PB Crash After Config Load - Win 7 64

[RavingNoah]

Hey, everybody.

So, I'm a few weeks into running lowbies on 300% with two accounts, but I have three total. I turned to Pwnboxer and it works beautifully, often. I did run into trouble after this last patch...but I stopped playing with the internal WoW settings and stopped trying to use Pwnboxer to apply the basic graphics quality...and that "solved" my immediate black screen issues.

Since last night, however, I have had repeated crashing (and repeatable) of Pwnboxer right at the point of loading the config file. The clients open, one by one, and assume their dimensions across my two displays...and then I can see that Windows "refocuses" on the Pwnboxer app, and as soon as the last window loads and PB receives this focus, it crashes.

I've had crashes occur sometimes while in-game...but I can usually play for hours before I eat up my memory with Google windows open to WoW sites and Netflix or Hulu running in the background...'cause running lowbies through dungeons gets booooooooooooooooring after awhile, yes?

If anyone can let me know what the first thing I can do to assist (likely more info) in this issue, let me know.

[RavingNoah]

Update: Confused Why This Should Work, But...

In order to not be bothered by the post-4.1 patch black screen issues, I had eliminated all options that Pwnboxer applies to the client other than:

Fast Game Switch
Key Broadcasting
Mouse Broadcasting
Dockable Clickmapping (which I don't use yet)
Autofocus on Mouse Hover
Game Windows Movement

Plus the following Extras:
Enable Pwnboxer Panel, Overlay Transparency, See Ping to Google

Just to test the problem, I eliminated all options Pwnboxer applies, except for:

Fast Game Switch, and the Key and Mouse Broadcasting

...and all clients just loaded without crashing Pwnboxer... The behavior I can't explain, but if you're having similar trouble, this is something you can try for now. I stand ready to help troubleshoot this further. In the meantime, I have lowbies and 300% XP to gobble up before I lose it...

[RavingNoah]

Hmm...

...one additional update. Once having started the clients, you can click on the "Autofocus Game Windows on Mouse Hover" and it will function sans crash. I also clicked "Enable Running Game Windows Movement" but I haven't the courage to play with it yet...

...I just wanna play...lol.

[RavingNoah]

Hmm...okay, once again...totally confused by the behavior. But, for anyone with this issue...

...I did try the resize option with the Windows Movement option checked AFTER I had loaded Pwnboxer sans any options other than the ones I mentioned above...and it let me resize the windows fine without crashing.

...then, I played for awhile...shut the clients down with Pwnboxer...and out of curiosity, left all the currently-used options on...and restarted the clients...no crash.

...so although I was getting crash after crash no matter how many times I started Windows. Once I started Pwnboxer and pared back the settings to almost nil and it started okay, I checked the aforementioned limited set of options and it seems to work fine for the time being.

I don't know...wish I had a better explanation. But, I'm excited to hear another post-4.1 PB is in the works. I'll update this post if the crashing continues...in case anyone else runs into the same kind of issue with Win 7 64...

[Tim]

What mods are you using in WoW, and how is your installs set up for each PB game window?

Make sure you aren't using Recount, it is known to cause game freezing issues.

Also, are you running WoW in DirectX9 (it runs best in 9)? Also, might want to turn water graphics levels to low, it causes issues sometimes being ran multiple times at once at non-low settings.

[RavingNoah]

Tim,

Right now, I use only Jamba 0.7g (main, Quest, and Questwatcher), Postal, BankStack, and Bartender4...and the Addon Control Manager. I do, periodically, throw in additional addons like a scaled-back Carbonite on the "driver toon," but I swap these out pretty effectively using the control manager and haven't experienced any aberrant effects. Also, since I'm simply dragging lowbies through dungeons right now trying to fill up the other two accounts with 'up-to Level 60's,' I haven't really been multi-toon, multi-boxing per se...just baby-sitting...so the need for addons has been low.

I had been running a set-up which forced a low graphics set-up for the support toons while leaving certain high quality settings on the driver toon, but the first thing I had to do to resolve my post-4.1 black screen issues was eliminate Pwnboxer options for forcing any graphics parameters on the client at all and not play with DirectX, so I left it on DX9. Each toon starts now with only the following options in PB:

Fast Game Switch
Remove Windows Border
Enable Key Broadcasting
Enable Mouse Broadcasting
Dockable Clickmapping (1 clickmap, not yet configured or in use)
Autofocus Game Windows on Mouse Hover
Enable Running Game Windows Movement
Snap to Grid (smallest factor)

All other options are either not checked or disabled.

But, as I mentioned earlier...this behavior lasted for two days before I started posting. I must have tried starting the games thirty times before heading here. After playing with the aforementioned limited options...the crashing stopped...and I have not been able to repeat the crash, even using the earlier, exact conditions. I would have deleted the posts, but I figured if someone else has this specific issue with Win7 64, they could at least try these steps to get back to playing...

Thanks for responding, and let me know if there is anything else I can contribute.

~ Matt

edit: this reminds me...my in-game WoW settings are all set to low now save for the draw distance...man, I hate when counter-faction toons spring on me like Klingon Bird-of-Prey's coming out of stealth... This is a consequence of having a three-year old system and a penchant for watching Hulu or Netflix while dungeon-touring for lowbies...

[Tim]

Hey Matt,

Interesting, I'll check this out for a PB3 change.

Yea actually this is how I do it:

Main Wow has its own install
Sub WoW all share a single install

Two WoW installs total.

Main WoW install has Recount and special graphic settings
Sub WoW install has no recount and all low gfx

That way things run awesomely smooth and I can recount on 1 guy (the non-shared WoW install) which makes sure I have no recount crash issues. Also, if there are other mods that can cause issues, putting them on the main WoW install would probably solve that as well.

[Drarkan]

One thing you may want to check is if you are running your programs in Admin mode. If you are logged in as an Admin already, then you don't need to run any programs as an Admin. I had some issues that was a cause of this, so I removed "Run this program as an administrator" check box under the "compatibility" tab in the shortcut properties.

[RavingNoah]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Tim, I chose to download another full install file and parked it on my main drive (the previous one sits in what had been my main drive last year). Whew! I wish Blizzard would just let me download the kit and kaboodle straight from a server someplace...that p2p network trickle took three days! In any case, first impressions are that the game itself does indeed run smoother (i.e., my main's scrolling text during engagements are now nice and smooth). However, I tried to re-check some of the features of Pwnboxer I was in the habit of using prior to the 4.1 drop (mentioned above)...but even starting just the main client this way proved 'no joy.' Just crash after crash... So, while I'm back to running the scaled-back PB settings, for what it's worth...the user experience is definitely an improvement.

----
I don't know if this helps, but the following is one example of the error code I would get for each window (e.g., three windows plus the PB client crashing). Sometimes, the error name is 'appcrash.' This particular instance was:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX
Application Name: PwnBoxer.exe
Application Version: 2.1.206.1
Application Timestamp: 4b7971ab
Fault Module Name: PwnBoxer.exe
Fault Module Version: 2.1.206.1
Fault Module Timestamp: 4b7971ab
Exception Offset: 00042f6e
Exception Code: c0000417
Exception Data: 00000000
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 3adc
Additional Information 2: 3adc3acd6e1f4dc72d470d0b52e30a5d
Additional Information 3: eddf
Additional Information 4: eddf0eba304d6836b3f0129cb71add0e

----


Drarken, I went back and double-checked the admin settings. While the executables were free of any compatibility settings engaged, I did notice that over time the files in my original folder had a varied array of "user/admins" with permissions. I imagine this is the result of having that install on that disk for a few years now. Originally, that drive was my only drive for this machine...but on the Cata release night, I had four guys over here on the network who got too antsy waiting for the server to let them in...and one of them decided to shut my machine off - the hard and dumb way - thinking a "network restart" would speed up the process...

...it took me two weeks to repair my operating system (Vista Ultimate 64bit, at the time) and I still never quite figured out what they did to one of my memory slots. I just bought a new drive and put Win 7 Ultimate 64bit on it and changed owners of the folder so I could run the game from its location on the drive it already existed on...

...anyhow, long story short...I went ahead and removed all extraneous access to the folders and left "//Administrators/My_PC_Name" alone as the sole commandant-in-charge... So far, no aberrant behavior to speak of. Thanks for highlighting that possibility.

[Tim]

Just to double-check, you hit START ALL GAMES, and if you lets say, wait 5 minutes, is one of the WoWs froze? Move your mouse over it, click, etc., does it want to crash?