(cocos2d-x 3.1 + VS2012) TextureCache::addImageAsync causes a crash occasionally - cocos2d-x

I load some textures in asynchronously at the beginning of my game, about 40-50 of them.
vector<string> textureFileNames;
textureFileNames.push_back("textures/particle.png");
textureFileNames.push_back("textures/menu_title.png");
...
textureFileNames.push_back("textures/timer_bar.png");
for (auto fileName: textureFileNames)
{
Director::getInstance()->getTextureCache()
->addImageAsync(fileName, CC_CALLBACK_1(LoadingLayer::textureLoadedCallback, this));
}
My textureLoadedCallback method does nothing funky; at this stage it simply increments a value and updates a progress timer. The callback is called from the main thread by cocos2d-x design, so I don't suspect any problems arise from there.
90% of the time this works fine. But sometimes it crashes in VS2012 midway through loading the textures:
Debug Assertion Failed!
Program: C:\Windows\system32\MSVCP110D.dll
File: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\include\vector
Line: 1140
Expression: vector subscript out of range
Breaking at this point, I can see that it dies in the internals of vector, specifically the [] operator, and traces back through _Hash to the TextureCache::loadImage() method: auto it = _textures.find(asyncStruct->filename) on line 174 of CCTextureCache.cpp. _textures is defined as std::unordered_map<std::string, Texture2D*> _textures, a standard library unordered map. asyncStruct->filename resolves to the full path and filename of a texture to load.
Using the debugger, I can see that the filename is fine. I can see that _textures already contains the 19 textures before this one that it has processed just fine.
The fact that it seems to just be dying in the midst of the standard library doesn't strike me as right... but I'm unable to determine where CCTextureCache goes wrong. Only that it doesn't always fail, and that it's failing in an asynchronous thread. There's no concurrency bollocks going on with my code (as far as I know).
Is this a cocos2d-x bug, a VS2012 bug or a bug with my code I pasted above?

I think a potential cause could be that the for loop issues like 19 async image loads all at once, which may or may not be supported by that method. Try issuing the next async load only after your texture callback is called. That way no two async loads are performed simultaneously.

Related

SolidJS: "computations created outside a `createRoot` or `render` will never be disposed" messages in the console log

When working on a SolidJS project you might start seeing the following warning message in your JS console:
computations created outside a `createRoot` or `render` will never be disposed
There are some information available on this in SolidJS' Github repository issues. But after reading them I was still not quite sure what this was all about and whether my code was really doing something wrong.
I managed to track down where it came from and find a fix for it based on the documentation. So I'm providing the explanation and the solution for those Googling this warning message.
In essence this is a warning about a possibility of a memory leak due to a reactive computation being created without the proper context which would dispose of it when no longer needed.
A proper context is created a couple of different ways. Here are the ones I know about:
By using the render function.
By using the createRoot function. Under the hood render uses this.
By using the createContext function.
The first is by far the most common way, because each app has at least one render function call to get the whole show started.
So what makes the code go "out of context"?
Probably the most common way is via async calls. The context creation with its dependency tree happens only when the synchronous portion of the code finishes running. This includes all the export default function in your modules and the main app function.
But code that runs at a later time because of a setTimeout or by being in an async function will be outside of this context and any reactive computations created will not be tracked and might stick around without being garbage collected.
An example
Let's say you have a data input screen and have a Save button on it that makes an API call to your server to save the data. And you want to provide a feedback to the user whether the operation succeeded or not, with a nice HTML formatted message.
[msg,setMsg] = createSignal(<></>)
async function saveForm(){
...
setMsg(<p>Saving your data.<i>Please stand by...</i></p>)
const result=await callApi('updateUser',formData)
if(result.ok){
setMsg(<p>Your changes were <b>successfully</b> saved!</p> )
} else {
setMsg(<p>There was a problem saving your data! <br>Error: </p><pre>{result.error}</pre> )
}
}
...
<div>
...
<button onClick={saveForm} >Save</button>
{msg()}
</div>
This will produce the above mentioned warning when the API call returns an error, but not the other times. Why?
The reason for this is that SolidJS considers the code inserts inside JSX to be reactive, ie: need to be watched and re-evaluated. So inserting the error message from the API call creates a reactive computation.
The solution
I found the solution at the very end of the SolidJS doc. It's a special JSX modifier: /*#once*/
It can be used at the beginning of a curly brace expression and it tells the SolidJS compiler to explicitly not to make this a reactive expression. In other words: it will evaluated once and only once when the DOM nodes are created from the JSX.
In the above example here's how to use it:
setMsg(<p>There was a problem saving your data! <br>Error: </p><pre>{/*#once*/ result.error}</pre> )
After this there will be no more warning messages :)
In my case, I had an input and when that input changed I re-created an SVG drawing. Because the SVG creation was an expensive operation, I added a debounce in the createEffect function which ran when the input changed. debounce is a technique to defer the processing until the input stops changing for at least X amount of time. It involved running the SVG generation code inside the setTimeout function, thus being outside of the main context. Using the /*#once*/ modifier everywhere where I inserted an expression in the generated JSX has fixed the problem.

Debugging experimental WebAssembly externref bug in Google Chrome

Warning: as the reference types proposal isn't complete yet, this code will not run without toggling flags or setting in order to enable executing experimental code.
If you are on Google Chrome or a Chromium browser, you will need to enable the following flag:
chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-webassembly-features
I had set up a simple handwritten Wasm module for personal use. I could've easily written it in JavaScript, but it was easier and made more sense to use Wasm, and since it was a simple, personal script, I wouldn't care if other people couldn't run it.
I had compiled it using wabt's wat2wasm.
The Wasm module was intended to be fed the entire globalThis object to import from.
From there, it took four TypedArray constructors: Uint8Array, Uint16Array, Uint32Array, and BigUint64Array.
Take note: no code was executed prior to the Wasm, thus there cannot be any interference.
Later, I had realized that that the Wasm wasn't working as intended at all, my math was correct, but the variables were wrong.
I had narrowed my problem down to just this:
;; global -> global variable
(import "globalThis" "Uint8Array" (global $Uint8Array externref))
(import "globalThis" "Uint16Array" (global $Uint16Array externref))
(import "globalThis" "Uint32Array" (global $Uint32Array externref))
(import "globalThis" "BigUint64Array" (global $BigUint64Array externref))
;; func -> function
(import "console" "log" (func $console::log (param externref)))
(start $_start)
(func $_start
global.get $Uint8Array
call $console::log
global.get $Uint16Array
call $console::log
global.get $Uint32Array
call $console::log
global.get $BigUint64Array
call $console::log
)
This Wasm was instantiated like so:
WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming(
fetch(
"test.wasm", {
mode : "same-origin",
credentials : "omit",
cache : "no-store",
redirect : "error",
referrer : "no-referrer"
}
), globalThis
).catch( console.error );
The interesting problem is that the logs all say the same thing: Uint8Array.
I was dumbfounded. This has to be literally impossible. The JavaScript file itself was not cached, the WebAssembly was being fetched with "no-cache," the web page itself wasn't cached.
Then I thought, because I was using XHTML, maybe it didn't happen in HTML files. It did there too.
I tried converting the Wasm file to a TypedArray and just using WebAssembly.instantiate, suddenly, it worked flawlessly.
At this point the server must be serving the wrong file, because the further I go, the more this seems like nonsense.
I almost want to say that this is a Chromium browser or V8 runtime error, but I need to narrow it down a bit more before I blindly attempt to present this as a bug.
I have set up two different versions of the same code, on Repl.it, and on CodeSandBox.io, so that hopefully someone can try running it themself, to confirm the bug, and maybe attempt to debug where I went wrong.
(Could this be a problem with Repl.it's server?)
This was a compiler bug fixed by Chromium in
https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/v8/v8/+/2551100.
This was the response that I had gotten from one of the developers:
This is indeed a timing issue that has been fixed in https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/v8/v8/+/2551100. The problem happens when there are only imported globals, and compilation of the WebAssembly functions finishes before the stream actually finishes. In this case, the offset calculation happens after the compiler uses the offsets, and therefore produces incorrect code.
A workaround is to define one global that is not imported, as this causes the offset calculation to happen earlier.
Seems like sending a small module that only imports globals instead of functions was breaking the code.
Their code had a threading race condition between the stream and the compiler.

Graceful failure in Labview (after failed opening of device - in this case camera)

I was wondering how to make it so the rest of the program runs when one component fails to (and therefor the rest of the path that relied on this component is incapacitated as well). In other languages, this is equivalent to "catching an exception," but the added issue here is that I'm afraid that even if such a feature existed (cant find if it does), then the rest of the program would still try to run... Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
LabVIEW doesn't have exception handling, but handles error in a different way: (nearly) all VIs accept an error cluster as input (and so should yours); if it is positive (an error occurred), the VI will return immediately, passing error as output, and next will get it as input, etc. This is called error.
As all these VIs transmit this cluster between each others you will get it in your top-level VI, so if error occurs you just have to cleanup stuff correctly it and exit.

How to debug a runtime stack underflow error?

I'm really struggling to resolve a stack underflow that I'm getting. The traceback I get at runtime is:
VerifyError: Error #1024: Stack underflow occurred.
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at flash.net::URLLoader/onComplete()
This is particularly difficult to debug because when I run in debug mode it does not happen at all. It only happens when compiled as a release.
Does anyone have any tips on how to debug a Stack Underflow? Are have a clean explanation of what that means for Flash?
In case it helps, this error is occurring when I click a button whose handler makes an RPC call, which uses a URLLoader, an AsyncToken, and then invokes the set of AsyncResponder instances associated with the AsyncToken. With some server-side logging as well as some logging hacked into the swf, I know that the UrlLoader is successfully doing and GET'ing a crossdomain.xml file, is correctly processing it (ie: if I wreck it, I get a security error), and is also successfully completing the "load" request (the server sends the data). The underflow seems to be happening in the Event.COMPLETE listening/handling process (as is, of course, implied by the traceback as well).
mxmlc used = from flex_sdk_4.5.0.20967
Example player (I've tried a few) = 10.2.153.1
UPDATE: My specific problem is solved... but I'm leaving the question as-is since I would like to know how to generally debug such a problem, rather than just getting my specific solution.
In my code I had the following Application definition:
<s:Application height="100%" width="100%"
xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
initialize="InitData();">
Note that the code is/was attached to the initialize event.
InitData() and relevant defintions are/were:
import classes.RpcServerProxy;
public var SP:RpcServerProxy;
public function InitData():void {
SP = new RpcServerProxy("http://192.168.1.102:1234");
}
When I switched the InitData() call to be on the onCompletion event instead of initialize (thanks J_A_X!), the problem goes away entirely. What seems to have been happening was that the Event.COMPLETE event handler (onComplete in the stack trace) was using the global SP object. Something about the release (vs debug) compilation must have been affecting the startup timing of the SP variable initialization. Moving the handler later to the onCompletion event resolved all issues.
As said above, I would still like to know what tricks/tools are available for debugging initialization issues like this.
UPDATE 2:
applicationComplete seems to be an even better event than creationComplete to put application initialization code. See this blog entry for some explanation, and and this video (around 4:25) by an Adobe Tech Evangelist for an example of simple "start of application" data initialization.
I got rid of this error by adding compiler argument:
-omit-trace-statements=false
Stack underflow basically means the compiler messed up.
You can use SWFWire Inspector to look at the bytecode of the event handler, if you want to know exactly how it messed up. You can also use SWFWire Debugger to see which methods were called, but in this case, you already knew where it was happening.
If you post the broken swf, I can give you more info.
Sean is right that to debug it you can look at the byte code, but that didn't sound appealing to me.
Based on my experience and research, it is often due to the presence of a trace statement that incorrectly gets compiled out in release mode, and generates invalid byte code. So, I would say to "debug" it, "Look for places where you are using trace. Try commenting them all out in the offending function and see if the issue goes away."
In my case, it was a trace statement as the first line of a catch block:
catch (e:TypeError) {
trace(e.getStackTrace()); //This line is the problem
throw new Error("Unexpected type encountered");
}
I found someone else with this exact issue here.
This code also leads to stack underflow only in release mode (flag -debug=false):
true && trace('123');
mxlmc flex sdk version 4.5.0.20967, flashplayer version 10.3.181.14 (linux).
Check your code for similar expressions.
This code caused me issues when I compiled a release candidate from flash builder 4.5
public function set configVO( value:PopupConfigVO ):void
{trace("CHANGING")
Resolved by inserting a space between the the trace and curly brace
public function set configVO( value:PopupConfigVO ):void
{ trace("CHANGING")
Hope this helps.
For people looking for the same problem, I just got this caused by a trace statement in the 'default' case of a switch statement. Commented out the trace, stack underflow resolved.
Interesting... I was getting this error with a SWF that I'd pulled off the web, an Away3D based graphics demo. At the time I was running this on the Tamarin VM rather than the actual Flash/AIR runtimes, so could stick a breakpoint on the "verifyFailed(kStackUnderflowError)" line and see what was happening.
The -Dverbose flag also helped find the culprit:
typecheck MethodInfo-1480()
outer-scope = [global]
[Object~ Object] {} ()
0:pop
VERIFY FAILED: Error #1024: Stack underflow occurred.
And looking at the ABC using SWFInvestigator, I found this:
var function(Object):void /* disp_id=0 method_id=1480 nameIndex = 0 */
{
// local_count=2 max_scope=0 max_stack=0 code_len=2
// method position=52968 code position=155063
0 pop
1 returnvoid
}
So there is an obvious issue where the 'trace' has been removed but the compiler has put a 'pop' in there: I wouldn't have thought this was needed as a trace call should presumably have been made via 'callpropvoid'?
Quite why this doesn't fail on AIR/Flash I don't know..
Anyway: looks to me like an ASC compiler problem i.e perhaps one of the ActionScript3 compilers had a fault with this - hence the workarounds that have been mentioned so far.
It's quite simple, and it doesn't have anything to do with spaces before or after brackets, trace commands or whatever else: it's just 1 really simple thingy:
DO NOT LOOP EMPTY!
Meaning, while developing, we all //comment some lines sometimes, and when that results in
for (...) {
// skip for now
}
the compiler gets :
for(...){}
and that my good friends, is something the compiler doesn't like!
so, NO empty loops, and you're on your way again...
Happy hunting,
P.
I had the exact same problem, but in my case the cause of the problem was a trace statement in a place where the compiler didn't expect it to find it, right after a package declaration at the beginning of the class:
package utils
{
trace ("trace something here");
And that's why compiling in debug mode removed the problem.

Unhandled Exception with c++ app on Visual Studio 2008 release build - occurs when returning from function

I have a (rather large) application that I have written in C++ and until recently it has been running fine outside of visual studio from the release build. However, now, whenever I run it it says "Unhandled exception at 0x77cf205b in myprog.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x45000200.", and leads me to "crtexe.c" at line 582 ("mainret = main(argc, argv, envp);") if I attempt to debug it. Note that this problem never shows if I run my debug executable outside of visual studio, or if I run my debug or release build within visual studio. It only happens when running the release build outside of visual studio.
I have been through and put plenty of printfs and a couple of while(1)s in it to see when it actually crashed, and found that the access violation occurs at exactly the point that the value is returned from the function (I'm returning a pointer to an object). I don't fully understand why I would get an access violation at the point it returns, and it doesn't seem to matter what I'm returning as it still occurs when I return 0.
The point it started crashing was when I added a function which does a lot of reading from a file using ifstream. I am opening the stream every time I attempt to read a new file and close it when I finish reading it.
If I keep attempting to run it, it will run once in about 20 tries. It seems a lot more reliable if I run it off my pen drive (it seems to crash the first 3 or 4 times then run fine after that - maybe it's due to its slower read speed).
Thanks for your help, and if I've missed anything let me know.
EDIT: New info
Well I removed the entirity of the function and replaced it with:
IndexedMesh * loadObj(char * objName)
{
ifstream fp_in;
fp_in.open("lol.bmp", ios::in);
fp_in.clear();
fp_in.close();
IndexedMesh * mesh = new IndexedMesh();
printf("finished");
return mesh;
}
I also tried it with "return 0" and "return new IndexedMesh()". It's all fine until you put the ifstream stuff in. I do have 2 other ifstreams open in different functions (accessing completely different files). Could this be the problem?
It actually errors on the return mesh line, (I got the debugger working with the separate release file). It completely nulls the mesh object when it attempts to return it.
The point it started crashing was when I added a function which does a lot of reading from a file using ifstream. I am opening the stream every time I attempt to read a new file and close it when I finish reading it.
Given your description of the code only failing in release mode outside the debugger I'd examine this function for any unset variables. Compiling debug sets variables (or at least it used to) as did running release code in the debugger.
You are probably running over something stored deep in the stack.
I'll bet that if you were to put this at near the top of your code:
int my_main(int argc, char * argv[], char * envp[]);
int main(int argc, char * argv[], char * envp) {
char ** a;
char ** e;
a = malloc(argc+1); // note: you should test the results for NULL
e = malloc(1+count(envp) ) ;// I'm not writing code to count it, but it's easy
int i = 0;
while (argv[i++]) {
a[i] = strdup(argv[i]);
}
a[i] = argv[i]; // argv[i] is NULL and already in a register
// do the same thing for envp
return my_main(argc, a, e);
}
#define main my_main
then whatever it is that is smashing your stack would instead end up smashing this duplicated environment. It's not garenteed, and it is no fix for your problem, but not that difficult.
Thanks very much for your help, I haven't exactly solved the problem but I have managed to evade it. Basically, if I even mentioned an ifsteam (in that function and that function only), the program crashed.
I actually went as far as altering the function to simply declare an ifstream then return 0. I "fixed" it by declaring the ifstreams as pointers and new-ing them. If I deleted the pointer it crashed out again so I had to set it to 0 (leeeeak).
If anyone could enlighten me as to why this occurs, that would be great. While I'm just happy it works now, I'd rather know why..