Screen Corruption in WinXP (SP3)

Published on December 30, 2008 By KateKat In ObjectDock

I've been using ObjectDock for ages now without any problems (1.90 Plus 535u) under WinXP. After some recent windows (and our internal IT software) updates things have started going very pear shaped (broken).

After an hour or so of usage, screen corruption starts to occur for all windows apps, Outlook, Explorer windows, anything. The typical fault is that the body of the window will be drawn outside of the window frame in the top left of the screen, it can be fixed with a refresh/min/max of the window, then Object Doc stops updating icons in the active task bar and for system tray icons and starts leaving bits of garbage onscreen such as the window/app name that just stays where it was last drawn. Over time its gets worse until I have to exit objectdock and restart.

At first I though it was just a windows issue but this behaviour only happens when objectdock is running and things immediately return to normal when I exit objectdock. It would seem to be some memory issue but heaven knows what.

Has anyone seen anything similar or can recommend a fix.

Many thanks

Kate

Comments

noname2008

on Dec 30, 2008

Same troubles with Firefox and Outlook, but can't figure out what's wrong.

KateKat

on Jan 20, 2009

I've finally figured out the bug and fixed it, well, more like worked around it.

The whole problem relates to GDI objects, in WinXp about 10,000 are allowed, Win2000 allows about 16,000, either way there is a limit on the number.

What I've found is that there is a bug in one of the docklets I've been using that constantly allocates GDI objects and never frees them up, when the 10,000 limit is hit in XP then the system exhibits severe problems with screen drawing. I traced it by using SysInternals process explorer tool and you can see ObjectDoc at 9,999 GDI handles!!

ObjectDock Tray Docklet Version 2.0 by Melchior Moos
Shows the sytem tray in an ObjectDock docklet. If you like the tray and want to spend some money to the project write an e-mail to nimix@gmx.net

I think the issue is that I use a CPU monitor in the system tray and everytime it updates (1 fps) the Tray doclet uses 2 objects and never frees them resulting in the graphic corruption in the end.

Regards

Kate

Additional Note: If you use the Tray Docklet then it generates a .png file in a cache sub-directory (xptheme) for each icon in your system tray, if you have a CPU monitor in your system tray like I did that generates a dynamic system tray icon then this results in a new .png file for each image, in my case I had over 69,000 1KB .png files within the directory.

Its a bit of a dangerously written docklet as this cruft builds up over time and the writer doesnt seem to have taken that into account.

Philly0381

on Jan 20, 2009

KateKat I suggest that you email support@stardock.com and identify the problem you had and what you found to be the cause and the work around.

One of two things, support knows about the problem and is working on a fix or they have never seen this problem before. Either way I'm sure they would want the information.

Nice going.

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