By 'freezes' you mean crashes (i.e.; application must be killed in Task Manager)?

No, not complete freeze, glitches would be better term.
what i described earlier:
right click doesn't work in application (modules, docks,shelf,icons),
sub-docks wont open,
and most tabs in preferences give out dll error: http://prnt.sc/djhvpc
*just realized its not dll missing but .ocx

but i can still go trough shelf tabs, open folders and launch shortcuts that aren't in sub-docks, clock still works, meters still animate and i can exit the application trough the tray icon (which does respond to right clicks)

before i rolled back to 16.9 crashes occurred more often than this glitches , since i upgraded to 16.12 again its the other way around, not sure if its random or if there is a second trigger that determines how the bug manifests but both occur only wen winstep plays mp3

After i left the winstep runing with the glitch i had a crash with this error (it happened as the weather module was updating, it froze in the midle og the animation, again with no interaction)

Description:
A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: WorkShelf.exe
Application Version: 16.12.0.1191
Application Timestamp: 584a1ce2
Hang Signature: 2fc1
Hang Type: 0
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1050
Additional Hang Signature 1: 2fc197359b3ef4898bffcb733d67eaef
Additional Hang Signature 2: 557a
Additional Hang Signature 3: 557aef14af06192436e5de05b62a132f
Additional Hang Signature 4: 2fc1
Additional Hang Signature 5: 2fc197359b3ef4898bffcb733d67eaef
Additional Hang Signature 6: 557a
Additional Hang Signature 7: 557aef14af06192436e5de05b62a132f

had several crashes today caused by WsxMMTimer.dll happen but only with email checker voice enabled, so far alarm playing the mp3 caused only glitching, but that could be coincidence

the glitch happens in 16.9 too when the alarms runs an mp3 often, it doesn't happen every time that alarm runs, but for test purposes i set an alarm couple times an hour and got the same glitch twice now.

strangely, to my recollection, never had the WsxMMTimer.dll unloaded crash happen with running mp3 alarms, it happened only when voice notifications are enabled in email in 16.12

since i left workshelf running with the glitch to see if its going to crash i was able to observe that when alarm activates again, and while its playing, shelf,docks and preferences work normally, responding to right click, opening subdocks, not giving .ocx error in preferences, but as soon as i stop the alarm, its glitched again

i also tried out NextStart (i don't normally use it) and it functions properly even when workshelf glitches or crashes

Crash while running workshelf glitched, happened at the same time as email notification (old one,wav)

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: WorkShelf.exe
Application Version: 16.9.0.1162
Application Timestamp: 57ed72d1
Fault Module Name: MSVBVM50.DLL
Fault Module Version: 5.1.43.19
Fault Module Timestamp: 33d12d7f
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0005cfdc
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1050
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Very interesting.

So, what you are saying is that while the application is playing an MP3 file everything works correctly, as soon as the MP3 file stops playing, it starts glitching again?

I've been really busy with the new moon phases module (bloody thing is quickly becoming a work of art lol), but I've also been reading about this. Bad codec packs could crash Windows Media Player when it tried to play a video that used one of the buggy codecs, for instance.

Unfortunately I am not sure how this multimedia thing works 'behind the scenes', but if that is the cause of all the crashes I suppose I could make the application use a 'proxy' applet to play media files instead of doing it itself, i.e.; launch a separate mini-application to do the actual playing of the media file. If anything goes wrong, it will go wrong within the mini-applet process space and not with the application itself.

It's worth a try.



NextSTART is more vanilla, doesn't do any of those things.

yes exactly, like stopping the mp3 unloads some dll's and .ocx, but reloads them while playing again.

mind you nether the crash or the glitch happen every time workshelf plays an mp3, as far as i have observed mostly it happens after several email notifications/alarms

running 16.2 now, because at some point before i did use the alarms without any problems, so ether something changed in my system, in the workshelf or the alarms normal use (2-3 alarms a day) wasn't causing problems often enough to notice

i do have an image of a 'clean' install from 2015 (windows, window updates and basic software), which i plan on mounting at one point to clean up my system but am postponing because of updating all the software and new installs it would need

P.S. If you are interested in putting them up on the sites archive i have 16.2 installer and an installer from 25. July i forgot to put the version number in the file name

to illustrate, i left my laptop on while i was out for 3 hours, with an alarm set to go of about every 10 minutes, came back to find winstep running without problems, but after first alarm that went of after i came home workshelf is now glitched

Now running workshelf fully reset to original settings, with only few modifications made (i set up few alarms, moved the shelf to the top, set it to auto-hide becoming transparent, and closed the modules except the clock), to see if something in my configuration contributes to the bug

(strangely, i had to do reset twice, after first reset it went back (partially) to my settings after a restart)

It happens with a clean install of winstep, without loading my settings file.
I've exhausted all of my ideas for testing except of clean install of windows from my image, though even if that sops the glitches and crashing it wouldn't help much in pinpointing what is causing it

Exactly. This is a golden opportunity, and thank you for all your testing and troubleshooting.

If you don't mind waiting just a bit more, I can try implementing the 'sacrificial lamb' applet idea to do the actual playing of MP3 media files. If that stops the crashes we kill two birds with one stone.

No problem, ill wait, i switched off the alarms and changed the email checker to chime to avoid crashes and glitches in the mean time