System Preferences crash
 

I managed to get System Preferences in Mac OS X 10.6.2 to crash thanks to Marine Aquarium 3.0.1.

The sequence was as follows, but I haven't managed to repeat it yet.

1. Launched System Preferences.

2. Went to Desktop and Screen Saver, with Marine Aquarium already selected.

3. Before the preview of the aquarium was displayed, I clicked the Options button.

This triggered an EXC_BAD_ACCESS (KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS) at 0.

Here is a brief extract from the crash log. I can supply the full log if it is useful.

Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff808665fa strstr + 51
1 ...MarineAquarium3.screensaver 0x0000000112a8fa82 C3DEnvironment::C3DEnvironment(CTextureMapList*, C3DMasterObjectList*) + 370
2 ...MarineAquarium3.screensaver 0x0000000112a9bf6c CBaseAquarium::CBaseAquarium(registrationT, void const*, float, bool) + 108
3 ...MarineAquarium3.screensaver 0x0000000112ac22b6 CMarineAquarium::CMarineAquarium(registrationT, void const*, float, bool) + 38
4 ...MarineAquarium3.screensaver 0x0000000112a9f9ba -[MA3_SaverView createAquarium] + 186
5 ...MarineAquarium3.screensaver 0x0000000112a9eee8 -[MA3_SaverView animateOneFrame] + 200
6 com.apple.ScreenSaver 0x00007fff850f4a95 -[ScreenSaverView _oneStep:] + 65
...

Thanks for the report. If you can send along the crash report, that would be useful as well (I'll send you my e-mail address via private message). If you are able to repeat it and/or narrow down the steps to a more reproducible case, please let me know.

Is this a registered version (with the keycode entered), or are you still in unregistered mode (where you have to enter TESTFISH each time)?

Well, trying to send a private message didn't work. Added you to my list of friends on the site, so you should be able to send me e-mail via a link on my profile page. If not, let me know and we'll arrange another method.

Thanks for the reply, Michael.

I've accepted you as a friend but can't get to your profile (I get a message about no permission) or see an obvious way to send e-mail or a personal message. I've added my MobileMe address as my AIM contact - you can e-mail me at that address or iChat me if we happen to be online at the same time.

To answer your question, I had already entered my new Marine Aquarium 3 registration code before this crash. I don't recall offhand whether I entered the registration code via the application or on a previous visit into System Preferences, but I had been into System Preferences at least once previously in order to select Marine Aquarium as my active screen saver.

Mike has had a family emergency and will be back in a few days to finish up on this.

You can also use the feedback page on the Order N Dev web site and paste the crash log in there (I think).

Hi Jim

The feedback form doesn't work - it truncates to 8KB. I've requested an e-mail contact via that method. Hopefully we'll get there eventually!

Yes, I have the form truncate to keep the spam bots from overflowing my mailbox. I did get the panic log, though.

Thanks,
Jim

When I try to recreate this.. If the preview isn't yet generated, the click on "options" just isn't recognized at all. Can't get it to crash.. I'll keep trying.

We can't reproduce the crash, but we did find a possible bug which would be highly timing dependent if it ever showed up, which somewhat matches the profile we have here.