Program not responding...

[Paul B. Anderson]

Hello all,

So lately I've been having lock-up issues with LOR; it will run for short and just kill out. In the middle of sequencing, or just playing a show for some friends - a bit embarrassing at that. Seems to be getting worse - just after opening the sequence editor, click on a sequence and it locks up - Program not responding. Running v2.8.12 on an IBM Thinkpad T42, Windows XP Pro.

Also, a 64M USB memory stick that I have tunes/sequences on is suddenly unrecognizeable and not working.

Everything else on this laptop seems to be working correctly, but LOR is messed up; I have not been using LOR much for a while, so maybe that's it... IDK...

Is my laptop corrupted, or is there another issue? Gonna try upgrading, see if that helps...

Paul B. Anderson, who hates the "Program Not Responding" dialog box.

p.s. I did search (shortly), but didn't see anything of the same issue, unless it was subjected/descripted differently...

[Guest guest]

have you tried uninstalling, running the registry cleaner for the old install, and installing the latest version? Would make sense to do that rather than just upgrade on top of the version that is giving you grief.

Plus the usual cleanup..temp files, defrag, etc...can never hurt.

[Max-Paul]

Also Laptops are great dust collectors. Every now and then I will take a can of compressed air and blow back into the finned area towards the fan. Should see some of the dust bunnies that come jumping out of my laptop. Although at first I thought your problem was heat related. It was the bit about the thumb drive not being recognized that has me wondering if your OS is corrupted? Dont know how long you have had this laptop, and suspect that it is the original OS that is loaded. Also seems that some people can go a long time with no corruption of the OS and some people and the sites they visit and programs they load and then remove can corrupt the OS in less than a year. You might be one of those that the time has come for either a registry clean up or reloading of the OS which is a total pain, but the cure for the ills.

I would go with the registry clean up first.

[Paul B. Anderson]

DonFL wrote:

have you tried uninstalling, running the registry cleaner for the old install, and installing the latest version? Would make sense to do that rather than just upgrade on top of the version that is giving you grief.

Plus the usual cleanup..temp files, defrag, etc...can never hurt.

No, have not tried that...but I have uninstalled all versions of LOR, reinstalled (LOR1), upgraded and same thing "Program not responding" immediatetly.

Registry cleaner...hmmm, not sure I've done that. I'm not all that computer savvy, so where do I find that?...

[Paul B. Anderson]

Max-Paul wrote:

Also Laptops are great dust collectors. Every now and then I will take a can of compressed air and blow back into the finned area towards the fan. Should see some of the dust bunnies that come jumping out of my laptop. Although at first I thought your problem was heat related. It was the bit about the thumb drive not being recognized that has me wondering if your OS is corrupted? Dont know how long you have had this laptop, and suspect that it is the original OS that is loaded. Also seems that some people can go a long time with no corruption of the OS and some people and the sites they visit and programs they load and then remove can corrupt the OS in less than a year. You might be one of those that the time has come for either a registry clean up or reloading of the OS which is a total pain, but the cure for the ills.

I would go with the registry clean up first.

Yeah, I must admit, I do visit some (interesting) web sites. I imediately remove (stuff) programs not wanted...

again "registry cleanup", where do I find that?

[Guest guest]

Max-Paul wrote:

Also Laptops are great dust collectors. Every now and then I will take a can of compressed air and blow back into the finned area towards the fan. Should see some of the dust bunnies that come jumping out of my laptop. Although at first I thought your problem was heat related. It was the bit about the thumb drive not being recognized that has me wondering if your OS is corrupted? Dont know how long you have had this laptop, and suspect that it is the original OS that is loaded. Also seems that some people can go a long time with no corruption of the OS and some people and the sites they visit and programs they load and then remove can corrupt the OS in less than a year. You might be one of those that the time has come for either a registry clean up or reloading of the OS which is a total pain, but the cure for the ills.

I would go with the registry clean up first.

I always spray my registry with compressed air on a regular basis..gets all the old dirty bits out of it, makes the whole registry run smoother (even helps the gas mileage..)...:cool::cool::P:D:D

[Guest guest]

With the new website, I don't see the uninstall utility that clears all the previous registry entries. and completely uninstalls the software. With the new website, the download page doesn't show it anymore.

Maybe Dan or Bob (or someone who has found it..) can chime in..

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the microsoft installer cleanup utility, but rather, the LOR tool that cleans all remnants of LOR from the registry...

[Paul B. Anderson]

DonFL wrote:

With the new website, I don't see the uninstall utility that clears all the previous registry entries. and completely uninstalls the software. With the new website, the download page doesn't show it anymore.

Maybe Dan or Bob (or someone who has found it..) can chime in..

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the microsoft installer cleanup utility, but rather, the LOR tool that cleans all remnants of LOR from the registry...

That maybe the issue...I have 2 LOR programs and not sure what I should keep/delete. I'm afraid to delete either and have to start all over again, but might have to. If I have to start all over, am I loosing a licence key? I've installed on a cheap E-machine (one key), Installed on work computer, (second key), E-Machine died, installed on current laptop (third key), work computer died, installed on new work computer (fourth key)...one left...

BTW - sequencing at work is only during lunch time, really...

[Ron Amedee]

Paul wrote

BTW - sequencing at work is only during lunch time, really...

I resemble that remark !!!

[Paul B. Anderson]

Ron Amedee wrote:

Paul wrote

BTW - sequencing at work is only during lunch time, really...

I resemble that remark !!!

lol, I think many people on here resemble that...

Update:

I have uninstalled all previous versions of LOR, re-installed original, ran it, then upgraded to latest version. Seems to be working well so far; and I don't think I lost my last license key (same computer being used) 'cuz I didn't have to enter all that garbally gook (key lingo) for it to work and control lights. I have an indoor display not in a Christmas set-up, so I use it whenever.

I have not tried the thumb drive yet...

The best part - I did not loose my sequences, which I was afraid of. Although I have back-ups.

Had this laptop for almost a year now and have not defragged or done a registry cleanup...suppose it's 'bout that time... I got this laptop from work for cheap as it was used and older, and it came with Windows XP Pro already loaded and legally registered.

With that said, if I need to unload the OS and re-load, will I lose everything? Time for more back-ups I s'pose.

[cmoore60]

Paul,

Just as a note. All the S2 version except the real early ones DO NOT REQUIRE any other version loaded before you can install them. You did not need to load LOR1 to get to LOR 2.9.4. You could have just downloaded and installed 2.9.4.

Less to have to clean up later.

Chuck

[Max-Paul]

DonFL wrote:

Max-Paul wrote:

Also Laptops are great dust collectors. Every now and then I will take a can of compressed air and blow back into the finned area towards the fan. Should see some of the dust bunnies that come jumping out of my laptop. Although at first I thought your problem was heat related. It was the bit about the thumb drive not being recognized that has me wondering if your OS is corrupted? Dont know how long you have had this laptop, and suspect that it is the original OS that is loaded. Also seems that some people can go a long time with no corruption of the OS and some people and the sites they visit and programs they load and then remove can corrupt the OS in less than a year. You might be one of those that the time has come for either a registry clean up or reloading of the OS which is a total pain, but the cure for the ills.

I would go with the registry clean up first.

I always spray my registry with compressed air on a regular basis..gets all the old dirty bits out of it, makes the whole registry run smoother (even helps the gas mileage..)...:cool::cool::P:D:D

Well Don,
For the registry, I prefer to use contact cleaner. You might still be able to get the stuff I use at Radio Shack. Its the can with the gold particles in it. It goes by the name of tuner cleaner. But dont let the name fool you. It's the best stuff for the job.

[Paul B. Anderson]

cmoore60 wrote:

Paul,

Just as a note. All the S2 version except the real early ones DO NOT REQUIRE any other version loaded before you can install them. You did not need to load LOR1 to get to LOR 2.9.4. You could have just downloaded and installed 2.9.4.

Less to have to clean up later.

Chuck

Good to know, thanx for that...

I remember a while ago that LOR1 needed to be installed and ran at least one time before upgrading would "take".

All is working well now...

[bob]

Whether or not you need an earlier version installed
In the days of LOR 1, new versions were released as updates, not as full installers, so you had to have your original version installed before installing the update.

When LOR 2 was first made, we published several versions (2.0 through 2.2, I think) as "pre-releases", that were not official releases. These also required an original copy of LOR 1 to be installed before installing the update.

With the first "real" release of LOR 2 (version 2.3, I think), this was no longer required. Ever since then, you can install the new version directly, without having an earlier version installed.

If you do have an earlier version installed, it shouldn't hurt, but it definitely can't help. So, we recommend not installing LOR 1 before installing LOR 2, especially in cases where something strange is going on - might as well keep it as simple as possible.

The LOR Registry Wipe Utility
It's available on our website, although I'm not sure whether or not there's a published link to it. You say that you're using version 2.8.12, so you can get the 2.8.12 Registry Wipe from here:

http://www.lightorama.com/downloads/2.8.12/LORRegistryWipe.exe

The latest version (2.9.4) is here:

http://www.lightorama.com/downloads/2.9.4/LORRegistryWipe.exe

"If I have to start all over, am I losing a license key?"
Do you mean if you wipe out the installation and reinstall on the same machine? If that's what you mean, then no. The software tries to detect that you're using the same machine as before, and if so, no additional license key is used up - i.e. you can uninstall/reinstall however many times you want on the same machine.

One caveat: Of course, it's possible that in some situation the software won't correctly detect that you're on the same machine as before, and that will cause a license seat to be used up. However, if that happens, contact LOR Customer Support, and we'll make it right.

The issue you're facing

• I would definitely try the Registry Wipe, and uninstalling everything and then reinstalling (just the version that you want, without installing LOR 1 first). Make sure that you have all LOR programs stopped before you do any of that - not just things like the Sequence Editor, but also the LOR Control Panel (the light bulb icon in your computer's system tray). You can stop the LOR Control Panel by right-clicking on it and selecting "Unload Light-O-Rama" from the popup menu that will open.
  
  If, when you're uninstalling, your computer's "Add/Remove Programs" shows more than one Light-O-Rama entry, uninstall all of them. For some of them, there might be some error messages that pop up when you try to uninstall, saying something like "File such-and-such cannot be deleted because it doesn't exist". If so, just click "OK" on any such messages that you get.
  
  
• I would also try Windows Update, and telling it to install all updates that it lists. Also, note that after you install everything it lists, it might list even more stuff which it hadn't listed before. So, whenever I use Windows Update, the first thing I always do after it completes (and after I've rebooted, if it told me to) is to go back into Windows Update, and tell it to install all updates that it lists. I keep doing this over and over, until it finally says that no new updates are available.

• I would also try checking the websites of your computer's manufacturer, and/or those of the manufacturers of the hardware on your computer, to see if there are any driver updates available.
  

• I believe that there is an issue that affects some machines where the USB adapter's drivers will sometimes hang, causing LOR to hang. I think that the cables that LOR now provides filter out the noise on the line that causes the hangups, but maybe it's possible that you have an older cable, or a cable that wasn't provided by LOR?

• You might want to try updating to the new version (2.9.4). I don't know of any specific fix therein which would have an effect on the problem you're describing, but it probably won't hurt to try.

• Does there seem to be any rhyme or reason? I know you've said that there are different situations in which it happens, but does it consistently happen in some situation? Can you make it happen in some specific way?
  

[Jim Saul]

Hi Paul,

I'd also recommend a quick "tuneup" for your T42.
you should go to http://www.piriform.com/ Download Ccleaner and defragler. just watch during the install they will try to install a tool bar or chrome so uncheck those options.
Run ccleaner to remove all the temp files and crap on the hard drive.
Next go to http://malwarebytes.org/ and download / install the free malware bytes. Let it update and then do a full scan - remove anything that it finds. If it finds any root kits, let me know, otherwise you should be clean.
Now run the defragler.

This will get the computer running solid and rule out computer issues.

[Jim Saul]

Hi Paul,

I'd also recommend a quick "tuneup" for your T42.
you should go to http://www.piriform.com/ Download Ccleaner and defragler. just watch during the install they will try to install a tool bar or chrome so uncheck those options.
Run ccleaner to remove all the temp files and crap on the hard drive.
Next go to http://malwarebytes.org/ and download / install the free malware bytes. Let it update and then do a full scan - remove anything that it finds. If it finds any root kits, let me know, otherwise you should be clean.
Now run the defragler.

This will get the computer running solid and rule out computer issues.

[MikeH]

Is it ok to install the new update over the old one (ie: into the same directory)? Or should I uninstall the old one then install the new update?

MikeH

[bob]

It should be fine to install a new version over an old one.

But it is not necessary to have the old version there, and it cannot help to have the old one there. So, unless you already have the old version there, we don't recommend installing the old one first.

[Paul B. Anderson]

Hello All,

This is soo much useful info...printing this one for future use.

Have ccleaner, and Malwarebytes, and have run both scans. However, I was told that you should only have one type of antivirus/malware program because they tend to "fight" each other and think that the other is virus/malware; but no probs so far...

Again, 1,000 thanks to all who responded, esp. Bob and Jim Saul for the cleanup info - thanx guys.


Paul B. Anderson, an LOR user for life...and having fun again...

[Jim Saul]

Paul B. Anderson wrote:

Have ccleaner, and Malwarebytes, and have run both scans. However, I was told that you should only have one type of antivirus/malware program because they tend to "fight" each other and think that the other is virus/malware; but no probs so far...

Hey Paul, This is VERY true you do not want to have 2 AV running together, every time a file is opened the AV has to "bless" it before the computer is allowed to access it, when there is a priest and a rabbi both trying to bless at the same time things get ugly. You don't need to worry about the 3 programs I told you to use as they do not have a live or real time scanners "blessing" the files. I recommend Malwarebyes free for every computer. you can just hit update and scan when you think something may have gotten past your primary AV.