CHS runs, but doesn't work

[pyramid36]

When I boot my PC (WinXP Pro SR2), CHS runs but the icon doesn't appear in the taskbar. 
Sometimes, by using the "bring to front" feature in Process Explorer by Sysinternals, I can get the application to appear.  However, if I minimize it, the icon disappears from the Taskbar and the only way I can get it to display is by using PE.

If I click on CHS in Programs, it starts a new session and the icon appears in the taskbar for 1-2 seconds then disappears. 

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling which results in the application running properly until I reboot. Then I'm back to the situation described above. 

I use CHS quite a bit (or would, if it worked OK) and would really like to get a fix. 

I should also say that it worked fine for some time after I bought it, but somewhere along the way this problem popped up.  I can't associate the problem with anything I've done, though, between updates from Microsoft and other installations, there may be a conflict somewhere.

BTW, after I did the last uninstall, I checked the registry and there were still references to CHS, but I'm not savvy enough to know if they are part of the problem.

[mouser]

Question:
If you exit the program and then restart it manually does it then show up in system tray?  In other words, is the disapearing icon phenomena only a problem when the program is started with windows? If so, that's a clue and I think i can track down and fix the problem.

[pyramid36]

The only way I can stop the program is from the Task Manager (ctrl | alt | del).  However, once it has been terminated and I start it again, the icon remains in the Task Bar.

Ken

[mouser]

Right ok -- so thats confirmed the problem is that when CHS starts up too soon after boot, the icon problem occurs -- this has happened in the past so i hope i can fix.

[donationcoder092807]

Dear All,

This looked like a good place to post on the problem I am currently experiencing.  This is on a Windows Vista machine that has benefited from CHS for a little over 2 years.  No recent changes come to mind for me--no new installations, no recent Windows updates, etc.

CHS appears to launch at start-up fine, with icon displayed as usual in the system tray.  However, no key combinations activate functions of CHS and the tray icon (while displaying the correct mouse-over reminders) is not useful to access the application: nothing opens upon any click.

Although I haven't bothered to check in the past, now I notice that CHS is using about 50% of system CPU (Intel Core Duo @ 2 GHz) and 6.5 M of memory.  Like for Ken, from April 2009, I cannot close CHS from within the application, but have to kill the process.  If I relaunch from the Start Menu folder, the same behavior is seen.

I did uninstall, download the currently-available version (listed as 1.27.01), and try again, with the same results.  (I use DcUpdater, so I probably had the same version before uninstalling.)

I haven't noticed any other application behaving strangely.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, or if you know of a thread elsewhere I should follow.


Luke

[mouser]

can you bring up the options from the right click tray menu?
if you exit CHS and restart it, can you then?

is it possible that you changed monitor resolutions and that the dialog is off screen?

[donationcoder092807]

No change in monitor resolution.

Although the application appears to be running, nothing is accessible, either from formerly-working keyboard shortcuts or by way of the tray icon.  These points are true from either from CHS following Windows startup or from re-launches long after a Windows startup.

[mouser]

does the menu even show when you right click?

[donationcoder092807]

No.  Nothing is shown or happens upon clicking, right-, left-, single-, or double-.  Mouse-over of the tray icon does cause the pop-up display of "Left-click for..., Right-click for... ."  CPU and memory usage vary little if the application is left open for an extended period, or if I try various clicks on the tray icon.

[mouser]

could you try this for me:

• Exit CHS
• Find the ClipboardHelpAndSpell\Database\ directory -- i think it will be in your MyDocuments\DonationCoder directory
• Make a new subdirectory there, call it Bak1\ or something
• Move all the files from the Database\ subdirectory into Bak1\
• Now the next time CHS starts up it should try to create new database files (i wanted you to back them up instead of deleting them in case this is the problem we can try to recover them).
• Now restart CHS -- see if the problem is the same.

[donationcoder092807]

The problem appears the same.  The Database folder was repopulated with the following 9 files:

ClipTable.bbk (1 KB)
ClipTable.blb (1 KB)
ClipTable.dat (35 KB)
ClipTable.dbk (35 KB)
ClipTable.ibk (29 KB)
ClipTable.idx (29 KB)
GroupTable.blb (6 KB)
GroupTable.dat (54 KB)
GroupTable.idx (37 KB).

[mouser]

One more thing, can you try exiting CHS, then renaming ClipboardHelpAndSpell.ini to something else and restarting.

[donationcoder092807]

Looks like it is working fine now.  CPU usage down to zero, memory usage about 6.3 megabytes.

Delete the old .ini file and restore the Database files?

[mouser]

exit, restore database files, restart.

and if you don't mind -- send me the old .ini file (you can open it in text editor to verify it holds no sensitive info) -- i'd like to see if i can figure out what about it is causing trouble.

EDIT: got the file, thanks.