[Gweilo]

Recently I find that I cannot start Photoshop if JD is running.

If I try to load Photoshop, it freezes immediately and stays that way till I kill it with Process Manager.

JD 0.0.579
Photoshop 5.0 (quite old).
Win 2000 (again, old)

I also tried PhotoDeluxe 2, which is basically a stripped down version of Photoshop, that also freezes.

If I exit from JD, Photoshop runs normally, and continues if I start JD.

Since I use both Photoshop and JD very often, this is annoying.

This problem only started recently. I haven't changed Photoshop or PhotoDeluxe. So I suspect a recent change in JD.

[drbits]

I suspect that Photoshop is having trouble initializing. JD uses a lot of memory, and Photoshop needs a lot of memory to start-up. Newer versions of JD need more memory than older versions.

You could try
cd /d c:\jdownloader
jave -Xmx256m -jar jdownloader.jar

Normally, JD is set for 512 MB of heap memory. This reduces it to 256MB. You might have to raise it to 320 or 384.

This may also help: Settings - Basics - General - Logging level = OFF

Hope this helps
drbits

Another problem reported concerning Photoshop is that you should disable jD's clipboard monitoring.

I too was using 2k till about 3 months ago. I stayed with it probably for the same reasons you have. My 700mhz with 768k likes XP better then 2k. all my apps still run. I wish I had jumped to XP sooner.
With W7 and vista after XP. 2k and XP are next to get axed for support.
time to bite the bullet.

As for JD keep your link count under 6k. theres a point where after that JD starts to get a bit hungry for memory.

[Gweilo]

Thanks for comments, but I don't have clipboard monitoring on, and this happens when JD has zero links loaded and is doing nothing at all.

It's not total amount of memory. My version of Photoshop loads using 80 MB or so RAM, JD uses 50 or so. I have several hundred MB free.

What does it take to get a developer to take note?

I think they like detailed logs.

[Gweilo]

Originally Posted by remi

I think they like detailed logs.

Photoshop fails to start.
What more details do you want?

No errors in JD. It's happy.
There is no change in the log when I try to start PhotoShop.
Should I post a useless log regardless just to get some attention?


There is some resource conflict or locking, but it's not just RAM as everyone seems to think, there is plenty to go around. And PhotoDeluxe is also blocked and that's even less greedy for memory.

When I'm in a low memory situation things usually just slow right down as it starts swapping to hard disk. Things get slow, but don't just stop.

Did you try to find help on a photoshop support forum? Does photoshop have logs?

[Gweilo]

Originally Posted by remi

Did you try to find help on a photoshop support forum? Does photoshop have logs?

No, and no. And the Photoshop forums I know would be rather intolerant of the use of programs like JD, so I couldn't explain that in detail. This forum seems like the most likely place to find an overlap between JD users and Photoshop users.

Thanks, but it seems no one is going to investigate this so I'll just give up.

[scr4ve]

Hey all,

We're using Clipboard-Monitoring techniques provided by Sun Java. If Photoshop crashes while other applications [JD or other Java Applications with Clipboard Monitoring] are accessing or monitoring the clipboard, this is a bug in PS, not in JD. We cannot provide a workaround in this case which would provide equivalent functionality - I filed in a bugreport with Adobe a couple of days ago. Current solution is not to use clipboard monitoring as long as Adobe doesn't fix it. Feel free to contact **External links are only visible to Support Staff**Adobe in order to push this up in their priority list.

Regards,

scr4ve

[Gweilo]

Originally Posted by scr4ve

Current solution is not to use clipboard monitoring as long as Adobe doesn't fix it.

I already said I don't use clipboard monitoring.
That is not causing my problem.

Also it is sporadic.
I find sometimes I CAN load Photoshop while JD is running. Other times it just locks up until I exit JD.

[drbits]

I am sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I have been ill.

I am a Windows developer with over 15 years of experience and several years of experience in programs like JDownloader. Since this isn't actually a JDownloader problem, it is my job to try and fix the problem without asking a JDownloader developer to try and diagnose it and deal with it.

First, can you tell us the date on which you first noticed the problem?

Second, please try running going to the properties for Photoshop and setting it to run in Compatibility mode for Windows 98 or ME, with Separate memory space. Depending on your specific version of Win2K, you might need to create a shortcut to Photoshop and make the change in the shortcut. If this works, please let us know here.

If it works, you can try unchecking (unticking) Separate memory space and see if it still works.
_____________________________

If that does not work, the next step is to try updating JDownloader to the development version (Nightly test version). This is an early test version that may have major changes on any day. However, it is relatively safe (I have been running Nightly for about 3 months with only one bad update).

I am overly cautions. I recommend exiting JD and backing up the entire JD directory. I also recommend saving a system restore point (even though JD does not change the system, a bug might). You can save a system restore point under Help and Support (either in your Start menu or Control panel).

To change to the Nightly version, you open a command window and change directory to the JDownloader directory (usually c:\program files\jdownloader). Then you run the batch script "windows_ALPHA.bat". This takes quite a while, because it has to replace several hundred files. The upgrade should preserve your Link List and Link status. However, you will have to reset most of your settings.

Once you are running Nightly, see if that fixes your problem. There have been some compatibility fixes that may have fixed your problem. In any case, a JD developer would want to change this in the development release instead of the old release.

If you ever need to go back to version 9.759 (the stable release), you use the windows_STABLE.bat script in the JDownloader directory. Again, you may have to reset your settings.

Once you are running the Nightly release, please report anything related to this problem in this thread (but include the JD version number) and any other problems in the Nightly Forum.
_____________________

If neither of these changes fix you problem, I will need you to collect extensive information and I will enter this as a support issue for the development team. The others who have answered your message apparently do not know what information to request.

However, because the programs are so old, it may be difficult to get them to fix an incompatibility with software that is that old. It could be anything from a DLL conflict to a mouse interrupt conflict, and the developer would probably not have either Win2K or that version of Photoshop available. If I remember correctly, old versions of Photoshop tried to lock all serial ports (including PS2 ports) when they started.

[Gweilo]

Originally Posted by drbits

I am sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I have been ill.

I am a Windows developer with over 15 years of experience and several years of experience in programs like JDownloader. Since this isn't actually a JDownloader problem, it is my job to try and fix the problem without asking a JDownloader developer to try and diagnose it and deal with it.

JD is causing a problem. Since it's a free program I can't demand support, so if they want to ignore that, I can't complain (or not loudly anyway).

First, can you tell us the date on which you first noticed the problem?

2-3 weeks ago.

So it looks like a symptom of the latest release.

Second, please try running going to the properties for Photoshop and setting it to run in Compatibility mode for Windows 98 or ME, with Separate memory space. Depending on your specific version of Win2K, you might need to create a shortcut to Photoshop and make the change in the shortcut. If this works, please let us know here.

If it works, you can try unchecking (unticking) Separate memory space and see if it still works.

I don't see any such "compatibility mode" setting.
But the icon already has "Run in a separate memory space" selected (and unchangeable), so it looks like it already is in the equivalent mode.

If that does not work, the next step is to try updating JDownloader to the development version (Nightly test version).

Thanks, but I don't want to do that. I've had enough trouble with stable releases, I don't want to venture into beta land.

However, because the programs are so old, it may be difficult to get them to fix an incompatibility with software that is that old. It could be anything from a DLL conflict to a mouse interrupt conflict, and the developer would probably not have either Win2K or that version of Photoshop available. If I remember correctly, old versions of Photoshop tried to lock all serial ports (including PS2 ports) when they started.

My mouse and keyboard are PS/2, I haven't noticed any problem with them and I've been using this version of Photoshop for about 10 years...

My bet is a dll conflict. Surely there must be a debug utility that logs when dlls are called and by what?

[drbits]

That was one of the next things I was going to ask you to do.
ListDLLs at technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896656.aspx lists the currently loaded DLLs. You can run it with Photoshop running (but not JD) and with JD running (but not PS). This is a command line program, so you can output to files, sort the files, and compare.

You can also view DLLs with Process Explorer (a GUI program), it will separate the information by the programs that have the DLL loaded. If you find a DLL conflict, copy the Photoshop version of the DLL file into the same directory as the Photoshop EXE file. If PS is running in compatibility mode, it will load the DLL and ignore the version already loaded.


You can download Process Explorer from technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

A DLL conflict would not be a JD problem. It would be a Java problem, and we could not fix that. The support for side-by-side execution in Win2K is poor, but we might have to try setting that up.

Remember, your OS went "end of life" over 4 years ago. We would need to have a copy of the OS and that version of Photoshop to do any debugging. None of us has that, so you have to do the legwork.