Author Topic: Can't run Paragon Chat?  (Read 5745 times)

General Idiot

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Can't run Paragon Chat?
« on: December 01, 2015, 07:58:06 AM »
Ok, this has me completely stumped. I ran Paragon Chat for the first time in months today, and as expected it updated to the latest version. Green bar went all the way to the end and then it just sat there for ages. I figured it'd crashed, just like it did the last time it updated, so I closed it and went to restart.

I'm not sure what I broke by closing it when it apparently wasn't as done updating as I thought, but I'm now completely unable to launch it at all. When I try I get two or three instances of ParagonChat.exe running or at least visible as processes in task manager (Each using precisely 116k of memory and using no cpu at all), but it never actually comes up. Each of these instances also cannot be ended via end process. They just continue sitting there, doing nothing.

Thus far I've tried:
- Leaving it for a long time (approx. half an hour) to see if it goes eventually. It doesn't.
- Restarting the computer, obviously.
- Running it as administrator just in case. (My CoH files and Paragon Chat are under Program Files but UAC is disabled on this machine anyway so that shouldn't affect anything) Same result, starts processes but does nothing.
- Renaming the ParagonChat folder under AppData to make it recreate the database if that's corrupted. No change, it doesn't even recreate the folder.
- Deleting Paragon Chat itself and using a freshly downloaded copy. Does exactly the same thing, starts and refuses to stop but does nothing.

What the hell did I break to make it so stubbornly broken? Anyone have any ideas? For reference, I'm running this on Windows 7.

General Idiot

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2015, 08:47:35 AM »
Update: On the advice of a friend I tried a cold restart - as in shut down, wait half an hour, then start up again rather than just restarting like normal where the system doesn't actually power off. This also didn't achieve anything, it's still just as broken.

Second Update: Multiple people report the same issue after updating, so it may be an issue with Paragon Chat itself rather than anything specific to me. Also for reference, looking through the patch notes I'm reasonably sure the version I had before this was 0.99. (Not 0.99a, b, etc, just 0.99 base.)
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 09:15:25 AM by General Idiot »

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2015, 02:15:35 PM »
Can someone who is having this issue do the following to help me debug it?

1. Make sure no other copies of Paragon Chat are running (kill them in task manager or reboot)
2. Try to start Paragon Chat, give it a few seconds
3. Find ParagonChat.exe in task manager's Processes or Details tab
4. Right-click on it and choose Create Dump File
5. zip or 7z up the file it creates (should be ParagonChat.dmp in your temp directory) and put it on dropbox or something similar
6. PM me the link to the file

Thanks!

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2015, 02:37:08 PM »
Since the startup ordering changes in 0.99e seem like the only thing that could potentially be related, I'm re-issuing 0.99g with a modified startup sequence to see if it helps.

If you're experiencing this hang, you can try grabbing it from the manual download location:
http://www.cohtitan.com/paragonchat/ParagonChat.exe

If it works, it show show up as 0.99g-2. That version is identical to 0.99g except for a small startup initialization difference.

General Idiot

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2015, 11:29:06 PM »
Tried the posted update, still doesn't work. Same result, I start the program only once and I get three copies of ParagonChat.exe showing in Task Manager, all of them doing nothing.

I also tried to create a dump file as asked in the previous post and it failed to do so giving an error. Error message was "The operation could not be completed. Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed."

Edit: I grabbed an older version out of my own backups which appears to work fine. (Listed as 0.98a when it starts up) Until it updates, then the same issue. (Update hangs at the end, phantom instances of ParagonChat.exe in task manager if I restart it.) I left it running this time instead of closing it but it doesn't look like that's actually the cause, it just stayed there forever.

I'd say screw it and use the older version for now but for one that's a pretty old version and for another it's set to auto update and I can't change that without starting it up at which point it auto updates and breaks again.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 11:44:07 PM by General Idiot »

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2015, 01:14:42 AM »
I'd say screw it and use the older version for now but for one that's a pretty old version and for another it's set to auto update and I can't change that without starting it up at which point it auto updates and breaks again.

The second part can be avoided by running with the -skipupdate command line flag. That will supprrss the auto update for that session so you can access the UI and change the settings.

General Idiot

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2015, 04:11:47 AM »
Excellent, thanks. Any chance of maybe getting a slightly newer version to download? One of the 0.99 ones, probably 0.99d? Like I said, the one I have in backups is pretty old. Plus if 0.99d breaks as well then we know conclusively it's not anything to do with changes in 0.99e.

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2015, 04:19:14 AM »
Sure, try this:

https://chat.cohtitan.com/updates/v1/0994/paragonchat.exe

98d is the lastest version you can grab that way; I removed the files for 98e and 98f since they both had a bug in the self-update mechanism.

3 processes running is very strange. That shouldn't be possible from a cold start. Even during an update, assuming everything goes wrong, only 2 at most should ever be running.

General Idiot

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2015, 05:20:49 AM »
0.99d works perfectly fine, starts up and loads up fine. Haven't tried logging in all the way cause I'm in the middle of making dinner but I will after. But if it gets that far I'd imagine any problem I might have with it would be an entirely seperate issue from the not loading at all I have with 0.99g.

I ran Windows updates earlier just in case cause they hadn't been done in months and I thought I might've been missing some patch for something that could be affecting it. (Especially since when I looked at what the available updates do one of them mentioned adding support for a newer version of TLS which PC uses from 0.99e onward I believe.) However, trying the reissued 0.99g after installing those gave the same three phantom ParagonChat.exe instances in task manager and nothing else.

Also, for reference in case it might be relevent - with 0.99d I only get one instance running in task manager. I can't help but wonder if whatever's causing the three instances of it is the root cause of the whole thing - three copies all trying to access the same database and CoH files and all ending up blocking each other, or some such. That's a very uneducated guess though.

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2015, 05:43:43 AM »
That does narrow it down a little, though I've been going on the assumption that the issue would have appeared between 99d and 99e, since the startup order changes are the only thing that really makes sense for a problem that early to suddenly appear.

The inability to create a memory dump is very suspect. That almost makes it sound like the process isn't fully initialized by the OS yet. I suppose you get the same error regardless of which of the 3 processes you try to get a dump from?

General Idiot

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2015, 11:23:01 AM »
Yes, same error regardless.

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2015, 02:52:07 PM »
What happens if you start fresh and run with -relaunch ?

General Idiot

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2015, 01:42:38 AM »
Assuming by 'start fresh' you mean move or delete the config/database folder under appdata, I did that and ran the 0.99g-2 you put up yesterday with -skipupdate (probably not necessary) and -relaunch and now it works, somehow? Interestingly it now also works fine without that flag and after I move my old database and config files back into place. So either that flag fixed it permanently or the whole thing resolved itself overnight.

Either way, it's working now.

Edit: Out of curiosity, what does that -relaunch flag actually do?
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 03:24:17 AM by General Idiot »

remyfanboi

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2015, 07:12:46 AM »
Any suggestions for if this happens on a Mac?

I get through the update with island rum to the chat log on and then after entering my credentials, it just hangs. No instance of Paragon Chat opens at all.

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2015, 10:38:31 PM »
Assuming by 'start fresh' you mean move or delete the config/database folder under appdata, I did that and ran the 0.99g-2 you put up yesterday with -skipupdate (probably not necessary) and -relaunch and now it works, somehow? Interestingly it now also works fine without that flag and after I move my old database and config files back into place. So either that flag fixed it permanently or the whole thing resolved itself overnight.

Very strange, sounds like it may have been another issue with some third-party software interfering and holding the file open or something like that.

Edit: Out of curiosity, what does that -relaunch flag actually do?

Didn't see your edit until the thread was bumped...

Normally, when you run Paragon Chat without the -relaunch flag, the first thing it does is look in %APPDATA%\Paragon Chat\Bin to see if there is a ParagonChat.exe these. If there is, and if that file is as new or newer than the one you ran, it simply launches that copy and immediately exits.

If it doesn't exist, or if the copy there is older than the one that is running, Paragon Chat copies itself to that location, then launches the copy. In both cases, it adds "-relaunch" to the command line when it starts the second copy to inform it that is is the relaunched copy and to skip over that check.

Why? Two reasons.

1. For systems with UAC enabled where COH is installed under Program Files, this lets Paragon Chat update itself (just the copy under the per-user AppData) without having to have Administrator rights. The copy in the COH install folder does not get updated, but it doesn't matter since that copy does nothing except launch the newer one under AppData.

2. For people using third-party launchers. These caused a bit of a headache at first. If a new version of Paragon Chat came out, there was a time lag between when I released it and when the third-party manifests got updated. During that window, things could get stuck in a loop where Paragon Chat would update itself, then Tequila or whatever would see that the new version didn't match the one listed in its manifest and replace it with the older one, over and over. Or before the self-update feature, people would download a new version only to have it replaced by the launcher and leave them scratching their heads as to why the new features were missing.

With the relaunch code, in case #2, the third-party launcher can download an somewhat older version of Paragon Chat and it doesn't hurt anything; that version will simply launch the up-to-date one located elsewhere. The copy in the COH install directory never gets updated, so the third-party launcher is happy and doesn't try to replace it.

Manually running with -relaunch bypasses that behavior and causes it to just run in place without attempting to relocate itself. Not something you would want to do normally, but potentially useful in helping troubleshoot issues where for whatever reason the copy in AppData can't be run.

Codewalker

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Re: Can't run Paragon Chat?
« Reply #15 on: December 11, 2015, 10:40:13 PM »
Any suggestions for if this happens on a Mac?

I get through the update with island rum to the chat log on and then after entering my credentials, it just hangs. No instance of Paragon Chat opens at all.

You might want to PM Manga if you haven't already. I don't really know much about macs. Manga is one of the few people around here who knows how to get things working on them (and is the author of Island Rum).