Oxford concise causing fatal error

[bjchina]

I installed Oxford concise dict. on my new Clie TJ-35 (Palm OS 5.21) and everything seemed fine for a few days until one day when I turned it on, and there it was--a message box with the following error msg. and a [Reset] button at the bottom:

"Fatal Error: MemoryMgr.c, Line:3642, Non-word-aligned handle"

When I soft-reset it, the same error message kept coming back every time I soft-reset. Finally, I wiped out my handheld by hard-resetting and synced it with my pc and the same error message and the same behavior returned. Finally, I figured out that it was the Oxford dict. by keeping one third-party app out from the handheld at a time and hard-resetting and syncing.

Anyways, anybody had the same or similar problem with Oxford dict. on a palm os 5 device? any solution or a work-around?

 

[mikelove]

I didn't get an e-mail reply from you on this, so I'm posting my response here in the hopes that you'll receive it:

I've gotten one or two other reports of this, but we're still trying to pin down the cause - do you by any chance have the "command bar access" feature enabled? I assume not (it's disabled by default), which is why this problem is rather perplexing: when the Palm OS starts up, it briefly starts every application on the Palm and lets it know that the Palm has been reset so that it can initialize anyt system extensions or other such things that it uses, but the only thing our program does in response to a reset is check to see if the command bar option is enabled and if so, add the Oxford Dict icon to the command bar. With that feature turned off it really doesn't do much of anything at all.

Am I correct in guessing that you have now removed the Oxford program from your Clie? Have you tried reinstalling it since then? Exactly which of the dictionary features did you install (which dictionaries, which character sets, any add-on dictionaries, etc)? Which other programs have you installed? Did you make any changes in the Options screen or were the options left at their original settings? Can you remember which program you were in and what you were doing in it when you turned on your Clie and it crashed?

BTW, if anyone else is experiencing this problem I'd appreciate it if you'd send me this information too - the more samples I have, the easier it is to find and fix the bug (if any).

Michael Love
Pleco Software

 

[caveman]

MemoryMgr.c Fatal Alert

Seems I got the same error as above.

I used the Windows auto-install of oxec21update.exe. Performed the hotsync into my Tungsten E. Clicked on the red Oxford Icon, clicked (?somewhere?), entered my serial number, then immediately got the following popup:
Fatal Alert
MemoryMgr.c, Line:3642,
Non-word-aligned handle

Device does not respond to reset, nor to any button press/stroke/power switch. Owner not happy as this is his first s/w purchase for the Palm, which is also brand new!

Note that immediately prior to the install, I had deleted the entire CKJOS and dictionaries, etc, which I had previously loaded. Since I deleted so much, I didn't bother to check free space, but I am sure it was considerably more than OXEC required. I checked cManager, and it listed no items. Am also holding RoadLingua.

With no other hope, I stuck a pin into the back of my Palm and reset it. It came back up normally, even with the time set properly(I'm a newbie, so I'm not sure if that is normal).

I clicked on the Oxford icon and got the same symptom. I then deleted the Oxford app (had to pin-reset after this operation because initially got the message from the uninstaller "unable to delete Oxford Dictionary".

Then I downloaded the FULL installation, sync'ed, no problem - the Oxford icon appeared on the Palm, I clicked on it, entered the serial number, and
.... it worked! WHoo-hooo! That's a long way to go in order to translate ni3hao3, but I hope it holds together from now, on. The previous error report doesn't sound encouraging. Perhaps it was a function of the upgrade, since the full install, worked.

 

[mikelove]

A couple of questions:

1) You say you installed oxec21update.exe - was this the only version of the Oxford software that you installed, or had you installed the demo or full version before that? The "update" file wouldn't do much good by itself, though running the Oxford application it installs would normally give you an error message instead of a crash.

2) Which "dictionaries" are you referring to that you deleted along with CJKOS? Just RoadLingua or something else as well? Are you sure you'd deleted them completely?

My best guess would be that the Oxford update file somehow got confused by the presence of files from the Oxford demo version or some other dictionary and attempted to load them, causing a crash - if that's the case then this bug should be corrected in our new PlecoDict software which is a good deal more intelligent about its data files (and doesn't force you to fiddle around with a separate demo version).

 

[caveman]

Mike,

1) Prior to the episode, I had loaded dictdemoinst.exe. I frankly cannot remember what, if any, options were available at install time. If there were options (like "big font xyz"), I installed them all, as the Tungsten E has lots of memory.

2) I am not sure what I deleted. The action I took, was to disable CJKOS, then I opened the applications bar, selected delete, then found the single entry for CJKOS and deleted it. Of course, that action spawned a ton of screen activity that I know nothing about, so I overreached in my previous comment that 'dictionaries' were deleted. Perhaps no dictionaries were in fact deleted. Because as it is, I can open RoadLingua and see a list of english words (no Chinese characters, as I no longer have CJKOS installed to input/render them).

Btw, I am running Palm OS v. 5.2.1.

On a side note, a recommendation may be to include on your download page, a simple tree drawing showing paths to take in order to get from one install config to another. A similar drawing would also be very helpful on or associated with you product order page, in order to communicate how to get from one config to another. For example, I had to scratch my head awhile in order to figure out that if I bought the Oxford product, then after PlecoDict debuts I can spend $80 to both upgrade to PlecoDict and install all offered dictionaries.

Anyway, thanks for the support and the fine product.

 

[mikelove]

We do need to improve the clarity of our installation instructions, definitely - we're hoping to roll out a whole range of visual guides with the finished PlecoDict. Thanks for the feedback.