LBC Locked Computer Up Tight

[J-Mac]

mouser,

I was in the Configure Preferences dialog adding a new menu to my only dock and LBC locked me up but good. I was adding programs to the new menu and couldn't find one of them - damn developers that insist on putting their programs in a program file with a different name: one of my biggest annoyances. Anyway I was looking for the program in the browse dialog to select the program/command and I decided to move my cursor down to my Start Menu>All Programs to find where the damn thing was hiding. Of course the browse dialog for LBC jumped to the root, as is normal. I clicked on the Back arrow to return to the Program Files directory and LBC threw an error popup, though I could not see it - it was partially hiding behind the Browse window. While the error window was open I couldn't select/move/close any other windows at all; apparently the error was locking up explorer.exe. I used Ctrl-Alt-Del to open the Windows Task Manager to try and close whatever was not responding but as soon as I would click on the Task Manager window another LBC error popup would lock up all windows again.

I finally had to shut down using the power button - first time in a very long time I was forced to do that.

Upon restart the new menu node was gone, even though I had clicked on the Save button within the LBC Preferences window a few times during configuration of the new menu node.

Oddly the Event Log has no corresponding event listed. This all occurred on a box running XP Pro SP2.

Jim

[mouser]

i'm sorry.

there are 2 tricks you can use when you get into this evil situation where a window message is hiding behind another window and you can't click it:

• One is to hit escape or enter to try to acknowledge and close the error message.
• The other is to hit alt+tab to cycle back to the application with the error message -- this often brings the error message to the front.

Regarding you hitting save button and it not saving the file -- it should have saved it -- make sure you actually have the launchbar file open that you last worked on.  Sometimes what happens is that when a crash occurs, LBC will have saved the latest file, but not remembered that you were working on that file, and load the last one you were working on before that.

[J-Mac]

i'm sorry.

there are 2 tricks you can use when you get into this evil situation where a window message is hiding behind another window and you can't click it:

• One is to hit escape or enter to try to acknowledge and close the error message.
• The other is to hit alt+tab to cycle back to the application with the error message -- this often brings the error message to the front.

Regarding you hitting save button and it not saving the file -- it should have saved it -- make sure you actually have the launchbar file open that you last worked on.  Sometimes what happens is that when a crash occurs, LBC will have saved the latest file, but not remembered that you were working on that file, and load the last one you were working on before that.

-mouser (August 04, 2009, 02:35 AM)

I tried Escape - didn't work; didn't try the Enter button. Alt-Tab wouldn't work; once explorer.exe freezes nothing displayed will respond, unfortunately.

I think I had my dock open. It's the same name and all else was the same - except that last menu node missing. I saw other posts saying something about too many backup files - wouldn't LBC know to select the last used dock file? Or the last saved? Hope so...

Thanks!

Jim

[cyberdiva]

I was adding programs to the new menu and couldn't find one of them - damn developers that insist on putting their programs in a program file with a different name: one of my biggest annoyances.

-J-Mac (August 04, 2009, 02:27 AM)

Hi, Jim.  My message is not directly related to your LBC problem, but what you said about not being able to find a program with an unexpected name reminded me of many times when I've had the same problem.  I've found that the Everything search engine is often invaluable in such circumstances.  I'll ask it to search for the name by which I know the program, and even though the program may be located in a folder with a different name, there will usually be SOME file with the "right" name in the same folder.  That helps me get to the right folder, and then it's usually pretty easy to figure out which file to put into LBC.

You may have tried this already, but I thought I'd suggest it just in case.

[J-Mac]

I was adding programs to the new menu and couldn't find one of them - damn developers that insist on putting their programs in a program file with a different name: one of my biggest annoyances.

-J-Mac (August 04, 2009, 02:27 AM)

Hi, Jim.  My message is not directly related to your LBC problem, but what you said about not being able to find a program with an unexpected name reminded me of many times when I've had the same problem.  I've found that the Everything search engine is often invaluable in such circumstances.  I'll ask it to search for the name by which I know the program, and even though the program may be located in a folder with a different name, there will usually be SOME file with the "right" name in the same folder.  That helps me get to the right folder, and then it's usually pretty easy to figure out which file to put into LBC.

You may have tried this already, but I thought I'd suggest it just in case.

-cyberdiva (August 04, 2009, 08:55 AM)

Yeah, I use Everything, but when you're in the middle of doing something and can't find it...  I knew I had opened it once via Start>All Programs and I use that so infrequently I knew there was a good chance the program would be listed in the Recently User section of the Start menu.

Thank you.

Jim

[cranioscopical]

I tried Escape - didn't work; didn't try the Enter button. Alt-Tab wouldn't work; once explorer.exe freezes nothing displayed will respond, unfortunately.

-J-Mac (August 04, 2009, 03:34 AM)

Could you get the task manager?  Often, in that situation, ending the process 'explorer.exe' and launching another instance fom File/New Task (Run...) will dig you out of the hole. (If that was the first thing you tried and you're now rolling your eyes do the usual and try to pretend that I don't exist).

[cyberdiva]

Yeah, I use Everything, but when you're in the middle of doing something and can't find it...  I knew I had opened it once via Start>All Programs and I use that so infrequently I knew there was a good chance the program would be listed in the Recently User section of the Start menu.

-J-Mac (August 04, 2009, 11:39 AM)

Ah, good point.  I've become so enamored of/dependent on Everything that it's always the first thing I think of.  In this case, clearly the Recently Used Programs section of the Start menu would have been even quicker.  Thanks for reminding me of its existence. 

[J-Mac]

I tried Escape - didn't work; didn't try the Enter button. Alt-Tab wouldn't work; once explorer.exe freezes nothing displayed will respond, unfortunately.

-J-Mac (August 04, 2009, 03:34 AM)

Could you get the task manager?  Often, in that situation, ending the process 'explorer.exe' and launching another instance fom File/New Task (Run...) will dig you out of the hole. (If that was the first thing you tried and you're now rolling your eyes do the usual and try to pretend that I don't exist).

-cranioscopical (August 04, 2009, 02:28 PM)

.... I used Ctrl-Alt-Del to open the Windows Task Manager to try and close whatever was not responding but as soon as I would click on the Task Manager window another LBC error popup would lock up all windows again.....

-J-Mac

I mentioned that above: I could get the Task Manager to show using Ctrl-Alt-Del, but could click anything without the error popping again and locking up explorer.exe anew.

Jim

[cranioscopical]

I mentioned that above

-J-Mac (August 04, 2009, 04:40 PM)

It's no good expecting comprehension from me