External exception EEFFACE.

[anv2010]

Hello,

The CSE Html Validator (10.0110 (Pro)) Batch Wizard fails with this error message: "External exception EEFFACE."

FYI: OS is Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

I'm looking forward for your response.

Thank you.

[Albert Wiersch]

I'm sorry for the trouble. Can you provide detailed steps to reproduce this problem? Thank you.

[anv2010]

Hello Albert,

Thank you for your prompt response.

The target OS is "Windows 7 Pro 64" (runs as a virtual machine).
The batch wizard fails while validating pages (~12,200 pages +/- 200).

It consumes ~1.7GB of memory at the time of failure.
I've tried allocating 4GB and 6GB of RAM to the Windows -- the same problem.

This failure started after installing the latest CSE HTMLValidator. I didn't have this problem running CSE HTMLValidator 10.0100.

The problem is reproducible. Let me know what diagnostic information you need.

Thank you.

[Albert Wiersch]

Thank you. Is there a certain document or target that it fails on? Does it always fail at the same place?

I may send you a new build to try tomorrow to see if that makes any difference.

[anv2010]

Hello Albert,

I've ran your program twice more to see whether or not it fails on the same page. No, it does not seem so.

However now, it once failed with "External exception EEFFACE," and another time with "Out of memory."

The 12k is not number of pages but is the number of entries within the Batch Wizard window.

Thank you.

[Albert Wiersch]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for sending the screenshots to me.

Because it is using that much memory and you are checking a lot of targets, I'm thinking this is mainly a memory issue. It might also be related to running it in a VM as that may create some additional "complications", especially when so much memory is being used.

I did add a memory check in recent versions, and it is suppose to stop checking if memory gets to low but may have not worked in your case.

I will PM you soon with the latest build to try... it does make some changes and bug fixes that might have an effect (though they probably won't). I also have added code to delete the first 1000 lines of the Batch Progress text when it goes over 11,000 lines to try to keep it "under control".

If the new build still fails, then my thoughts are that you may want to reduce the number of targets you are trying to validate at one time and see if that works.

In any case, you may also want to try an "errors only" or "errors and warnings only" validation to keep memory use down... and make sure the maximum number of errors and warnings before ending a validation is not set to high. The point here is to keep the number of messages down.

[anv2010]

Hello Albert,

Unfortunately, the problem persists with the latest build.

Thank you for your prompt response.

[Albert Wiersch]

Hello Albert,

Unfortunately, the problem persists with the latest build.

Thank you for your prompt response.

Thanks. Something is strange as I don't know why so much memory would be used for when it has checked less than 3000 documents. How large are these documents that you are checking? Is anything "unique" to them that make them considerably different than a "typical" web document?

One suggestion would be to set "errors only" or "errors and warnings only" in the Batch Wizard Options, Tool to Use page.

It looks like the code to delete 1000 lines after going over 11,000 worked as I see less than 11,000 lines in the screenshots you PM'd me.

But neither of these issues really explain what's going on.

Would it be possible to only check the /convert/power folder and see if it still crashes? I wonder if there is a bug and it's crashing on a certain document. Because the batch progress isn't updated showing the latest messages at all times, it could be crashing on a document that is validated shortly after the last one that it shows it is validating.

Also, if you have another computer your could run in on without it being in a VM, then I'd like to know how that works.

[anv2010]

Hello Albert,

The '/convert/power/' filter processed 3027 pages and completed successfully.

I'm running the "complete job" on my original Windows XP (32 bit) SP3 machine now, and will update the post once the validation is complete.
UPDATE:I was able to reproduce the problem (External exception EEFFACE) on my "real" Windows XP (32bit) SP3 machine running HTML validator 10.0031.

Best.

[Albert Wiersch]

Hello Albert,

The '/convert/power/' filter processed 3027 pages and completed successfully.

I'm running the "complete job" on my original Windows XP (32 bit) SP3 machine now, and will update the post once the validation is complete.
UPDATE:I was able to reproduce the problem (External exception EEFFACE) on my "real" Windows XP (32bit) SP3 machine running HTML validator 10.0031.

Best.

Thanks... it's still showing a lot of memory usage, more than I would expect (from your screenshot).

I'd like to know how much memory use it shows on your non-VM XP machine. Is it comparable to the VM?

Are these public pages that I can check from here? If so, then can you send me your Batch Wizard target lists so I can do some research on the memory usage? I may have to hit a few thousand pages though.

Thanks.

[anv2010]

Thanks... it's still showing a lot of memory usage, more than I would expect (from your screenshot).

I'd like to know how much memory use it shows on your non-VM XP machine. Is it comparable to the VM?

- Yes, it's

Are these public pages that I can check from here? If so, then can you send me your Batch Wizard target lists so I can do some research on the memory usage? I may have to hit a few thousand pages though.

Thanks.

No, this is my development site. Currently, I'm running your Bath Wizard against my production site. Once the wizard fails, it it'll fail, I'll send you the batch list.

Thank you!

[Albert Wiersch]

No, this is my development site. Currently, I'm running your Bath Wizard against my production site. Once the wizard fails, it it'll fail, I'll send you the batch list.

Thanks. I should be able to find out what's going on if I can reproduce it here.

[Albert Wiersch]

For those watching this thread, the problem was checking a large number of documents (over 2500) where many had hundreds or even thousands of links. This required a lot of memory (so much that it crashed) because the links were being stored in memory for each target. In the latest update, which became available today for std/pro users (v10.0120), the Batch Wizard now clears any memory used to store links when the link checker is not being used (otherwise the list of links is still needed).

I found some other issues with efficiency and performance as well, because the documents being checked were often on one very long line.

[anv2010]

Albert,

Your batch wizard is tirelessly validating the numerous pages of my web site successfully again.

Thank you very much for providing such excellent support of your product!

[Albert Wiersch]

Thank you very much for providing such excellent support of your product!

You're very welcome!