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Re: Mathematica lock-up when comsuming Win95 system resources

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg13649] Re: [mg13619] Mathematica lock-up when comsuming Win95 system resources
• From: Carl Woll <carlw at fermi.phys.washington.edu>
• Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 09:11:33 -0700 (PDT)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hi,

One idea that might help, which was posted recently by Luc Barthelet, is
to add a post processing function, as in:

reallyBig[x_] := If[ByteCount[x]>200000,"Too Large",x]; $Post =
reallyBig

As far as the inability to abort, have you tried quitting the kernel,
with the menu command

Kernel | Quit Kernel 

In my experience, even if aborting doesn't work, quitting the kernel
always does work. 

Carl Woll
Dept of Physics
U of Washington

On Fri, 7 Aug 1998, L. Dwynn Lafleur wrote:

> I am using Mathematica 3.0.1 under Windows 95.  Occasionally, when
> executing a cell involving a large multidimensional list, Mathematica
> will slowly consume all system resources and lock up.  No doubt, this
> is because I am making a programming error that results in Mathematica
> trying to do a ridiculously large amount of work.
> 
> Since I have the system resource meter running in the tray, I can see
> the freeze coming, but all the attempts to abort the calculation fail. 
> Right before the lock-up, Win95 posts a warning that 90% of its
> resources are used up, but I can't do anything about it.  The only way
> out is to Ctl-Alt-Del and shut Mathematica down.  Of course, that means
> all the work since the last notebook save is lost.
> 
> Does anyone have advice on how to avoid this situation (other than being
> a better Mathematica programmer, which might eventually happen)? Of
> course, I could get into the habit of saving the notebook before each
> and every execution.  Is that the only solution?
> 
> Thanks for any help.
> 
> Dwynn
> 
> -- 
> 
> =========================================== L. Dwynn Lafleur
> Professor of Physics
> The University of Southwestern Louisiana Lafayette, Louisiana  (USA)
> lafleur at usl.edu               
> ===========================================
>