From time to time, when I load a project into the XE6 IDE, the following error occurs
This error results in the TZConnection component being removed from the Datamodule for some inexplicable reason. Note that the project has been loading without issue for ages and just out of the blue, this occurs.
Has anyone seen this before and know of a way of stopping it from occuring ?
It also occurs with other components, not always the TZConnection component but mostly ZConnection.
Like I said before, this appears randomly. I could close project A, open project B then close it and return to Project A and bang!, the error occurs.
Any clues ? (note that this also used to occur in Delphi 2007)
The Zeos libraries are themselves causing this problem.
To see why, and to fix it, use Delphi to launch a second instance of Delphi, and debug the issue directly.
I wrote a blog post showing exact steps here.
The key is to set the executable that will be run for your zeos package, be sure to build them in debug configuration, and then click the Run button on the Delphi IDE toolbar. A second delphi instance will start. Open the affected form but be sure to be using the IDE instance that is Being debugged as opposed to the one which is currently doing the debugging, when the exception occurs that is causing your component to delete itself, you will be able to step into the package code and see the problem.
I suspect a DLL-hell path issue. (Multiple copies of Zeos or other core BPL/DLLs in your path.)
Actually, it doesn't sound that inexplicable - it's probably caused by an exception occurring as the DataModule (or some form with db-aware components connected to it via properties) is being loaded into the IDE (see below). Have you tried checking that wherever your ZEOS .BPL files are located is on your system Path? Likewise any .BPLs they depend upon - see the "requires" clause in the .DPK file(s) for Zeos.
This sort of problem arises fairly frequently with flaky DB components, maybe more so than other types of component because db components more frequently involve linkages between datamodules and forms, e.g. when db-aware components on the forms are connected to others on the datamodule.
So, sometimes, whether this sort of problem shows up or not depends on the order in which the IDE will re-open them - try closing the project with only the dm open and then re-opening it. A bit of experimenting with which datamodules and forms are open in the IDE and in which order may help you pin down the problem. If/when you have a reproducible sequence of steps to provoke the problem, report it to the authors.
A fairly reliable way to determine whether the problem is being caused by an exception as a project loads is to run one instance of the IDE inside another. As long as the first ("outer") instance of the IDE has the debugger set to "Break on Language exceptions" it should be able to take you straight to the source of the exception (assuming it occurs, of course) when the project is loaded by the second instance. It may take a few goes to "catch it in the act" of course, but it is hugely satisfying when you manage to. Good luck!
Unlike MartynA I doubt this would be caused by an exception.
I would more likely expect such issues to be caused by windows path environment variable being too long.
Unfortunately still many component vendors and even some programs modify "windows path environment variable` to make their own files accessible by other programs.
And when windows path environment variable fails to provide sufficient information windows will try to find the files in default system directory which is C:\Windows\System32
So I would strongly advise checking the windows path environment variable to check its length.
The easiest way to do this is by simply starting the command prompt and typing in path directive or perhaps path >> D:\path.log to export the path environment variable information into a file for easier reading in case if it is long.
EDIT: BTW I just checked my path environment variable and I see that I will have to do some cleaning because it contains entries for both Delphi XE8 and Delphi XE 10 Seattle file locations even thou I have removed Delphi XE8 from my computer. Not to mention some entries from some programs that I have removed quite some time ago.
Related
Delphi 2007 sometimmes holds a handle to the EXE it's linker makes. Sometimes it works fine. But other times it's a whole day saying: "Cannot make EXE file" or something similar when trying to compile or build a solution.
When I try to launch EXE made from Delphi it says that another process is holding the file. Going to "unlocker" says: bds.exe. Even if I unlock it I must rename it to eg. app1.ex_ and copy it back to app1.exe. But still Delphi is holding the handle to that .ex_ file.
Needless to say it makes debugging (or even running) and developing quite slow: having to deal with locked exe...
Any suggestion? Workaroung or fix available - I've been looking for it but can seem to find it: I'm sure others have the same problems (I've seen it) - is there any fix for this?
env.: Win7 Ent. x64, Delphi CodeGear 2007
Thanks!
Going to "unlocker" says: bds.exe. Even if I unlock it I must rename
it to eg. app1.ex_ and copy it back to app1.exe. But still Delphi is
holding the handle to that .ex_ file.
Based on the fact that renaming file causes the BDS.exe to "hold the lock" of renamed file I seriously doubt the BDS.exe is actually the one that is holding the lock. If BDS would be holding the lock on that file you wouldn't even be able to rename it.
So I would seriously suspect that your AntiVirus software might be behind it.
I even remeber having similar difficulties years back using Delphi 7. The cause then was ma AntiVirus software (Nod32 version 2). First workaround I was unsing was to simply delete the application exe file prior compiling, but later I simply added entire Folder into the AV residental protection ignore list.
So try adding your project folder into ignore list and see if it solves the problem.
I've been banging my head against this for the past two days and can't seem to make any progress...
Pretty much from one moment to the next, Delphi XE2 won't properly compile one of my projects any more. That is, it actually compiles without errors but at runtime I get resource not found errors for what is essentially the main "form" (it's actually a data module in this case). I have already reverted to older versions of the project from source control that I know were definitely working alright but to no avail. Judging by that it seems it must be something inside Delphi/the IDE itself rather than in the project source. However, I have also not been able to reproduce the issue with a simple test project nor with any other real-life projects... It only happens with this one.
Another strange thing is that when I look at the produced binary with XN Resource Explorer everything looks as it should: The form resource mentioned in the error message is actually there and intact...
At some point I was suspecting this might be caused by a bug in one of the experts I have installed in my IDE (e.g. Uwe's platform and OI experts and VersionInsightPlus, Andreas' IDEFixPack and DDevExtensions, GExperts) but even after disabling all these the problem persisted.
Unfortunately, I am unable to track down exactly when this started to happen as I had been working for some time without actually running the binary, fixing compiler warnings and errors for the x64-target, adjusting build events for updated third-party tools (localization and license protection) and such things...
Has anyone else ever seen anything like this happen? Any more ideas on how to pin this down?
Some more details about the project:
It is an addin for Outlook built using the Add-In-Express framework (i.e. a COM-DLL).
The "main form" is a TDataModule-descendant - we also inserted our own ancestor-class into the hierarchy, i.e. the "addin module" is not directly inheriting from TadxCOMAddInModule - the resources of the custom ancestor forms also appear to be present and intact in the output binary when checking with a resource viewer.
Built without runtime packages for the Win32 and Win64 platforms.
Let me know if you think I missed to mention any other potentially relevant details.
Update:
I have now transferred the sources in question onto a different machine. Interestingly, the DLL I compiled there did not exhibit the problem - on that machine that is... when I transfered it back to the original machine and I tried to call it, the error was back (to stress this: this was the exact same DLL producing a EResNotFound on one machine but not on the other. Of course, once I had discovered this, I also performed the reverse test and lo and behold, the DLL compiled on the original machine works without errors on the other machine...
Seems this might not be a Delphi problem after all... but what is it then?
Differences between the two machines:
Machine 1 (the one were the problem occurs): Windows 7 Ultimate English 64bit with Delphi XE2 Update 4
Machine 2: Windows 7 Professional German 32bit with Delphi XE2 Update 3
On a third machine that is almost identical to the first except that it doesn't have Delphi on it, DLLs produced by both machines work flawlessly.
I am a bit surprised to see your question here. :)
We faced a number of serious issues with recent Update 4 for Delphi XE2. Though we have never run into or been reported of the "resource not found" error, I think this update might be one of the causes. Have you installed it?
One more thing that comes to my mind is images that you use for your Office controls (command bar and ribbon). Probably they got broken somehow, the run-time code cannot load them and reports this error.
Anyway, as you understand, these are just my guesses, if you need our assistance with your office add-in please contact Add-in Express support service, we will try to help.
Update: Seems I was a bit too quick, drawing conclusions. Apparently the Sisulizer solution is also supposed to perform a fallback to the main resource block. I have now taken this issue to the product forum and will report back here, once this is resolved.
Alright, mystery solved at last:
I had turned off the option to "Copy all resources" in Sisulizer in an attempt to reduce the size of the produced resource DLLs and then had forgotten about it...
I hadn't fully realized the implications of the standard Delphi resource DLL approach to localization on which Sisulizer "piggybacks" - especially that it was an all-or-nothing deal: Our previous translation solution implemented a fallback-mechanism that would read any resources not found in the external resource DLL from the host binary instead. This does not appear to be the case with Sisulizer - at least not out of the box... thus, any resource that's not contained in the localized resource DLL does not exist as far as the application is concerned.
I also didn't realize that the mere existence of a file with the same base name as the main binary and an extension matching the current system's default locale (such as .EN or .DE) would automatically cause the VCL to load it...
The machines that did not exhibit the error either still had the older, larger (=complete) resource DLLs on them, or no resource DLLs at all.
This is occurring on 2 machines that are both running Windows XP Pro SP3, yet it runs OK on my development machine within in or outside the Delphi IDE.
Running Windows XP Pro. Exe compiled under Delphi 2010.
When I run the exe I get the Windows Reporting error "Neopos.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience"
I know it is happening somewhere in the form create of the main form.
Application.Initialize; //Runs this
Application.CreateForm(TfmMain, fmMain); //FAILS HERE
It does not get to: procedure TfmMain.FormCreate(Sender: TObject); in the Main Form and I don't know how to track down this error and debug it.
What happens between: Application.CreateForm(TfmUDF, fmUDF); AND procedure TfmMain.FormCreate(Sender: TObject) in my main form.
How can I trace this to find out what the hell is causing the Windows Error.
Of course the Windows Error report contains a long listing of information. Where can I look in that to find the cause or at least a clue on the cause of the error.
This error has now stopped all development work (and ruined my weekend) so I urgently need to fix this.
The most straightforward route to take would be to include a product like MadExcept or JCL Debugger into your application, to get a full call stack (including line number) of the point of failure. We've rolled our own years ago, and it has been a tremendous help in situations like this.
One alternative, but lots more cumbersome, would be to generate a MAP file from your project, use MAP2DBG to generate a .MAP file, and use the Windows Debbuging Tools to get about the same information. This approach is a lot more hardcore, and only advisable if you really want to learn a lot about the internals of windows debugging (and enjoy working with arcane tools).
Another alternative would be to attach to the failing application from your development environment using Remote Debugging. Only applicable if you have a fair amount of control over the failing machines.
#user576639, here are some debugging ideas:
Look into the System's Event Viewer
If you got the exe has encountered a problem and needs to close chances are you'll find something about it in the System's Event Viewer. That should be your first step.
Any special DLL's required?
Do you need MIDAS.DLL?
Are you using an database engine? Does it require some sort of client library?
I'm talking from experience here: My development machine obviously has all the libraries I might need. Most of my clients also have most of those libraries because they have my software installed. At times I put out small helping applications that don't go throw extensive testing and they fail to work on SOME machines but work fine on other machines. Why? I used TClientDataset and forgot to include MIDAS.DLL with the application; Or the application is trying to access a Firebird SQL server but the user doesn't have Firebird client library installed.
Printer driver issues
Boy I hate Delphi's printer handling. Also hate buggy printer drivers, haven't made up my mind about what's worst. If you have something on your main form that might be requesting information about the default Windows printer (example: an REPORT) give this a try: Install an sane/simple printer and set it as the default printer. If the user has Office 2007+ installed, set the "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" the default printer.
I have seen bad printer driver + delphi issues manifest themselves with the "exe needs to close" symptom.
Prepare an special build of your application
If you got this far without fixing your issue it's time to create an special build of your application that's capable of providing more information. First of all I'd try adding this to your DPR file; Don't know if this is still useful for Delphi 2010 but it did help me see some early exceptions with a Delphi 7 application:
function HandleUnhandledException:integer;stdcall;
begin
Result := 1; // 1 = EXCEPTION_EXECUTE_HANDLER
end;
// and then immediately after "begin" in your DPR file:
begin
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(#HandleUnhandledException);
// ... the usual stuff goes here
end;
Add some ShowMessage-s to your Main Form's code, in your OnCreate handler (if you have one), in your Create constructor (again, if you have one). If you're adding an ShowMessage to your Create destructor, make sure it's after the "inherited" call. This will help pin-point how far the loading of the form goes before it fails.
If all else fails...
Create a new, blank form; Make it the new Main Form (so it's initialized before your former Main Form). Test it on the client's machine - does it show up? It most likely will, if it doesn't you've got some serious problems.
Start copying the components from the former main form to the new main form; Only the components need to be copied, not the code: Your error is probably caused by some component failing to initialize properly. Make sure no component has "Active=True"! Copy the components in small batches, test often. If you spot the component that causes your form not to load on the client's computer, tell us about it and we'll try to help.
If you manage to get all your components on the new form, write an OnCreate handler that sets Active := True for all the components that need that. Did that fix the issue?
If you got this far then all the components you used on your main form can load properly. The problem's related to YOUR CODE. Start copying all the code from your old main form to your new main form, in small bits, and test. You're bound to find the peace of code that causes your application to stop loading.
Use dependency walker to see if you're missing a required DLL.
You can use information from system reporting (your error and suggestion to send it ) with Error Report Grabber ( http://www.maxerist.net/main/soft-for-win/err-rep-grabber ). I developed this tool when I desperately needed to track a error that appeared very rarely so almost non-reproducible. It helped me to track the information from stack to find actual place in the code.
The tool works only on XP (MS removed this dialog in Win7 and probably Vista), but I see that your cases are XP so this can help.
UPDATE: if you're not familiar with assembler and everything, this can work like this.
You should compile you program and don't change anything. Save the report on a bad machine, copy the file to your developer machine and open to view the contents. Look at the stack of your main thread in the report and find numbers more than $00400000, they're usually the addresses inside the procedures that called some other procedure and wait for return. In your developer machine, start the program and stop at any line, open CPU Window and on the main list with assembler instruction right-click and choose go to address, enter this address. You will see other assembler lines, but wrapped with pascal constructions you can probably recognize as yours
Thanks a lot for the help.
In the end I reverted to a recent backup and traced it down to a particular form.
I did not actually find the error, which is a bit worrying, but in any case I am back up and running (phew!!)
I made the error to occur on my development machine also, when, and only when, I use my install program (Inno Setup) to compile a setup.exe and which installs the exe as well as installing postgreSQL. Seems really strange, as though there is a problem with the setup compiler. In any case I have not seen the error again. I guess it will remains a mystery, like women.
In Delphi withing debugging options select debug dcu's, this will allow you to debug into the Delphi source code for TForm and its descendants and you may be able to track down a more likely culprit.
Set a breakpoint on
Application.CreateForm(TfmMain, fmMain); //FAILS HERE
and then step into the code to see where the issue is.
We are trying to split up our monolithic EXE into a combination of an EXE and several packages. So far, we have one package that we're trying to use, and when running the EXE Codeguard shows the following error on startup:
CG Error
Two different CRTLDLLs are loaded. CG might report false errors
(C:\Windows\system32\CC32100MT.DLL)
(D:\Projects\Foo\Bar.bpl)
OK
I read this as two different runtime libraries being loaded - one, the correct one (CC32100MT.dll), one incorrect, which is the package we're trying to use.
Continuing to run the program shows odd errors, especially casting between classes or passing a pointer to a class as a parameter in a method that crosses the EXE/DLL boundary. Codeguard itself doesn't show any other errors at all though. Edit: This is now resolved, and wasn't related. The program appears to run correctly, but the warning Codeguard shows is still worrying.
How do we solve this?
Some more details
We've looked at as many things as we (the developer working on this and I) can collectively think of:
Each project is built using runtime packages. The EXE host lists Bar in its package list.
Each project is set to compile with dynamic RTL. However, changing this does not solve the problem.
The package is linked to the EXE via its BPI file, but linking via a LIB makes no difference either.
The EXE and BPL are compiled with the same project settings, where the same options exist for both types of project. We think, anyway :)
There is only one copy of the BPL and BPI on the system: it's definitely linking to the right one.
Examining the EXE and BPL with Depends and TDump show they are both using C:\Windows\system32\CC32100MT.DLL. They should both be using the one RTL.
Creating a new project (a plain VCL forms application) and linking to the BPL (via its BPI) works fine. Something in the process of adding all the files and LIBs that make our EXE contain the code it needs to changes this, but we haven't been able to figure out what.
The LIBs all either correspond to DLLs we use (flat C interface, usually look as though they were built with MSVC) or are simple projects with lots of related files, compiled to a lib for the purpose of linking into the EXE - these correspond roughly to the areas of the program we want to split to BPLs, by the way. There don't seem to be project options for the LIB projects that would affect RTL linking, unless we've missed them.
I have exhaustively hunted through Depends and looked at all RTL and CC32*.dll files the EXE and every single DLL references. All are identical: rtl140.bpl and CC32100MT.DLL. Fully qualified paths show they are the same files, too. Everything should be using the one same run-time library.
Edit: The final EXE is complex, built with several libs, several DLLs, etc. All these, when built with C++Builder, are built with the current version. Is it possible there's something in one of these DLLs or LIBs that could cause a problem? I don't know enough about how the RTL is linked in to be sure about where to look... my (naive?) assumption is that the linker would normally link in one set of RTL functions, but that of course doesn't seem to be happening... and I don't know how things change when using packages. Is it possible this error has always existed and Codeguard has not flagged it before, because we haven't used something dynamic like a package?
Perhaps another question is, Why would a package have its own RTL anyway, or what would make it count as 'a RTL DLL' to Codeguard?
We're stumped. Absolutely stumped. We've had other problems using BPLs (they seem to be surprisingly tricky things, especially using C++) but have managed to solve them all. This one we've had no luck at all and we'd really appreciate any insights :)
We're using C++Builder 2010 (as part of RAD Studio actually, but with little Delphi code apart from components.)
Edit: Started a bounty. I'd really like to solve this!
Edit 2: Thanks to David Dean for his help (marked as answered below.) Via email, he pointed out this issue was reproduced in a simple test case by someone else, and is logged in Embarcadero QC as report 86335. Currently there is no fix, but the warning does not appear to indicate a genuine problem (ie, it's probably a spurious error, and while it's a pity to have to click past the dialog when you run, hopefully there's nothing in the error to worry about.)
Since one of these is coming from a .bpl, did you try turning off "Build with runtime packages" in the project options?
We had a similar problem. We tracked it down to a (non VCL) .cbproj that was created without the "Multithreaded" option.
As far as I can tell, the only time you get chance to set this option is when you create a new .cbproj, it cannot be changed afterwards using the GUI. We ended up "hacking" the .cbproj to include the following:
<Multithreaded>true</Multithreaded>
To determine which dll is causing the issue, it should be the last dll loaded in the output window just before you see the CG message.
Did you check if you use _TCHAR as char. We had some similar problems with RAD Studio and we found a workaround using _TCHAR as char. As soon as one DLL or BPL Project is compiled with wchar_t, this code guard error appears.
We also figured out, that EXE projects can be compiled with TCHAR = wchar_t without any problem (the main function will be WIDE).
The settings does not affect the GUI being able to handle UNICODE.
A customer logged a similar case in our public bug tracking system and the bug has been identified and fixed in the latest release.
We have a Delphi 5 application, that is built without runtime packages, dlls or external resources (i.e. a single executable). when we install it on a clients PC we get the following error messages:
Class TListView not found
or
Class TImage not found
We have installed it on dozens of PCs before without incident, but this latest install is problematic.
The target PC is a fresh install of Windows XP (Service pack 3) with no other software installed.
It does not complain about all of the classes however just one or two. for example TPanel/ TForm/ TEdit are all OK.
Can anyone think what is causing this?
EDIT
The exe on the new PC is on 30 or so other PCs that I know of, ranging from windows XP Sp1,2,3, Windows Vista and Windows embedded. both old and new PCs were installed with an old version and then updated with the newest version. The only difference is that the version jump was higher for the latest install.
This is typically an error during the streaming of a .DFM. Usually this error occurs with TLabel components because many folks remove the TLabel fields from the form or frame in order to cut down on the clutter and reduce the instance size of the form. The common and confusing mistake they make, however, is that in their over-zealousness, they remove all TLabel references. That is when bad things start to happen. Let me run down how the streaming system locates a component's class.
Remember that the class reference in the .DFM is just a string. The streaming system has to convert this string into a class reference (TComponentClass). There are two mechanisms that the streaming system uses to do this. The first one is very simple and involves a global list of class references. You can call RegisterClass or RegisterClasses to explicitly make the streaming system aware of it. The second is much more subtle and not very well known; in fact it is all part of the "magic" of Delphi :-). When the compiler builds the form, all the fields that represent the components on the form are processed and an internal table is built as part of the RTTI or metadata for the form/frame/datamodule itself. This table contains a list of references to all the individual component types represented by the component fields. So even if a component is not in the global list, it can still be found by scanning through this compiler generated table. That is what the Classes.TReader.GetFieldClass() method does.
Back to my TLabel example, this problem is easily fixed by simply ensuring that at least one of a given component type has a field. So as long as there is at least field of type TLabel, all the other TLabels will load just fine. So in your case, make sure the TListView or TImage fields haven't been deleted.
Re0sless,
I suggest you open and close every form of your application and do a fresh build after that. If memory serves me well, that was the solution when we encountered similar problems.
You might also take a look at DFM Check to open and close all your dfm's automatically and at CnPack to help you clean your uses clause.
Regards,
Lieven
I think Lieven is definitely on the right track: simple base classes not being found during runtime are a Delphi (linker) problem. This exception is not caused by the Operating System.
My experience with similar problems: the linker generates a project with the units wrongly arranged.
Example: a form unit is linked in before the base units. Forcing the project to completely recompile/relink itself should make this exception go away.
A simple [Rebuild All] will probably not suffice. You might try to recompile without optimizations.
I have tried to reproduce this error but I have not been able to. The Delphi compiler/linker is one of the best - speed of compilation/speed of compiled exes - but this bug is definitely a show stopper.
Note: I have only experienced
this error in D5. Has anybody else
experienced this error with other
Delphi versions?
I had the same problem. Class TCheckBox not found. I usually edit large set of components through .DFM of form(for example renaming large amount of component). This error comes when I rename all CheckBox on my form through it .DFM.
I just cut all the checkbox and paste them again(So .DFM file is refreshed). The error disappeared.
I've seen a similar problem due to a file copy error. To make matters more confusing, the fault was on an intermediate media device. The issue was resolved by simply recopying the file from the existing release build.
It is probably impossible to confirm now, but it is quite possible that the problem was 'solved'; not because of the removal of an unnecessay uses clause item, but because it also involved a new copy of the executable.
The solution for all errors of this type "Class XXX not found" is simple. Open DFM file of a form in text editor and manualy remove the definition of the XXX object in it.
Change the name of the Form and save the .pas with other name. Change all references to create the new unit name if this is used in other units. Build All.
With this the error disappeared.