"Invalid pointer operation" error message - all changes to screenshot lost

[IainB]

I have been using SSC quite a bit today.
Error #1: All was going swimmingly for about 10 minutes, until the screenshot disappeared and I was left with a couple of objects on a light blue background.
When I tried to "Undo", I got the error message:

I shut down SSC and restarted it, and had to redo my work (lost approx. 10 mins of work), so it took me about 10 mins to redo the work, doing Ctrl+S every now and then.
That's 20 mins in total so far.

Then I had a break, and put in about another 10 mins of additional work, doing Ctrl+S every now and then.

Error #2: Then the same error occurred, with the same outcome.
That's 30 mins work lost. The air was blue with curses and I was frightening my son and daughter.
I restarted SSC, and found that one arrow and one squashed-up box were all that was left, and were in the top left hand corner of the screenshot I had been working on. I had not put them there.
I moved them and started to redo all the work, doing Ctrl+S every now and then.
Had a break and drafted this error report.

...then, same type of error:
Error #3:

Image file destroyed/overwritten.
So I started incrementally saving a copy of the image file at every step, and each time SSC failed, I went back to the last saved image file and started from there.
Finally got there.

[mouser]

Jeez that is terrible... I'm so sorry.  Can you figure out any pattern that triggers the error -- you mentioned an undo operation -- did it always happen on undo? Or you say once it happened in the process of saving?  I'd really like to try to figure out what's causing this -- any clues?

[IainB]

Well, thanks @mouser, but don't be in too much of a hurry to apologise just yet.
I am guessing that no-one else has had this error - is that right?
If it's just me, then that "invalid pointer operation" might be a clue.
The touchpad/mouse has been behaving badly - very sluggish on scrolling - but only in Firefox, it seems. This is something new, starting a couple of days ago.

Otherwise the pattern seemed to be:
1. Selecting the arrow and text box tools, and then the object selector last seemed to trigger the error.
2. The error is always a light blue screen with only one or two objects from your editing (but no text in the boxes). Trying to Undo the last change seems to trigger the error box "Invalid pointer operation" error message, and it seems that at that point the screenshot gets overwritten. All changes lost, anyway.

I can't repeat it every time, so it's not repeatable.
I worked around it by taking a copy of the amended screenshot image after every small step, and then using the copy to replace the working copy in the Screenshot directory, every time the working copy was zapped/overwritten by that blue background image file.

[mouser]

Yeah i've not had such a report from others.. but if it happens to one, it can happen to others.

Well it's surely a fault in the program and not in your touchpad.. unfortunately the error message is very generic and doens't help pinpoint it much.. The ideal scenario would be if you found a set of actions you could perform that would always repeatedly cause the error, so that we could test a fix.  If something goes wrong again, could you try try to write down exactly what the last actions you performed were? 

[x16wda]

or fire up camstudio for the afternoon...

[IainB]

If something goes wrong again, could you try try to write down exactly what the last actions you performed were? 

-mouser (April 25, 2012, 10:08 AM)

Roger wilco.
@x16wda's suggestion is not too bad...

[TaoPhoenix]

Well, on the next lilypad error over, upon seeing this thread, I made a test screen shot. However, for me Undo fails to do anything at all!

I drew an arrow, then clicked Undo, and ... nothing. I made a text box, clicked Undo, and ... nothing.

Does that make things even more confusing?

[mouser]

Undo will not work on object operations I'm afraid -- only things like cropping, resizing, borders, special effects, etc.

[TaoPhoenix]

Undo will not work on object operations I'm afraid -- only things like cropping, resizing, borders, special effects, etc.

-mouser (April 26, 2012, 11:18 AM)

That's a pity.   

Oh well, that just means I'll stick with my other workflow of importing stuff into Stickies. I'm curious why it wouldn't work, but I won't insist - I need to save my Pest Mana for other battles! : )