Recent

Author Topic: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit  (Read 16333 times)

jstraarup

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 11
Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« on: June 23, 2017, 12:30:47 pm »
Hello,

I have a couple of computers that cannot run the Lazarus IDE, or any executables build by Lazarus.

By cannot run, I mean: Nothing appears to be happening, when I run the program.

If I try to start the IDE, it just exits immediately, without anything happening on the screen. No errors, no nothing.
I have tried building an executable with Lazarus, and running it on 6 computers where it works perfectly - and on two machines, where nothing happens at all. All these computers have similar configurations, which confuses the matters even more.

I cannot see anything in "Event viewer", and it does not seem to be blocked by McAfee.

I guess these computers miss some dependencies, or the app is shut down by a security mechanism in my company.

Does anybody have a suggestion on how to proceed?
Are there any relevant log files, or switches I can turn on, to see what is happening?

All the machines run Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit.

Thank you in advance.

Handoko

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5131
  • My goal: build my own game engine using Lazarus
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2017, 12:41:34 pm »
Hello jstraarup,
Welcome to the forum.

Try:
- (Temporary) disable any antivirus and run Lazarus, can it start?
- Restart your computer to safe mode and run Lazarus, can it start?
- Make sure you computer is virus-free.
- What Lazarus version did you use? Try other versions, maybe 32-bit.
- Make sure the checksum of your Lazarus installer never changed. If it changed, your computer may already infected by virus.

Read more:
http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,37244.msg249767.html#msg249767

wp

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 11855
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2017, 01:07:09 pm »
  • Did you install additional components on these failing PCs? Possible candidates could be the packages sqlitelaz and/or sqlite3laz if the sqlite(3) dlls are not found (or not 64bit in your case) - IIRC, I've seen a similar crash in this case. Also look for other packages requiring external dlls. Find the installed packages in "packagefiles.xml" in the Lazarus profile folder (normally c:\users\<your name>\appdata\lazarus), or the folder specified as --pcp or --primary-config-file in the commandline parameters or in the file lazarus.cfg.
  • Create a Lazarus log file, i.e. run Lazarus with the parameter "--debug-log=name_of_log_file.txt", and post the log file created.
  • Copy the Lazarus.exe from a non-failing machine to a failing machine (of course, only after making a backup copy first). Does it crash now as well?
« Last Edit: June 23, 2017, 01:30:23 pm by wp »

jstraarup

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 11
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2017, 01:23:58 pm »
Hi Handoko,

Thank you for the welcome, and thank very much for your quick reply :-)

Unfortunately, I cannot (even temporarily) disable antivirus. This part is outsourced, and out of my management.

Safe mode, might be possible to enter (it varies) - this is a good suggestion. I will try this, when one of the machines are available.

It is unlikely - but of cause not impossible - that the machines are infected with virus, as they have up-to-date antivirus.
And one of the machines where it didn't work, has been locked down since being imaged, without any admin privileges until recently where I removed it, in attempt to debug the problem.

I have also tried with fresh profiles.

I have tried both 32-bit and 64-bit, of the home build executables - but only the mixed package of the IDE.
I will try both individually, but I suspect that I will see the same result.

Regarding the checksum of the installer. I will check it out, but I'm 99.9% sure that it has not been modified.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

jstraarup

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 11
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2017, 01:47:03 pm »
Hi wp,

I have not installed any additional components on the failing PC's. I have just installed the Lazarus IDE (mixed 32/64bit), and no special configuration of any kind. There are installed other scientific applications, that might ship with different versions of sqlite for instance.

I will take look for packages requiring external DLLs. I think it is very likely that it tries to load wrong DLL, but I did not know about the packagefiles.xml file.

When I have access to a machine, I will also try to run it with the debug switch, and copy the exe from a good machine - to a bad machine.

Excellent suggestions. Thank you very much.

jstraarup

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 11
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2017, 01:54:45 pm »
Another important point, is that it is not really the IDE that I want to get running.

It is just an application build with Lazarus that needs to run on several machines.

In an attempt to get the app to run, I have installed the Lazarus IDE, because of the hypothesis, that the app was missing a dependency, that would be bundled with the IDE. But then when installing the IDE - it itself would not even run on these machines.

avra

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2514
    • Additional info
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2017, 02:06:01 pm »
IDE - it itself would not even run on these machines.
Ask admin to setup antivirus in a way that one directory is excluded from antivirus check. Then test your executables from there. People have experience with all sort of antivirus issues, so it would also help if you say what antivirus is there.
ct2laz - Conversion between Lazarus and CodeTyphon
bithelpers - Bit manipulation for standard types
pasettimino - Siemens S7 PLC lib

rvk

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6111
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2017, 02:06:38 pm »
Unfortunately, I cannot (even temporarily) disable antivirus. This part is outsourced, and out of my management.
And can you look at the logs of that antivirus to see if it has done something to block Lazarus or your other program?

garlar27

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 652
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2017, 02:34:34 pm »
Just a few questions:
It was a fresh install?
Did you have this problem from the first install or did you have the chance to run it once and after installing some components?
Did you try to launch it from console? (sometimes an error message appears)

I'm sorry for not having more ideas but the only thing I can think now are:
   1- problem with previous versions (bad installation).
   2- missing libraries.

jstraarup

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 11
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2017, 02:56:52 pm »
Yes, I can look at the antivirus logs (McAfee VirusScan Enterprise), to see if it blocks anything, and it does not appear to block anything.
But I can not change any anti-virus settings - and getting a folder excluded, is next to impossible (believe me).

I do not believe this is caused by anti-virus anyway. We have very similar machines, where it works nicely.

I believe it is most likely some DLL mismatch, or deep surveillance software that affects it (but probably the first).

The computers are not available before Monday. So I'll return Monday, with new info.

@garlar27
It was a fresh install of Lazarus IDE - yes. Not the computers.
I have had this problem from the beginning. It never did run on these two machines.

I have not run Lazarus IDE from the console; normally Windows programs do not throw messages to the console in my experience, so I did not try it.
I have tried to run the app in question from the console. Nothing. It just quits.

I have also tried to run it through process explorer - but I have not been able to decipher anything from the output. Seems to just shut down.

I appreciate the surprising amount of nice response to my question :-)

taazz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5368
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2017, 02:59:28 pm »
Yes, I can look at the antivirus logs (McAfee VirusScan Enterprise), to see if it blocks anything, and it does not appear to block anything.
But I can not change any anti-virus settings - and getting a folder excluded, is next to impossible (believe me).

I do not believe this is caused by anti-virus anyway. We have very similar machines, where it works nicely.

I believe it is most likely some DLL mismatch, or deep surveillance software that affects it (but probably the first).

The computers are not available before Monday. So I'll return Monday, with new info.

@garlar27
It was a fresh install of Lazarus IDE - yes. Not the computers.
I have had this problem from the beginning. It never did run on these two machines.

I have not run Lazarus IDE from the console; normally Windows programs do not throw messages to the console in my experience, so I did not try it.
I have tried to run the app in question from the console. Nothing. It just quits.

I have also tried to run it through process explorer - but I have not been able to decipher anything from the output. Seems to just shut down.

I appreciate the surprising amount of nice response to my question :-)
use https://github.com/robertmaynard/DependsTester for a bit of more insight.
Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement.

OS : Windows 7 64 bit
Laz: Lazarus 1.4.4 FPC 2.6.4 i386-win32-win32/win64

jstraarup

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 11
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #11 on: June 23, 2017, 03:19:18 pm »
I have tried depends.exe ( http://www.dependencywalker.com/ ), and it did not report any missing DLL's (besides the few, it always says is missing). The result was identical on both a working machine, and a bad machine.

I will give DependsTester a shot though.

taazz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5368
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #12 on: June 23, 2017, 03:32:05 pm »
if it refuses to start and all dependencies are in place then some sort of exception before the main exception handler is in place? In any case I can try to upload somewhere an exe of lazarus 1.4 or 1.6.4 debug build to see if that makes any difference and if it does then you can try to open and debug the IDE it self from lazarus to see where it fails.

By the way there is fpcUpDeluxe (search the forum) as well that can download and build fpc and lazarus from svn you could try that too.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2017, 03:40:52 pm by taazz »
Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement.

OS : Windows 7 64 bit
Laz: Lazarus 1.4.4 FPC 2.6.4 i386-win32-win32/win64

Handoko

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5131
  • My goal: build my own game engine using Lazarus
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #13 on: June 23, 2017, 03:45:05 pm »
Another important point, is that it is not really the IDE that I want to get running.

It is just an application build with Lazarus that needs to run on several machines.

So did you mean, the applications build using your Lazarus installation cannot run on (some of) the computers?

In this Lazarus Application Gallery, has a list of software built using Lazarus. Some of them provide executable binary, you may try to download the exe and test running on your computer:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Application_Gallery

rvk

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6111
Re: Lazarus IDE won't start on Windows 7 64bit
« Reply #14 on: June 23, 2017, 03:50:19 pm »
I have tried depends.exe ( http://www.dependencywalker.com/ ), and it did not report any missing DLL's (besides the few, it always says is missing). The result was identical on both a working machine, and a bad machine.
It could also be that the DLL's are not missing but the bitness are mismatching.

I just ran dependencywalker on a Lazarus 1.6.4 64 bit with sqlite2laz and I removed the sqlite3.dll from C:\Windows\System32.
To my surprise the one in c:\program files (x86)\embarcadero\studio\18.0\bin\SQLITE3.DLL showed up :D
And that's a 32 bit one  >:D

So check dependencywalker again and make sure all the found DLL's have x64 in the CPU column.
(x86 will be red in that column if a 32 bit version is found, you'll also get the error "Error: Modules with different CPU types were found" in the box below)

 

TinyPortal © 2005-2018