Seerialization Errors in 3.7???

[TCeckels]

I think I may be ready for that monastery after today.....

Things were going along just fine until about 10 minutes ago and then boom PC-DMIS decided it was breaktime and shut itself down, but this time when I rebooted and got everything up again I attempted to open the program and instead of what I was expecting to see I have a little box that says I have a serialization error.

I've seen you guys talk about this (Jan d.'s rant comes to mind) but I thought it was onjly happening in the 4.whatever versions, not the older ones. Anybody else have this happen in 3.7 MR2? I seem to have lost a day and a halfs worth of work unless somebody smarter than me knows how to bring my program back home to meeeeee......

The worst part of this is the people I report to, who don't have a clue what I do in here, look at me like I'm full of S*** when I tell 'em what happened and when I explain I just lost what I'd worked on all day it does nothing for their already sour moods......

Is it too late for me to become a male prostitute??



Tom

[John Riggins]

A serialization error usually indicates version problems, or portlock problems.

[Don Ruggieri]

First of all, restore from your backups to get you work back.






Now that you've picked yourself off the floor. There is one more thing you can try. Delete the probe file(s) and see if you can open the program now.

As mentioned, serialization errors are a generic, but they are not specific to any version. It can happen if you try to open a v4.0 program in v3.7. Programs are not "backward' compatible unless specifically save in an older format.

It can also happen, as I suspect in your case, when the program (or some aspect of it) becomes currupted.

[jjewell]

Just to back up Dons Thread (Not that it needs it) unless you were doing something really funky, like trying to email a male prostitute in Pc-dmis, it probably is a corrupt probe file. Just go into your root directory of Pc-dmis and find the name of the probe file you were using with that program and delete it. I have only had one file go totally corrupt on me where I couldn't recover, in 10 yrs...no I wasn't emailing, oh never mind...LOL

Let us know how you make out.

[John Kingston]

Just to back up Dons Thread (Not that it needs it) unless you were doing something really funky, like trying to email a male prostitute in Pc-dmis, it probably is a corrupt probe file. Just go into your root directory of Pc-dmis and find the name of the probe file you were using with that program and delete it. I have only had one file go totally corrupt on me where I couldn't recover, in 10 yrs...no I wasn't emailing, oh never mind...LOL

Let us know how you make out.

Jim,

I received your email and unless this appointment is for your wife.... Nevermind. I will PM you.

I think Don and Jim are correct. More importantly, I want to teach a mantra I have been using since losing 3 hours work in Lotus 1-2-3 years ago. Save , Save, Save. After you save, save some more. I save under different names, so that I can go back to other "versions". Sometimes, I do something really dumb, that I can't fix. It is nice to have all those saves to fall back on. I learned that trick from a PC gamer.

[vpt.se]

Have you tried deleting or renaming the partprogram.CAD file?

It seems to work for me (v4.2MR1) whenever the serialization error occurs. Although I get the additional message that it tried to write past the file end.

[dwade]

Is it too late for me to become a male prostitute??

Tom

Only after you give me the Chevy in the picture. Prositutes can't have cars like that.... Not enough "pimp" in that style of car.

[RussL]

I have seen many serialization errors in V3.7 MR2, more when the people
on the other shift were turning the auto-save feature on.
Having it on just increases the chance that when PC D-MIS closes, it will
be in the middle of a write, thus corrupting your program.
I still do not understand why PC D-MIS does not do a "safe" write like
just about every other application I have ever used does.
When you write, most applications write to a temp file and once written
move that file to the one you have open.
If you get interrupted in your write, At least you have the file yet from
before the failed write.

[Jan d.]

I think I may be ready for that monastery after today.....

Things were going along just fine until about 10 minutes ago and then boom PC-DMIS decided it was breaktime and shut itself down, but this time when I rebooted and got everything up again I attempted to open the program and instead of what I was expecting to see I have a little box that says I have a serialization error.

I've seen you guys talk about this (Jan d.'s rant comes to mind) but I thought it was onjly happening in the 4.whatever versions, not the older ones. Anybody else have this happen in 3.7 MR2? I seem to have lost a day and a halfs worth of work unless somebody smarter than me knows how to bring my program back home to meeeeee......

The worst part of this is the people I report to, who don't have a clue what I do in here, look at me like I'm full of S*** when I tell 'em what happened and when I explain I just lost what I'd worked on all day it does nothing for their already sour moods......

Is it too late for me to become a male prostitute??



Tom

Tom, this is not helpful, but for whatever it is worth: last week I too got it again (second time in V4.2, first time in V4.2MR1), but this time I was able to repeat it! Wilcox has my problem file now and they too were able to get this elusive serialization error to appear in (tada) V4.3!!!!. So they are now also convinced it is there!

Unfortunately for others, in my case, it seems to point to a specific NC issue. I don't think this is correct because I have gotten this issue when running regular PC-DMIS. But hey, at least it is a start. I am quite sure Wilcox is trying to figure out what exactly caused this specific problem. And I hope they come up with something that will fix this for everybody.

In the meantime, PM with your E-mail address and I can send you a script that will save your files with a numbered extension. That saved my behind last week. So every time you press save (or ctrl_S), it will do 2 things: generate a regular save plus create a copy that looks like PartProgram001.prg. Next time you save, it will be PartProgram002.prg etc. Around here we call this the "Silma-way" of saving files. Real easy to go back in time and get a version of your program that works. It has been helpful in other ways too. I suggested to Wilcox that they make this part of their save options. I even gave them the script...

Is there any way you can re-create this problem? Do you remember what you were doing?

In my case, I deleted a few variable assignments. Further down the program, these variables were used in formulas. In my case, when I deleted the assignments and pressed save right after that, PC-DMIS had an error during the save. When I started the program back up, I had the serialization alt error.

Did you do something similar? Any info may be helpful right now!


Jan.

[TCeckels]

Just to back up Dons Thread (Not that it needs it) unless you were doing something really funky, like trying to email a male prostitute in Pc-dmis, it probably is a corrupt probe file. Just go into your root directory of Pc-dmis and find the name of the probe file you were using with that program and delete it. I have only had one file go totally corrupt on me where I couldn't recover, in 10 yrs...no I wasn't emailing, oh never mind...LOL

Let us know how you make out.

Ok, well I have the one probe file that I use 90% of the time so I deleted it as you suggested and then reopened PC-DMIS and I still get the same serialization error screen. <sigh> I see myself unemployed if this crap keeps up.........I feel that there's something inherently wrong with the setup of PC-DMIS on this Mitutoyo machine but I don't know how to prove it. The machine has done a number of funky things since I started here last March that I've never seen happen with a B&S machine and PC-DMIS.....

I also took the other suggestion to rename the files and that didn't have any positive effect either so I guess I try to explain this the best I can and start over. We're swamped with PPaP's right now, which is a good thing in these times but now is not the time for this machine to be pulling these stunts. I like working here and would rather like to stay on.......

Excuse me now while I go find a closet so I can scream......

Tom

[TCeckels]

Only after you give me the Chevy in the picture. Prositutes can't have cars like that.... Not enough "pimp" in that style of car.

LOL!! the wife calls that car "The Mistress" cuz I spend more time with it than I do her<g>. Besides, there's a large back seat in that baby that....oh, nevermind.......

Thanks for the laugh.

Tom

[jon_dav_uk]

Yippee one of my fav topics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cannot really help Tom but I have massive problems with serialization errors also. I get around this in a similar manner to what others have suggested, CTRL+S frequently + incremental numbers so I can go back a step.

It got so bad last year I ended up getting a Hexagon engineer up here for four days. Fortunately I can replicate the problem at will so did this whilst he was here capturing everything in the debugger. This was fed back to Wilcox via himself and the answer he got was that I was using 3.7MR3 and I should be using 4.2MR1 (latest official release at the time). This is complete and utter bollox which even he agreed with. Wilcox suggested using V4.2MR2 release candidate as the problem was fixed in this release.

Managed to replicate the error within ten mins of installing this "fixed" version again in the presence of an engineer from Hexagon. Once again he captured everything using the debugger and gave this back to Wilcox and I aint heard a thing since, surprise surprise.

If there is one near certainty it is that this WILL NOT BE FIXED in V4.3 so why the **** do they insist on releasing it ??

Rant Over

[TCeckels]

Yippee one of my fav topics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

snippage


If there is one near certainty it is that this WILL NOT BE FIXED in V4.3 so why the **** do they insist on releasing it ??

Rant Over

ok, so I'm obviously not alone here, so how do we (*** ****) convince employers that it's a software thing and not a skill level thing? How do you explain mysteriously disappearing programs to bosses who aren't CMM based?

Guess I'm just really fustrated right now with the constant swimming uphill thing. I enjoy this gig most days and don't really want to do anything else but get better at it. Guess I'd rather be the hero than the villian around these parts......

Back at it I guess.....

Tom

[Glenn.Russell]

Unfortunately for others, in my case, it seems to point to a specific NC issue. I don't think this is correct because I have gotten this issue when running regular PC-DMIS. But hey, at least it is a start. I am quite sure Wilcox is trying to figure out what exactly caused this specific problem. And I hope they come up with something that will fix this for everybody.
Jan.

Hi Jan-
I thought of you when I first saw this thread and wondered if you'd share our recent experiences. Yes, Wilcox has been able to reproduce this particular serialization alt (thanks to your explicit instructions!), and for serialization alt's, that's a huge part of the battle. Like we said though, as shown in the debugger, this appears to only be something which is NC related. (I'm not an NC person so I don't have control over the actual fix) If we have a sequence which will reproduce a serialization alt on a non NC machine, please, please, please send it to us.

Managed to replicate the error within ten mins of installing this "fixed" version again in the presence of an engineer from Hexagon. Once again he captured everything using the debugger and gave this back to Wilcox and I aint heard a thing since, surprise surprise.

Hi Jon-
I'm sorry for the trouble you've been through. I'm sure it's frustrating to have an engineer come out and duplicate the problem, but still not get it fixed. If you have an exact sequence to duplicate a serialization alt, I'd be very interested in giving it a 2nd try. If so, can you PM me and we can exchange emails. I'd be looking for a sequence like this...
1.) Open my attached program (offline?)
2.) Do this, then do that. (screenshots, or a HyperCam video even better)
3.) Save the program. Oops, there's a crash when saving the program.
4.) Try to reload the program and you'll see the serialization alt.
Thanks,
-Glenn

[TCeckels]

In the meantime, PM with your E-mail address and I can send you a script that will save your files with a numbered extension. That saved my behind last week. So every time you press save (or ctrl_S), it will do 2 things: generate a regular save plus create a copy that looks like PartProgram001.prg. Next time you save, it will be PartProgram002.prg etc. Around here we call this the "Silma-way" of saving files. Real easy to go back in time and get a version of your program that works. It has been helpful in other ways too. I suggested to Wilcox that they make this part of their save options. I even gave them the script....

Sounds like you should be on the payroll.....I did PM you so let me know if you don't see it today.

Is there any way you can re-create this problem? Do you remember what you were doing? .

I believe I had hit the Save as and it was saving when it went boom. Like I said earlier I have a number of funky problems with this machine and PC-DMIS and I'm never sure if it's software or controller or something else......