Phex crashing on MacOSX Mavericks
 

Hi,

I upgraded to Mavericks from Mountain Lion, and found my Phex crashing every time I start it (in Console). After downloading and installing the latest Phex (3.4.2.116), it started once, but did not get any connection. I thought it was my location. After getting home, I tried restarting the new Phex, but this time it acted just like the old one, crashes before it starts. Here is the Console log that was automatically saved by Console: Any help will be much appreciated.


Process: launchd [1776]
Path: /Applications/Phex.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
Identifier: org.phex
Version: ???
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [252]
Responsible: launchd [1776]
User ID: 502

Date/Time: 2013-11-28 23:53:16.982 +0600
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.9 (13A603)
Report Version: 11
Anonymous UUID: 41CF3872-3C40-3F47-A54E-2FF17C41F0C9

Sleep/Wake UUID: 78FFD458-EEB1-4C84-BBED-9EDC6ADB1A91

Crashed Thread: Unknown

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

Backtrace not available

Unknown thread crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit):
eax: 0x00000000 ebx: 0x00000000 ecx: 0x00000000 edx: 0x00000000
edi: 0x00000000 esi: 0x00000000 ebp: 0x00000000 esp: 0x00000000
ss: 0x00000023 efl: 0x00010202 eip: 0x00000000 cs: 0x0000001b
ds: 0x00000023 es: 0x00000023 fs: 0x00000023 gs: 0x00000023
cr2: 0x00000000

Logical CPU: 2
Error Code: 0x00000014
Trap Number: 14


Binary images description not available


External Modification Summary:
Calls made by other processes targeting this process:
task_for_pid: 0
thread_create: 0
thread_set_state: 0
Calls made by this process:
task_for_pid: 0
thread_create: 0
thread_set_state: 0
Calls made by all processes on this machine:
task_for_pid: 11256
thread_create: 1
thread_set_state: 0

I have Mountain Lion running via Parallels. I installed Phex, opened fine but no connection. Used the connection installer & Phex connected to its first peers in less than 5 seconds. I am in process of installing Mavericks to see what happens. The Java I had installed is the Apple Java, not Oracle's Java. I did that because LimeWire refused to open with Oracle Java.
I'll let you know what happens after installation is complete. Mind you, I'm not sure my version of Parallels supports Mavericks, but Mavericks is supposed to be very very similar overall to Mountain Lion.

Same issue. Wouldn't even open for me until I installed a snapshot version and like you, it only opened & connected the one time. I've tried installing Oracle Java 7 & installing Apple Java 6 but so far no good. Safe Boot didn't help either.

Thanks Lord of the Rings for the feedback. Unfortunately I don't have much time to try out different things. One small correction to my post, the first time I ran the newly downloaded Phex, it did connect to servers, but I didn't 'find' anything. I thought it was the firewall in my office. So I tried it at home later, but Phex did not even open then.

I hope someone can help. Advance thanks!

Sadly I really cannot help MacOSX anymore ☹ (with all the side-meanings this sentence can have - I switched to GNU Linux 10 years ago, because Apple does not adhere to user-rights while it controls both hardware and software, and they have been breaking advanced usage of their OS more and more since then)

The exception says that it’s a null-pointer in the Apple-specific part of the program. Likely Apple changed some API which wrecked the Apple-part of the program.

You could try to run the jar-file directly instead of using the phex.app:

- download http://phex.sourceforge.net/snapshot..._3.4.2.163.zip
- unpack it
- go to <unpacked folder>/lib
- java -jar phex.jar

Does that work?

That works arne_bab. :)

To test it properly the important thing was to open it twice to be sure it was not a one-off open success as happened to both of us previously.
Connected to 6 peers fairly quickly.
So I guess we should refer people who are upgrading OSX or buying macs with Mavericks to use this method of using Phex instead. They should either drag & drop the phex.jar into the Dock or create an Alias & place on desktop, depending on their preferred method for opening Phex quickly.

I could create an applescript installer for this Phex which gives those options, but not sure I should? But then, if I did I would also include an updated connection file & updated settings. (My script for something similar for aliases does work in OSX 10.9 Mavericks.)

If sfque opens Phex via console as a standard approach then should direct it to that phex lib directory each time I guess. I'm not very console savvy to say the least. :o

That sounds nice - could be a good way to get rid of all the App-framework-dependencies. How backwardscompatible is Apple Script? (means: how high is the maintenance cost?)

At least OSX 10.3 compatible, however for these particular functions I'd think much earlier. Should work for all the earliest OSX's.

Functions like launch from installer depend on how it is scripted. The launch function I use after installation for the connection installers is limited to OSX 10.3. I use the application id number, example application file id "org.phex". Workaround is to use the actual program name and could be used dependent on OSX version. But the launch after installation function is not really important in my opinion, simply a way to finish off the installation process.

As for script installer size, notably small. Phex connection installer is 238 KB on disk (184,642 bytes) made up of: 49 KB Phex icon, 57 KB connection file, 45 KB 11 language translations, 57 KB applet, 4 KB CorePrefs, 8 KB scripts.
In comparison for the installer size of the 'other' Phex, it would be the size of the Phex folder 17,081,715 bytes (17.1 MB on disk) plus the above. To reduce size of the phex installer would require pre-zipping the phex folder and the installer unzipping via the OSX system which I've never done before & need to be done differently depending on OSX version. I don't think reducing the size by 1.7 MB (10%) is that important.
The actual process of Alias & Dock is purely scripted. I'd need to look at how to change the icon of the jar file however, if that should be beneficial. Otherwise the icon in the Dock uses the cup of coffee/tea icon with the word jar written below it.

Attachment 6455
A side-effect of the jar file not being an application in Mavericks is the icon in the dock is set to the right-side. No ability to shift it to the left of the divider unlike on Snow Leopard 10.6. . (I didn't like the lesser user options for Finder on either OSX 10.8/9. I hate that you cannot open folders separately. This would slow my work-flow down quite considerably.)

* Edit: Just realised that when opening Phex via the jar file in the Dock, another java icon shows in the Dock. This java icon is from the java executable from /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bin.
Probably not important that a separate executable java icon shows? I can phex iconize the jar file to at least show it belongs to Phex as the image shows.
Attachment 6457

The Phex-iconized jar-file looks good. I think having a Java-process pop up is a usability problem, but not starting is a far worse usability problem, so this definitely is an improvement ☺

I've put the installer together & all works fine except for a couple of things. However a major headache with the icons. Mountain Lion and Mavericks have restricted abilities to change default icons on non-app files unless done manually on the local computer and such changes only affect the local account/system, not transferable icons. Thus, the Dock & Desktop icons are the jar icons.

I removed the launch Phex option in the installer for the moment to keep it simple.

I still have not done the localised menus.