OSCAR appears crashing on start

[B1Sailor]

OSCAR on startup, I see something flash in center of page but then left with Profile page and nothing will load. Does not appear to recognize my 1 profile that is listed and will not create a new profile. 

I am going to un-install and re-install. I tried several restarts and also cold re-boot.

A few days ago OSCAR displayed a OpenGL crash. But re-start of the program and it worked fine. Also used for few days after this.

[B1Sailor]

I have not re-installed. I have multiple users on this PC. I like to have an Admin user and regular users.
So I opened the installed OSCAR under my Admin user. OSCAR opened but with no users since none was created for this user. I closed and copied the OSCAR data from my other normal user. OSCAR opened!

So there is some sort of profile corruption. I am thinking it was because last time I had OSCAR open, I had the panels spanning across 2 wide displays. I had set some preferences. Don't know what it could be.

So I am going to rename the OSCAR data folder and copy from the Admin account.

Any ideas on re-set of OSCAR profile for any possible corruptions?

[B1Sailor]

My plan did not work. Copy of the OSCAR folder from other windows admin user was not enough to correct my primary user profile.
I compared the folders and all data appears in both. Since I have 1 additional day in my admin user, it is now a little larger.

I believe it has something to do with stretching the OSCAR window to 3840 my 2 displays.

So anyone know how to reset OSCARs profile? Is it in the registry and the OSCAR_data folder?

[pholynyk]

IIRC the window size is stored in the Windows Registry as a binary large object, and is not editable.

I'm a Linux user, so I'm not sure what OSCAR does when it can't find the registry and still has its data folder.. It should recreate the registry entries, but I'm not sure what it will do about the existing data folder. It might just work, but no guarantees.

Is that second monitor still around somewhere? Can you set up the system as it was, then start OSCAR and shrink its window onto the regular monitor?

If you are comfortable with regedit, it might work to copy out the admin entries and put them in the user entries - thus demonstrating how little I know about Windows registry

[GuyScharf]

Yes, the profile is in the Registry under OSCAR_Team/OSCAR.

My first guess is that OSCAR is using the software graphics engine instead of the OpenGL graphics engine. After a crash, OSCAR sometimes reverts to the software engine, thinking it is solving a problem with the OpenGL engine, but sometimes that makes things worse.

We have two ways to solve this problem: 1) a change to OSCAR preference settings, or 2) a patch to the preference settings.[/size]

First think to do is to see if you can fix it from the OSCAR user interface. Start OSCAR. Select File > Preferences > General. The setting at the upper left of the Preferences dialog General page allows you to select the graphics engine. Change the selection to "Desktop OpenGL". Click on OK to save the preferences, stop and restart OSCAR. The problem should now be fixed.

If you are unable to access the Preferences dialog, we have a patch file to fix this problem. Right click on https://sleepfiles.com/OSCAR/Patch/SetOs...splay.xbat and choose Save Link As.... Rename the file extension from .xbat to .bat. Open a command prompt as an Administrator, run the batch file, and select the OpenGL engine. OSCAR should now work.

Also, if you have a high resolution monitor, the text size on the Daily page especially can be ugly.

If so, go to the OSCAR Troubleshooting Wiki and see the section on "OSCAR Graphics Problems."

[B1Sailor]

That worked. Many thanks to both.

This morning I could not get it to recognize a profile at all. I had the preference "Automatically load last used profile on start-up".  I thnk I will leave that off. But not sure if that was part of the problem. I saw the flash of the open profile mini-window but it would crash. The main page would not do anything. I tried and could not get to preferences or anything. It would not recognize any selections with mouse or keyboard.

I copied data to my other account and it opened. So I then copied the data back to the original user. I believe at that time I was able to view the preferences but I did not know to look for the Graphics engine setting.  With Guy's instructions and I could now get to preferences, the fix worked.

The SleepFiles link for the fix returns 404 Not Found. I would like to have that in the case I can't get to the preferences again.

I have been getting so invested in OSCAR, it really ruined my day. I had tried to fix what I thought were common software problems but I had to leave without it working. You guys Rock! I have my views back and keep trying to improve my therapy.

I always use 2 wide screen monitors on all my computers. I don't remember if the OpenGL crash occurred before my stretching OSCAR views to extreme widescreen or not. Could that have contributed?

Thanks guys for the great support and quick response.

[B1Sailor]

I found the registry file on the Troubleshooting page. Thanks @GuyScharf

[GuyScharf]

The SleepFiles link for the fix returns 404 Not Found. I would like to have that in the case I can't get to the preferences again.

I have updated the directions in my post. Instead of downloading the .zip file, instead download the file with the .xbat extension, rename it to .bat, and run the .bat file.

--------------------------

The problem is that OSCAR is using the software graphics engine instead of the OpenGL graphics engine. After a crash, OSCAR sometimes reverts to the software engine, thinking it is solving a problem with the OpenGL engine, but sometimes that makes things worse.

We have two ways to solve this problem: 1) a change to OSCAR preference settings, or 2) a patch to the preference settings.[/size]

First think to do is to see if you can fix it from the OSCAR user interface. Start OSCAR. Select File > Preferences > General. The setting at the upper left of the Preferences dialog General page allows you to select the graphics engine. Change the selection to "Desktop OpenGL". Click on OK to save the preferences, stop and restart OSCAR. The problem should now be fixed.

If you are unable to access the Preferences dialog, we have a patch file to fix this problem. Right click on https://sleepfiles.com/OSCAR/Patch/SetOs...splay.xbat and choose Save Link As.... Open a command prompt as an Administrator, rename the file extension from .xbat to .bat, run the batch file, and select the OpenGL engine. OSCAR should now work.

[B1Sailor]

Thanks for the updated instructions. I still could not get Chrome to do it.
So I browsed to the directory and was able to download from there.

I thought the xbat extension would work but it appears something is being smart and still blocking it.

   

[GuyScharf]

Ugh. I tested it and it seemed to work. Tested it again now, and it doesn't! I'll update the instructions again.

Care to try my latest set of directions?

--------------------------------

The problem is that OSCAR is using the software graphics engine instead of the OpenGL graphics engine. After a crash, OSCAR sometimes reverts to the software engine, thinking it is solving a problem with the OpenGL engine, but sometimes that makes things worse.

We have two ways to solve this problem: 1) a change to OSCAR preference settings, or 2) a patch to the preference settings.[/size]

First think to do is to see if you can fix it from the OSCAR user interface. Start OSCAR. Select File > Preferences > General. The setting at the upper left of the Preferences dialog General page allows you to select the graphics engine. Change the selection to "Desktop OpenGL". Click on OK to save the preferences, stop and restart OSCAR. The problem should now be fixed.

If you are unable to access the Preferences dialog, we have a patch file to fix this problem. Click on https://sleepfiles.com/OSCAR/Patch/ to open the list of patch files. Right click on SetOscarGraphicDisplay.xbat and choose Save Link As.... Open a command prompt as an Administrator, rename the file extension from .xbat to .bat, run the batch file, and select the OpenGL engine. OSCAR should now work.