opengl related crash ddhelp.exe

I’ve been doing some OpenGL/MFC programming, and recently ive been getting some weird problems. Im hoping someone can help me out.

I’m using the projects/demos from NeHe’s site and http://pws.prserv.net/mfcogl/ (suggested by people in this ng) as my templates, and every once and awhile upon running/debugging a project I will get one of the following

a) crash in ddhelp.exe - from this point on NO program will run from visual c - every thread exits with error code -1. Dont ask me why ddhelp.exe is being run when i debug a visual c app either :slight_smile: As soon as I reboot its ok untill it happens again.

b) No response what so ever, it will take 1 minute or so before a dialog comes up telling me my OpenGL app isnt responding. Until this dialog comes up and I kill it, my system is basically unusable - ie no resources. Most of the time I need to reboot to get back control.

Additional Info:

  1. The above happens even if I dont add my own code to the above projects - so its not something im doing incorectly.
  2. No Virus - Ive run f-prot, McAfee and Norton - all come up clean.
  3. I doubt its a secondary program, as I did a fresh install of win98 today (it was past do, figured this was good excuse) - problem still persists after complete install.
  4. Currenlty my system basically clean - Win98, Visual Studio 6.0, full windows update. All progs store bought - no pir8.
  5. Video Card is GeForce2 MX 200 with the newest drives from Nvidia.

So there ya go - I know this is a shot in the dark, but does anyone have any ideas (anything)? Ive programmed alot, but am new to OpenGL, but if this keeps up I’m just gonna switch to DirectX :frowning:

Thanks in advance…

Read this - I wonder if the two are related.
http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/Forum3/HTML/004872.html

After about two weeks, the problem just went away - I have no explanation. I was using my own code at the time too.

Hmm, I read you message, and it does have similarities with mine (runs like a 386 :slight_smile: ). But otherwise I have no clue whats going on. :frowning:

btw - I posted original message at home :slight_smile:

I had the same problem, and I’m quite sure it depends on Detonators 23 drivers,as if I install older versions of Detonators the problem goes away.
Another thing I discovered is that if you try to set up a rendering context without a right hInstance for the app it will crash ddhelp.exe, so apps starting with main and not WinMain doesn’t work…

Let me know if you find any solution as I need newest drivers.

rIO.sK

Ack - thats nots such a good sign .

I’ll try an older version of the drivers and see - but I dont really see that as a viable option. Do you know of, or has anyone else, had a similar problem like this?

Thanks for your help - I’m still looking for a solution.

I’m just curious if you guys found a solution to this or not… I’ve just recently encountered this problem and I’m now all the way back at 14.10…

Edit:
Just to clarify, I was at 23.11 when I first had the problem. I dropped back to 21.81 and the problem showed up again. I’ve just dropped back to 14.10 tonight (which is annoying because there’s a different, less fatal bug in that version…) and I haven’t seen the problem yet, but that’s a pretty short test time.
End of Edit

I guess I’ll have to look into my hInstance usage to verify that it’s ok… my problem app is MFC based, so I think everything ought to be in order, but I’m not that familiar with MFC, so who knows.

rIO, the incorrect hInstance crash, was that every time, or intermittant?

[This message has been edited by kabir (edited 05-01-2002).]

Well, more investigation has shown that my problem is pretty darn specific. I only have this issue when running NVidia (or Hercules, which are just repackaged NVidia drivers anyway) drivers greater than 14.10 and I try to launch a debug instance of an aplication from MSVC++ 6.0 (SP5). Every OpenGL app fails, sooner or later, when I do this.

Interestingly, I can run all the debug builds of the applications in question outside of MSVC++, regardless of video driver, without any issue.

I would just stick with the 14.10 drivers (I’m not doing anything advanced enough that 14.10 won’t work for me, at this point) except that those drivers seem to have/cause a bug whereby my viewport isn’t completely drawn (which is the thing that prompted me to upgrade to the new drivers in the first place).

I have exactly no idea what to do about this. The closest mention I’ve been able to find on the web regarding this problem is this thread, and an old post on the Microsoft support site detailing ddhelp.exe crashes in some of their games. The problem there seemed to be that whatever the user’s drivers were they weren’t fully directX 7.0 compatible. Since I’ve never seen this problem outside the Visual C++ debugger I’m not sure if it’s along the same lines or not.

I guess maybe I ought to report the bug to someone, but I’m not even sure who. NVidia? Microsoft?

I’m also reluctant to do that because I really, really want to belive it’s something in my code. Sadly, with the new drivers installed I see this problem with every openGL application I’ve written.

Sorry for the long & rambling post… any suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks!