[OPEN] Crashes, crashes, crashes...

[swallace]

Nothing but crashes.

Is there a version coming that will keep Visual Studio alive? Even simple operations like dragging a datepicker onto a window kills things.

I appreciate your efforts, but the version you have posted now has no value, and is likely taking customers away.

Right, right, it's a beta, but seriously, crashing this often? Why is this publicly available?

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Hi swallace,

Are you using version 0.5.3? There was a problem with the DatePicker in earlier versions crashing VS.

After the release of 0.5.3 there was a different, but related, problem reported where dragging a ViewPort onto the design surface would crash VS, although only if the ViewPort was included in the Source before the ScriptManager or if there was no ScriptManager on the Page. Actually, it was really the .Icon property on the <ext:Panel> control which triggered the bug. No .Icon, no crash.

If you're experiencing a crash, please ensure you are using v0.5.3 and include a ScriptManager as the first Coolite control.

The bugs were fixed and we have not been able to reproduce any crash with the latest SVN code. Everything will be publicly available with the next (v0.6) release.

Other than that I'm not aware of any other circumstances which crash VS.

The bug which caused the crash was just a very trivial Null Reference Exception in design-mode. Why/how a Null Reference Exception could cause a complete crash of VS is beyond me.

If you run into a crash, please post the exact steps to reproduce and your .aspx page.

[ColdSun]

The only bug I've had so far is the one Geoffrey explained above. Its quite easy to bypass it by adding the scriptmanager at the beginning.

I really don't agree with you at all about the release. What they have done so far is amazing. There is also the fact that you are getting to use it for free. You could always go back to coding extJS by hand if you don't like it...

[swallace]

I didn't say it wasn't an impressive idea. It is. And we are doing ExtJs by hand, and you know what? It works.

I'm just saying, at the multi-billion dollar oil and gas firm where I work, Coolite is a joke. Downloads by several developers this week crashed VS 2008 repeatedly and reproducibly. There's no chance whatsoever that the product will get considered again - for years.

Effectively you're removing people from consideration of your product, doing damage to your name for years to come by putting out code of this quality. One developer commented that Coolite "hides the updates behind the $600 SVN wall," asking "who would cut a PR for this alpha product?" I can't even imagine how many people are downloading this very early version, getting these errors, and trashing it immediately. They instantly become Coolite anti-fans.

The errors seem to be related to the use of MasterPages, and the placement of ScriptManager on them. It extends far beyond DatePicker, and includes some of the samples posted on these forums. Will I post examples? No. Why should I? We're never going to buy this product. I'll never be able to convince anyone.

I think Coolite is a great idea, and certainly I wish it were complete today. I'm a fan. But, even when it's done I won't get to use it because it's reputation is destroyed by the current release. Developers who aren't tracking each release, reading the forums and noticing the potential - not you, the reader, you're involved and interested - those other developers give it one download, one look, one crash, and no more - for years to come.

I've been downloading releases, watching the forums, hoping it grows. But I can't champion the product in my company any longer.

I'm sorry if people don't like to hear that, but I'm more sorry that I'll never get to properly introduce Coolite to my colleagues, even after it's a hardened shipping product. I don't want to get laughed at.

I urge you to slow down the releases and test, test, test. I'm glad you've got hobbiests helping you, but that's not where the money is. I'm sorry I can't help you.

[swallace]

Admin: Rights access here does not allow me to delete my own thread. Please remove this thread in it's entirety.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Hi swallace,

Thanks for the feedback.

I put in an all nighter and hopefully fixed the Visual Studio design time crashing problem. The fix is included with version 0.5.4 and available for download now. New builds of both the Community and Professional Editions were released.

After integrating the fix, I spent about 4+ hours trying to purposely crash Visual Studio. I created dozens of samples, the most complex of which had a three layer deep nested MasterPage sample with ViewPort, DateField's everywhere and at least one instance of every other control in the Toolkit. I tried with a ScriptManager and without. I tried with a ScriptManager at the top of Page and at the bottom. ScriptManager in MasterPage and in the Content Page.

Everything was tested in VS 2005 &amp; 2008 and VWD 2005 &amp; 2008.

If no ScriptManager was on the Page, the design-time rendering was not great (because no .css is applied/included), but there was also no crashing.

I'm really looking for some feedback from the Community regarding this latest build (v0.5.4). If you can make Visual Studio crash, please let us know. Any information on steps to reproduce would be very helpful. Maybe there's an obvious test/sample/scenario we missed, but if we can reproduce it, we'll fix it and release another build.

If testing the new build, please ensure you completely remove the previous build from your Project. You shouldn't have to uninstall the previous build, but do ensure the Project is actually using 0.5.4 and not some Visual Studio shadow cache copy.

I've taken Vladimir off the GridPanel development for a day or so to test and work on this problem as well. We're also building a new <ext:ScriptManagerProxy> control which will be used to provide design-time support when including Coolite controls into a UserControl (.ascx) or Content Page.

P.s. Hey ColdSun... thanks for feedback! We really appreciate you taking the time to report the original crash bug and making the effort to improve the product and community. Thank you.

[jlertle]

I have been testing the 0.5.4 release and can't get a crash.

I have to say that the work you guys are doing is great and very appreciated by many of us. I know that many of the features work fine for me and do not expect them all to work perfectly until well after the 1.0 release. Hell there are many features in products put out by the majors that have never worked right and probably never will...

Given the fact that this product is currently in development, personally, I never would have presented it to my company, that's just asking for it. I don't even recommend MS products until they've been on the street for a year (or 2, learned that one the hard way).

I think that people who are paying for the SVN/Professional Edition are truly good samaritans to be funding this awesome product. I wish I had some extra cash so I could be one of them.
Keep up the spectacular work guys!

[ColdSun]

Geoffrey - my pleasure. I'll be around quite a bit.

swallace - I'm not sure if the hobbiest thing was a jibe at me, but I've likely been doing this longer than you have and this is what I do for a living every day. I'm not just some hobbiest playing with web pages after work. I work for a major corporation which will remain nameless and that's all I have to say about this...

I agree with you that things need to be tested before release, but this isn't even in version 1.0. It is a fantastic idea for the developers to offer a version for the community to test. I've already found a crucial bug and they have put it behind them. This will result in us seeing a final version sooner than later. For the life of me I can't figure out why you would show this to your company when it isn't even 1.0 yet? I'm developing with extJS by hand for real projects - but this is a big time-saver, especially for some of the people I work with who aren't as technically capable as some of us.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Just in case anyone is still following this thread... I've been running into another very obscure VS crashing problem. I have not been able to consistently reproduce and it appears to only happen if building from the original source. The compiled release .dll's do not appear to be affected.

I think the problem might have something to do with VS caching a copy of the .dll after a re-compile then, under some yet to be determined scenario, when any <ext:> control is dragged from the Toolbox into Source view a crash occurs. I have not experienced a crash when dragging/dropping from Toolbox into Design mode, only Source/Html view.

If using VS, and you have a Website project referencing the Coolite.Ext.Web Project, when you build the Project the .dll's are refreshed in the Website project. VS also caches copies of these .dll's.

As mentioned above, this crash has not been reproduced consistently and maybe my dev machine just needed to be restarted (which I did and no crash since). It's possible I was out of Memory and that combined with some unknown VS (or Coolite Toolkit) bug caused a crash.

I mention here because if anyone else runs into a similar problem, please let me know. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated.

[cgishack]

I hate to reopen this thread, but I downloaded a copy of Coolite today and am
experiencing the VS crashing problem.

I have added the script manager just below the form tag and made sure all
controls were below the script manager.



I believe I have narrowed down the problem though. I am using another 3rd party
control created by ESRI. It is a map control for rendering GIS data. When
I add this into a Coolite ViewPort Center panel, VS does crash.



Any ideas on what I can do?

I dont think there is anyway you can duplicate this because the ESRI control do cost some $$.


Drew