Process Tamer crashes Vista

[koehlerb]

Process Tamer crashes Vista.  About once a day.  It's only happened once or twice while I am there - it usually happens overnight.  If I am there when it happens, it presents the BSOD briefly, then goes through a reboot.  After the reboot, Windows posts a message that it has encountered a problem and will notify me when a solution is found.  I can't find any clues in the Windows system logs, but perhaps I don't know the right place to look.

The processes I am taming are:
sidebar.exe (2 instances)
SearchIndexer.exe
SearchProtocolHost.exe
SearchFilterHost.exe

All these are set to "Force Low".

I love the program, but can't live with the crashes, so have suspended using it until I hear from you with some suggestions.  I guess an obvious one is to stop taming, and then tame one item at a time; however I am hoping that you can direct me to a system log that I can look in for some clues for you.

Thanks for the super support you provide.

Bruce

[mouser]

I've not heard about it crashing vista before, but it's possible there is some process that it is interacting with that is making it crash.

Two suggestions:

• Go to configuration and make sure you have checked the box to save a log file (upper right of Configuration tab),
• Then the next time the bsod happens, start it up and go to the log file (Log file tab of Configuration dialog) and see what the latest entries are -- see if you spot any clues.

• Do what you are doing -- dont run Process Tamer for a couple of days and really confirm that the problem is indeed Process Tamer and that it's not a coincidence.  Note that PT does not run any services or secret stuff or make any changes, so if PT is not running, and you still get the BSODs, then its not PT (i.e. no need to completely uninstall it to test).

A last thing you could try is, to disable the options to:

• Tame Applications Based on CPU Usage
• Foreground Process Special Handling (disable any checkboxes here especially!)

And see if that solves it.  That would at least be a clue that it's some process interaction with another program (not the explicit ones you've listed about that you manually force low).

[koehlerb]

Using your suggestions, I determined that Process Tamer IS NOT THE CAUSE of my Vista crashes.

My apologies!

Now if I can only figure out what IS crashing it.  It was ROCK SOLID for almost a year - not one crash!

Thanks for the GREAT SOFTWARE!

Bruce

[mouser]

thank you for posting the follow up -- i've noticed a lot of the time on forums people will post about something and then if they figure out the solution they just dissapear leaving everyone to wonder what happened.  thank you for the update 

[f0dder]

koehlerb: you need to go to System Properties, "advanced" tab, "settings" button in "startup and recovery" group, and uncheck the "automatically restart" checkbox under the "system failure" heading".

This will give you enough time to read the BSOD message. See if it mentions any drivers, and tell us the BSOD error code and driver name.

[koehlerb]

Thanks for the GREAT information - will do!
Is there any way to cause the system to CAPTURE this info (logs, etc)?

[mwb1100]

Is there any way to cause the system to CAPTURE this info (logs, etc)?

-koehlerb (February 25, 2008, 12:20 AM)

The BSOD should leave a dump file, usually in the C:\Windows\Minidump directory (this is controlled in the same dialog as f0dder mentioned).  I'm not sure if there's a good way to get information from the minidump except by using the Kernel Debugger, though.  I could take a look, but I'm not sure if I'd really be able to figure out anything other than what driver was the immediate cause of the crash (this is usually, but not always, the driver that has the bug).  That driver should be mentioned in the blue screen, too.