a 2.5" HDD that I can fit.

Ah, but I have 2 other IDE2CF adaptors. I'll try that.

[elanstra]

I somehow solved it. Well, I didn't solved but it doesn't happen anymore

Let me explain: I just upgraded to AmigaOS 3.1.4 and now everything works perfectly. Being using AMOS for about 3 hours with no issues at all. With anticlick and USB mouse with Tom Rev2. All good now.

My conclusion: maybe it was related with me using KS 3.0 with WB 3.1. Otherwise, I cannot find an explanation.