Re: A serious error?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg71911] Re: [mg71888] A serious error?
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
- Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2006 06:26:39 -0500 (EST)
- References: <200612021011.FAA28046@smc.vnet.net> <acbec1a40612020342h1e562dd0p33bb240342ed2fe4@mail.gmail.com>
On 2 Dec 2006, at 20:42, Chris Chiasson wrote: > A few ideas: > > This happens on my system when my network share is unavailable because > I have set the environment variable MATHEMATICA_USERBASE to be on a > network drive. > > Have you tried a Shift+Option startup of Mathematica? Yes. In fact, I manually deleted all the FrontEnd Caches, which I think is equivalent. (But I also tried th eShift-Option startup, just in case). > > If neither of those work, use a command that can give you a (binary) > diff of a directory structure to compare the Mathematica install on > your system with the backup install on your external drive. AFAIK, > most of the files should be exactly the same, but if the front end is > complaining - some of them might be missing or corrupt. But Mathematica is definitely not corrupted. The proof is that it works fine if the startup disk is an external disk. As I wrote: exactly the same copy works fine if I boot form an external drive and crashes on startup if I boot form my internal one. Moreover, immediately after the problem occured I deleted Mathematica from my internal hard drive and copied it again from the installation disk. This has made no difference though. I have also found that Mahtematica 4.2 and 5.0 run fine when I boot from the same internal hard drive that causes trouble with 5.1. Moreover, no version of 5.1, no matter where I put it, will start up, using the Front End. The kernel works fine, as I wrote. It really looks like the System has somehow remembered Mathematica 5.1 and won't let it start up, perhaps by not allocating it memory (?) I really have no idea how this sort of thing works under Unix (which is what Mac OS is), but it certainly looks like it. I also can't find any mention of error code 16 on Mac OS X on Apple's support pages. I assume the message refers to a Mac OS X error, but Apple lists errors 1 to 32767 for Mac OS 9 and earlier only. > > Also, you may want to look into using a source code repository - I use > subversion. Subversion of course would explain it. In fact I have been expecting something like this since they poisoned Litvinenko -- (I am sorry, this Mathematica problem must have affected my sense of humor - I actually have no idea what you mean by "source code repository"). > > Good luck, Thank a lot. Andrzej > > On 12/2/06, Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl> wrote: >> I have just encountered a puzzling problem with my Mathematica 5.1 >> for Mac OS X. It's probably an issue for technical support, but just >> in case someone has encountered it before (and known the answer) I >> have decided to post it here. (Actually, I am not even sure this is >> really a Mathematica issue rather than a Mac OS X issue issue). >> My Mathematica 5.1 was working fine this morning, but then for some >> reason I restarted the computer and on next launch the following >> message appeared: >> >> A serious error has occured while Mathematica was starting up. >> Mathematica will probably not function properly until this problem is >> resolved. You may choose to continue anyway, but Mathematica may >> crash or exit without warning. >> >> The installation Mathematica may be corrupted. Contact technical >> support or visti hhtp://www.wolfram.com for more information. Error >> code: 16. >> >> I clicked "Continue Anyway" and Mathematica crashed as promised. I >> then immediately re-installed Mathematica from a back-up disk and re- >> started. Exactly the same thing occured. So corrupted installation >> does not seem to be the problem. I decided to check if the problem >> lies in my Home directory. I created a completely new user, logged in >> as the freshly created user and tried launching Mathematica. The same >> message, the same crash. >> I then booted form an external hard disk, containing a back up of >> most things on my hard disk. I launched the copy of Mathematica 5.1 >> on my internal hard drive (the same one that was crashing on >> startup) . It launched and worked without a problem. So, it seems >> that something is indeed wrong with the system software on the >> internal drive. What could it be? The only thing that came to my mind >> was some font corruption, so I replaced all the fonts in my internal >> hard drive by those in the external one, but to no effect. >> >> I have also confirmed that the problem is only with the FrontEnd; if >> I launch the Kernel from the command line it works fine. Just in case >> I tried Mathematica 4.2 on the same system: it also works fine. >> >> At the moment it looks like I will have to replace the contents of my >> internal hard disk with my external one. This is going to be time >> consuming and I might even loose something, because the two disks >> have not been kept not synchronized. So I consider this as a last >> resort. Apart of that, however, I would like to solve this puzzle. >> What could it be, that seems to affect only the Front End of >> Mathematica 5.1, and does not lie within the application package >> itself (since that works fine when used with a different startup >> disk), nor in the User directory, and does not seem to be caused by a >> corrupted font? >> >> Andrzej Kozlowski >> >> >> > > > -- > http://chris.chiasson.name/
- References:
- A serious error?
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>
- A serious error?