Hi,
I have used the programm many years on windows 10 and never had any crashes.
Recently I have a new computer, installed the program, and it works fine on windows 11
But sometimes i have an error when making a backup, (also making a backup takes a lot more time under win11 then before under win10)

The error says:
Access Violation - Instruction at 0x7664FAD4 tried to read from 0x7

What could be the issue here?
I thought maybe conflict with dropbox?
But in windows 10 i used dropbox also.
Thanks

The fact that the error occurs only sometimes is important, since the backup operation itself is quite straightforward: it saves the same settings normally stored in the Registry, but writes them to an INI file instead.

First time I have ever heard of a crash while making a backup, my first thought is interference from 3rd party drivers or security software.

Are you saving the backup file inside your local Dropbox folder, or did you mention Dropbox only because it is running on the system?

Also, 10 vs 11, there are very different versions of Windows, which might explain why it is slower in 11 than 10 - this is not the application's fault unless the size of the resulting backup files are drastically different.

When you get the Access Violation error, do you get the Exception Handler dialog from the Winstep application? If so, does Retrying work?

When you ger that error again,, do you get a partial backup file or nothing at all? What happens if you try making another backup immediately after? If the same error occurs AND there is a partial file, please send me the partial file to the Winstep support address.

Hi,
The backup folder is: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Winstep\Backup
I thought whenn i change something in the winstep applicatication maybe dropbox will upload the changed files, but i am not sure.And whenn i at the same time make a backup maybe thats an issue?

Whenn the error happens, i can hit the retry option, sometimes it works, sometimes Winstep closes itself completely.

It happens not all the time, some days not at all, other days three times.

The last days it didnt happen, I was waiting for it to make a screenshot for you, but it did not happen.

I have not checked if i got a partial backup. How should i see whenn it is a partial backup? In stead for savety i made an new backup.
So it could be one of the backups is a partial backup.

Yes, that makes an issue very difficult to debug and is a strong indication of 3rd party interference with the Winstep application.

In all these years it's the first time I have heard of a backup operation crashing in the middle.



The idea is to try and understand if the Access Violation error is always happening at the same spot, that is, when trying to save a specific entry. If it always happens at the same spot, the rest of the backup fails to complete and you have a partial backup. The last setting saved is a huge clue to where the issue might be happening (assuming it would actually be a problem with the Winstep application itself and not something like anti-virus software interference because the backup is being made to a folder in Public Documents)

If you look at the backup files you have and you spot one that is much smaller in size than it normally would be, chances are that is a partial backup (that is, the Winstep application crashed halfway to creating it).

Thanks
I will look whenn it happens and what i did change in Winstep before

And indeed most of the backupfiles are around 90 kb and some are 40

The 40 KB ones, do they start with wsbackup or nsbackup? If nsbackup then those are NextSTART backup files, which are normally much smaller.

If wsbackup, please send a couple of the 40 KB backup files to the Winstep email support address.

They are all wsbackups.
While the main tuning in Winstep now is done, I will wait if a crash is comming back. And will send the screenshot and a backup file!
Thanks

If they are all ws backup files then zip two or three of the incomplete ones and send the resulting file to the Winstep support address, so I can have a look. No need to wait for the next crash.