[Moose-dev] Re: [Pharo-dev] Too frequent crashes :-(

Hi Alex, I certainly understand your frustration, I felt it too on Windows to the point where I stopped using Pharo for couple of weeks out of rage, and then spend in total at least 40+ hours digging into the VM until I added usable workaround for Windows. Not to mention how frustrating was the fixing it. Obviously on Mac there are still some unresolved pathways, but it will not magically fix itself. The reason for the crash (bad object pinning and moving of canvas memory) has been known for some time now, so more crash.dmps do not give any more insight. If this is to be resolved then one of the two have to happen: A) Someone who really understands VM/image memory management / GC / pinning fixes the issue. B) Someone with Mac (which I don't have) digs around BitBlt code (or wherever it was) and adds a similar workaround. Considering the issue has emerged more than a year ago (Spur switch), I don't think (A) is going to happen any time soon, so I guess the only chance is to get elbows greasy and fix it yourself (B) (or you make one of your students suffer :)). I didn't have a single Roassal/BitBlt related crash on Windows since my fix was added, so there should be a way to add a workaround for Mac too. (there are of course crashes related to FT, but the story is arguably the same). TL;DR: I don't think it's on a todo list of anyone who actually understands this, so the only way to fix it is by yourself or find a concrete person that would be willing to dig into it. Peter