Oxygen 18.1 crashing regularly on OSX

[maglid]

I have about a dozen writers using Oxygen 18.1 on Mac OS X (DITA). About 5 of them say that Oxygen crashes on them every day at least once. Some of those are using OS X Sierra 10.12.4. Sometimes they can't get Oxygen to work again unless they reboot.

Is there a problem with 18.1 on OSX?

Would upgrading to Oxygen version 19 help?

Thanks,
Mark

[adrian]

Hello,

We would need more information before we can draw any conclusions. Please ask you writers when they encounter a crash, if the app shows a crash report to send it either to you or directly to us at support@oxygenxml.com.
If there's a unhandled error with a Java stack trace there's usually a Copy button that copies that trace to the Clipboard and you can send it to us.

The definition of crash is very loose for the average user. So this would need some clarifying first.
If it's a "crash to desktop" (application closes with no warning), that is most likely the Java virtual machine crashing.
If by crash you mean it shows an unhandled error message dialog (e.g. OutOfMemoryError or NullPointerException) that is Oxygen and/or lack of memory for what it needs to process.
If it hangs/freezes, that may still be an insufficient memory issue for what the application needs to process.

About 5 of them say that Oxygen crashes on them every day at least once.

What are they doing when it crashes? Do they make any changes to the display resolution or plug/unplug an external display?
Are they running a specific action when Oxygen does that (e.g. a transformation, publishing, etc)?

Sometimes they can't get Oxygen to work again unless they reboot.

If the application is stuck (hanged) for whatever reason, it may need to be force-closed (e.g. from Activity Monitor). You cannot start it a second time before completely closing the first instance. Some users don't know how to accomplish that so they rely on rebooting to fix the problem.
Assuming they have managed to force close Oxygen, it will start immediately.

Is there a problem with 18.1 on OSX?

We are not aware of any consistent crashes of 18.1 on OS X. There are some known startup issues on OS X 10.12 with .apps that are not from the App Store (includes Oxygen). These are easily overcome by removing the quarantine flag and do not affect the subsequent functionality of the application.
There may be some Java issues on some Mac configurations, but these are rare and we do not have a clear pattern of what triggers them.

Would upgrading to Oxygen version 19 help?

v19 bundles a newer version of Java, so it might help, if it is a Java crash. But you can also change the Java runtime bundled with Oxygen with a minimum amount of effort.
v19 also brings a lot of bugfixes, but we don't know if what your writers encounter is a bug or something else. It might help, or it may not make any difference. If you want to give v19 a try to see if it helps, you can request a free 30 day trial license on our support email address, support@oxygenxml.com.

Regards,
Adrian

[maglid]

Thanks Adrian. I'm collecting more information. Here is a response from one writer:

Just about every morning, when I go to open Oxygen I get a dialog with the following message:

"The application may have crashed during the precious run. Do you want to open the files that were being edited in the previous session? No Yes

If I choose Yes, the app does not open and hangs indefinitely, so I do a Force Quit. Then, when I try to re-open it, I get the same song and dance. At this point, the only way to get it to work is to reboot my machine.

[maglid]

Here is another report. This was from today, the author opened Oxygen using Launch Pad. Oxygen never opened, it just had an endless spinning beachball. He had to use Force Quit. No Oxygen messages.

This time Oxygen would open after the Force Quit. There have been times in the past where it hasn't, and he enters into a cycle of beachball force quits until Oxygen either decides to open or he restarts the computer.

I have the Force Quit log from today but I could not figure out how to attach it to this post. It's 1.2 MB. Here are the first few lines of it:

Code: Select all

Date/Time:       2017-05-10 09:13:14 -0700

OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.12.4 (Build 16E195)

Architecture:    x86_64h

Report Version:  25



Data Source:     Stackshots



Command:         JavaApplicationStub

Path:            /Applications/Oxygen XML Author/Oxygen XML Author.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub

Version:         18.1 (18.1)

Parent:          launchd [1]

PID:             2006



Event:           hang

Duration:        4.10s (process was unresponsive for 169 seconds before sampling)

Steps:           41 (100ms sampling interval)



Hardware model:  MacBookPro13,3

Active cpus:     8



Fan speed:       2165 rpm



--------------------------------------------------

Timeline format: stacks are sorted chronologically

Use -i and -heavy to re-report with count sorting

--------------------------------------------------



Heaviest stack for the main thread of the target process:

  41  start + 52 (JavaApplicationStub + 4436) [0x100001154]

  41  main + 34 (JavaApplicationStub + 29938) [0x1000074f2]

  41  launcher_main + 625 (JavaApplicationStub + 29569) [0x100007381]

  41  -[Launcher launch] + 836 (JavaApplicationStub + 27892) [0x100006cf4]

  41  ??? (<232C2B05-0A99-33C9-963A-EC5EEE86D2B1> + 5668) [0x1000dc624]

  41  ??? (<232C2B05-0A99-33C9-963A-EC5EEE86D2B1> + 22781) [0x1000e08fd]

  41  CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 420 (CoreFoundation + 553412) [0x7fffd5b4c1c4]

  41  __CFRunLoopRun + 934 (CoreFoundation + 554950) [0x7fffd5b4c7c6]

  41  __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 557 (CoreFoundation + 557773) [0x7fffd5b4d2cd]

  41  __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 17 (CoreFoundation + 684993) [0x7fffd5b6c3c1]

  41  __NSThreadPerformPerform + 326 (Foundation + 464970) [0x7fffd75ad84a]

  41  ??? (<910FF8D6-3660-34DD-9656-E848180E2A27> + 279731) [0x1206024b3]

  41  ??? (<915C0924-3D8D-3838-BC54-C581FB1083A0> + 8525) [0x11ffc114d]

  41  -[NSApplication run] + 926 (AppKit + 243627) [0x7fffd363d7ab]

  41  ??? (<915C0924-3D8D-3838-BC54-C581FB1083A0> + 9130) [0x11ffc13aa]

  41  -[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 2796 (AppKit + 8136798) [0x7fffd3dc485e]

  41  _DPSNextEvent + 1120 (AppKit + 290340) [0x7fffd3648e24]

  41  _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 71 (HIToolbox + 199462) [0x7fffd50adb26]

  41  ReceiveNextEventCommon + 432 (HIToolbox + 199921) [0x7fffd50adcf1]

  41  RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 240 (HIToolbox + 200380) [0x7fffd50adebc]

  41  CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 420 (CoreFoundation + 553412) [0x7fffd5b4c1c4]

  41  __CFRunLoopRun + 1761 (CoreFoundation + 555777) [0x7fffd5b4cb01]

  41  __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 391 (CoreFoundation + 683335) [0x7fffd5b6bd47]

  41  __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 23 (CoreFoundation + 683479) [0x7fffd5b6bdd7]

  41  ??? (<910FF8D6-3660-34DD-9656-E848180E2A27> + 279993) [0x1206025b9]

  41  ??? (<62155154-01EC-36C7-878A-1086C76DFD68> + 16370) [0x103fbbff2]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 3264990) [0x104b1d1de]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 1483270) [0x10496a206]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 5673982) [0x104d693fe]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 5113984) [0x104ce0880]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 4601017) [0x104c634b9]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 4600892) [0x104c6343c]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 4599162) [0x104c62d7a]

  41  ??? (<21CFE60D-053F-39B3-814D-5ECB6BD88990> + 4742254) [0x104c85c6e]

  41  __psynch_cvwait + 10 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 105458) [0x7fffeb3ddbf2]

 *41  psynch_cvcontinue + 0 (pthread + 38973) [0xffffff7f812a383d]





Process:         JavaApplicationStub (Oxygen XML Author) [2006]

Path:            /Applications/Oxygen XML Author/Oxygen XML Author.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub

Architecture:    x86_64

Parent:          launchd [1]

UID:             502

Task size:       327.08 MB

CPU Time:        3.910

Note:            Unresponsive for 169 seconds before sampling

Note:            1 idle work queue threads omitted



  Thread 0x77b3             DispatchQueue 1           Thread name "AppKit Thread"                         41 samples (1-41)         priority 46 (base 46)     cpu time <0.001

  <thread QoS user interactive (requested user interactive), process unclamped, process received importance donation from WindowServer [153], process received importance donation from EmojiFunctionRowIM_Extension [827], IO tier 0>

  41  start + 52 (JavaApplicationStub + 4436) [0x100001154] 1-41

    41  main + 34 (JavaApplicationStub + 29938) [0x1000074f2] 1-41

[adrian]

Hi,

Please send the report to support@oxygenxml.com or use the Technical Support form on our web site (pick Other and see at the bottom the "Browse" for attachment button).

"The application may have crashed during the precious run. Do you want to open the files that were being edited in the previous session? No Yes

If I choose Yes, the app does not open and hangs indefinitely, so I do a Force Quit. Then, when I try to re-open it, I get the same song and dance. At this point, the only way to get it to work is to reboot my machine.

That means the previous application session did not end gracefully. Pressing Yes means reloading the files from the previous session. If one of the files from that session triggers the problem, yes, you repeat the issue each time you pick Yes. You are suppose to pick No to start clean and thus avoid a potential "stuck on file open" situation.

Regards,
Adrian

[maglid]

Adrian, I emailed the force quit log file to support@oxygenxml.com.

[Lemesany]

I don't see an update after the build logs were sent. I have about the same amount of writers encountering this problem. Can there be an update to this post please to let us know if and how this was fixed? I'll also send our logs to the support address.

[adrian]

Hi,

I have about the same amount of writers encountering this problem.

What version of Oxygen are they using and on what version of macOS?
Do note that this may not be the same problem you are encountering. We need a crash or hang log to establish what is happening in your case.
You can send the log file by email to support@oxygenxml.com or use the Technical Support page from our website (file attachment is at the bottom of the page).

I don't see an update after the build logs were sent.

The log file mentioned here was inconclusive as it was a hang log. The Java VM seemed to hang for no apparent reason.
In a parallel discussion it was proposed to update the Java runtime bundled with Oxygen (to Java 8u131 or later) and add a Java VM option in the Info.plist file (within the VMOptionArray array, <string>-XX:+UseCountedLoopSafepoints</string>). These two modifications improved the situation for this particular problem.

Regards,
Adrian

[Lemesany]

What version of Oxygen are they using and on what version of macOS?

Oxygen 18.1, Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6.

I have them all trying to obtain logs now.
I have upgraded one user to 19.1 to see if this fixes the problem.
Another I have modified the info.plist file for their version of 18.1.
And another we are just trying to recreate the crash so we can send you the log, but plan to update the java to your recommended version.

I'll update with any changes.

[Lemesany]

Upgrading to 19.1 fixed most of the problems. One writer still had problems but modified her info.plist as you describe in a previous comment, and that seems to have fixed her issue for now. Thank you!