David Carradine

[rick.ca]

What a day! Not only do I have to deal with the bizarre death of David Carradine, now his record in PVD has gone mad. To make a long story short, according to the attached page.html (renamed TXT) it seems something has gone wrong with the IMDb People update. The page is obviously not HTML. The actual page appears normal in my browser.

I updated a number of other records, and the problem did not occur. So it seems to have something to do with this particular record/page. I Ctrl-Deleted the record, restarted the program and re-added the record. The problem remains (although it looks different). So I suppose whatever is happening is not the program's "fault," but maybe the plugin should be detecting this so it doesn't pollute the database with bad data.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[nostra]

So what exactly happened? The attached file the photo you see in your post.

[rick.ca]

Oh! I didn't view what I had posted. I've always assumed the page.html found in the application directory is the last page downloaded by a plugin. But now that I look at it, my log suggests this may be whatever the last GET was—in this case an image. So I suppose this has nothing to do with the problem.

The display behaviour of the record is very strange. It seems unable to draw the information panel properly. At first, it showed only 2/3 of the photo, what seemed to be the usual data at the top (although, notably—no date of death) and the biography. On rare occasions the filmography would appear, it would be collapsed but could not be expanded. When I tried, I realized the mouse-clicks were actually hitting (invisible to me) movies which were opening in my browser. All this was with the screen maximized. I realize now, the filmography will display normally (sort of) if it is windowed. If I maximize, it will not re-draw correctly, however.

I just found another record that behaves this way. John Carradine—his father! This is getting too weird...

[nostra]

I thinks its the most mysterious bug report I have ever heard

I will take a look at it tomorrow.

[rick.ca]

It seems he's actually turned into a ghost!

Something is peculiar about the data. This screenshot is made from a new database with nothing in it but David Carradine.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[nostra]

Could you remove the photo and see what happens?

[rick.ca]

I tried that. All I can say is it did other weird stuff. The behaviour is rather difficult to describe. I thought you would be able to replicate and see for yourself. If it doesn't do it for you, then maybe I've found my first supernatural bug.

[nostra]

No, it does not happen to me, but the problem is that there are no supernatural bugs...
I do not know maybe you could make a video of what is happening when you have nothing to do.

[rick.ca]

the problem is that there are no supernatural bugs...

Of course there are supernatural bugs. The fact their existence is impossible is what makes them "supernatural." Normally, they are kept in check by the self-healing feature...

In case it offers any clues, I've attached my test database.

A movie? Good idea. I'll start production immediately. Now who should cast in the role of David Carradine? Should I use CGI for the supernatural stuff? So many questions...

[attachment deleted by admin]

[rick.ca]

I made a movie, but the production values suck, so (still having nothing to do) I took a more traditional approach...

To make a very long story short, the problem is filmographies can only handle about 220 items in a career category. If there are more items than that, the category cannot be properly displayed.

Not many people have so many credits, but there are some. Interestingly, David Carradine and his father are two of the few. The attached database includes a handful of people that illustrate the problem. The screenshot shows the people included and number of credits each has. Note some of them seem to work if the window is maximized, but otherwise do not. Also, Ennio Morricone is an example of the problem occurring in a career other than acting.

Okay, perhaps not a supernatural bug, but close!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[nostra]

From one of your bug reports I see you have only 512 MB RAM. Drawing big information cards or even gathering all this information needs enough memory to hold the whole stuff, so maybe you just have not enough RAM to accomplish one of these tasks.
Could you try to unload all running applications and check if the information card would draw OK? It could also help to reduce the screen resolution.

[rick.ca]

Or is it video memory that makes the different? I'm using a 64 Mb card.

Monitoring RAM in Process Explorer, I can see no evidence that's the problem. It's only using about 60 Mb, and apparently will not use more even when there's plenty available (and there's still virtual memory available when other things are running). Besides, the behaviour starts/stops abruptly depending on the number of items in a category—regardless of the person or what else is on the card, there's consistently a problem when there's 221 items and not when the number is reduced to 219.

Reducing the screen resolution doesn't make any difference.

[nostra]

64 Mb Video Memory should actually be more than enough, but who knows  Fact is: it does not happen on my 3 PCs and no one else have reported the issue before.

I'll let you know if I have another theory.

[rick.ca]

If it's not affecting everyone, there's no need to worry about it. The number of users with a PC as old as mine is probably less the number of actors with more than 220 credits. If anyone else can replicate it, we'll give them the David Carradine Memorial Award.