We have been getting a strange linker problem/error

The specified module could not be found.

'C:\ALASKA\XPPW32\BIN\Alink.exe
@C:\DOCUME~1\TOMVAC~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\04260177.tmp
' returned error ***


This is a huge project currently over 282,000 lines, exe is 42 meg
There are three programmers working it and syncing by SVN
the bad link leaves a partial exe ~32 meg which says it is not a windows
file. No surprise there.

I got it first on Friday. I reverted changes to the last files I worked
on before the problem and it went away. More or less reproducing the
changes I'd done on Fri today could not reproduce this but another
programmer is seeing it now. I am not and the third programmer has not
reported it yet.

If the linker gave a clue at which module caused the error this might
not be so bad. But there are 413 prgs now

Anybody got a clue. Everything has worked great until now. Am I hitting
some magic number???

This is of course happening at a critical juncture. So I need help ASAP.


Jim

Maybe Virus? or Spyware, Adware ? I have encounter some strange behaviour
with Aimplib.exe when i received an update from AVG antivirus program few
months ago.

Just some thought.

Frankie


On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:01:15 -0400, James Loughner wrote:

> We have been getting a strange linker problem/error
> 
> The specified module could not be found.
> 
> 'C:\ALASKA\XPPW32\BIN\Alink.exe
> @C:\DOCUME~1\TOMVAC~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\04260177.tmp
> ' returned error ***
> 
> 
> This is a huge project currently over 282,000 lines, exe is 42 meg
> There are three programmers working it and syncing by SVN
> the bad link leaves a partial exe ~32 meg which says it is not a windows
> file. No surprise there.
> 
> I got it first on Friday. I reverted changes to the last files I worked
> on before the problem and it went away. More or less reproducing the
> changes I'd done on Fri today could not reproduce this but another
> programmer is seeing it now. I am not and the third programmer has not
> reported it yet.
> 
> If the linker gave a clue at which module caused the error this might
> not be so bad. But there are 413 prgs now
> 
> Anybody got a clue. Everything has worked great until now. Am I hitting
> some magic number???
> 
> This is of course happening at a critical juncture. So I need help ASAP.
> 
> 
> Jim

Doubt it I don't believe we are using the same Virus checkers

The other programmer fixed his problem by restoring form SVN. ie he blow
everything away and re-downloaded from the repository.

But then after changing a Form in the FD and recompiling it returned.
Reverting did not seem to work this time. Rebooted, still get message
Arrrg The same code works here. But I also had the problem for a while.

My XP is pretty isolated in that I run it in a Virtual Machine under
Suse Linux and I never serf with XP and I'm behind a firewall. His is
just standard XP setup.

If Alink would just say which module was not found out of the 413 objs
being linked!

Jim



Frankie wrote:
> Maybe Virus? or Spyware, Adware ? I have encounter some strange behaviour
> with Aimplib.exe when i received an update from AVG antivirus program few
> months ago.
> 
> Just some thought.
> 
> Frankie
> 
> 
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:01:15 -0400, James Loughner wrote:
> 
>> We have been getting a strange linker problem/error
>>
>> The specified module could not be found.
>>
>> 'C:\ALASKA\XPPW32\BIN\Alink.exe
>> @C:\DOCUME~1\TOMVAC~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\04260177.tmp
>> ' returned error ***
>>
>>
>> This is a huge project currently over 282,000 lines, exe is 42 meg
>> There are three programmers working it and syncing by SVN
>> the bad link leaves a partial exe ~32 meg which says it is not a windows
>> file. No surprise there.
>>
>> I got it first on Friday. I reverted changes to the last files I worked
>> on before the problem and it went away. More or less reproducing the
>> changes I'd done on Fri today could not reproduce this but another
>> programmer is seeing it now. I am not and the third programmer has not
>> reported it yet.
>>
>> If the linker gave a clue at which module caused the error this might
>> not be so bad. But there are 413 prgs now
>>
>> Anybody got a clue. Everything has worked great until now. Am I hitting
>> some magic number???
>>
>> This is of course happening at a critical juncture. So I need help ASAP.
>>
>>
>> Jim

Am sure a clean xp install will resolve your problem. But maybe there is
another solution. If i recall correctly, i have the same problem once. What
i did is to cleanup the windows temp folder.

Your error msg has shown that the temp link file,"04260177.tmp", is not
available. For some reason that file is not created. Everytimes you
recomiple your app some tmp files is created in the temp folder. Maybe the
folder is full or something. Check your temp folder. Clear it and try
again. (some files cannot be deleted while it's still loaded in memory)

HTH

Frankie

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:23:09 -0400, James Loughner wrote:

> Doubt it I don't believe we are using the same Virus checkers
> 
> The other programmer fixed his problem by restoring form SVN. ie he blow
> everything away and re-downloaded from the repository.
> 
> But then after changing a Form in the FD and recompiling it returned.
> Reverting did not seem to work this time. Rebooted, still get message
> Arrrg The same code works here. But I also had the problem for a while.
> 
> My XP is pretty isolated in that I run it in a Virtual Machine under
> Suse Linux and I never serf with XP and I'm behind a firewall. His is
> just standard XP setup.
> 
> If Alink would just say which module was not found out of the 413 objs
> being linked!
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
> 
> Frankie wrote:
>> Maybe Virus? or Spyware, Adware ? I have encounter some strange behaviour
>> with Aimplib.exe when i received an update from AVG antivirus program few
>> months ago.
>> 
>> Just some thought.
>> 
>> Frankie
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:01:15 -0400, James Loughner wrote:
>> 
>>> We have been getting a strange linker problem/error
>>>
>>> The specified module could not be found.
>>>
>>> 'C:\ALASKA\XPPW32\BIN\Alink.exe
>>> @C:\DOCUME~1\TOMVAC~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\04260177.tmp
>>> ' returned error ***
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a huge project currently over 282,000 lines, exe is 42 meg
>>> There are three programmers working it and syncing by SVN
>>> the bad link leaves a partial exe ~32 meg which says it is not a windows
>>> file. No surprise there.
>>>
>>> I got it first on Friday. I reverted changes to the last files I worked
>>> on before the problem and it went away. More or less reproducing the
>>> changes I'd done on Fri today could not reproduce this but another
>>> programmer is seeing it now. I am not and the third programmer has not
>>> reported it yet.
>>>
>>> If the linker gave a clue at which module caused the error this might
>>> not be so bad. But there are 413 prgs now
>>>
>>> Anybody got a clue. Everything has worked great until now. Am I hitting
>>> some magic number???
>>>
>>> This is of course happening at a critical juncture. So I need help ASAP.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jim

I forgot. Your temp folder reside in "C:\Documents & Settings\'Current user
name(TOMVAC something)'\Local Settings\Temp". You need to set folder option
to show hidden files and folders to see it.

Frankie

That was not the problem here I could see the temp file created and some
processing was done by the linker ie part of the exe was created. The
temp file is just the link list for the linker. I even stopped the
linker, and looked at the file in case it was being created corrupted.
It looked good but I still got the error. When I reverted the last files
changed all was ok again. In the other programmers case I don't know
yet. The problem seemed to go away after he did a complete checkout from
the SVN after deleting the working directories. But he says he simply
made a simple change to one of the forms via FD and it went wonky on him
again and a zap and new checkout did not help this time. Mean while I'm
using the same build from the SVN and I'm not having problems.

I'll have him clear his temp folder and see if the helps.

Jim

Frankie wrote:
> I forgot. Your temp folder reside in "C:\Documents & Settings\'Current user
> name(TOMVAC something)'\Local Settings\Temp". You need to set folder option
> to show hidden files and folders to see it.
> 
> Frankie
>

Perhaps you can looks into pbuild /a? Or delete all obj files to recompile
again? Maybe there is a corrupted obj or dll or lib?

Sometimes i exclude compilation of certain prgs to check which part of
source that could invoke problem if i cannot determine the cause of error.

Frankie

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:43:35 -0400, James Loughner wrote:

> That was not the problem here I could see the temp file created and some
> processing was done by the linker ie part of the exe was created. The
> temp file is just the link list for the linker. I even stopped the
> linker, and looked at the file in case it was being created corrupted.
> It looked good but I still got the error. When I reverted the last files
> changed all was ok again. In the other programmers case I don't know
> yet. The problem seemed to go away after he did a complete checkout from
> the SVN after deleting the working directories. But he says he simply
> made a simple change to one of the forms via FD and it went wonky on him
> again and a zap and new checkout did not help this time. Mean while I'm
> using the same build from the SVN and I'm not having problems.
> 
> I'll have him clear his temp folder and see if the helps.
> 
> Jim
> 
> Frankie wrote:
>> I forgot. Your temp folder reside in "C:\Documents & Settings\'Current user
>> name(TOMVAC something)'\Local Settings\Temp". You need to set folder option
>> to show hidden files and folders to see it.
>> 
>> Frankie
>>

First thing done

Jim

Frankie wrote:
> Perhaps you can looks into pbuild /a? Or delete all obj files to recompile
> again? Maybe there is a corrupted obj or dll or lib?
> 
> Sometimes i exclude compilation of certain prgs to check which part of
> source that could invoke problem if i cannot determine the cause of error.
> 
> Frankie
> 
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:43:35 -0400, James Loughner wrote:
> 
>> That was not the problem here I could see the temp file created and some
>> processing was done by the linker ie part of the exe was created. The
>> temp file is just the link list for the linker. I even stopped the
>> linker, and looked at the file in case it was being created corrupted.
>> It looked good but I still got the error. When I reverted the last files
>> changed all was ok again. In the other programmers case I don't know
>> yet. The problem seemed to go away after he did a complete checkout from
>> the SVN after deleting the working directories. But he says he simply
>> made a simple change to one of the forms via FD and it went wonky on him
>> again and a zap and new checkout did not help this time. Mean while I'm
>> using the same build from the SVN and I'm not having problems.
>>
>> I'll have him clear his temp folder and see if the helps.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> Frankie wrote:
>>> I forgot. Your temp folder reside in "C:\Documents & Settings\'Current user
>>> name(TOMVAC something)'\Local Settings\Temp". You need to set folder option
>>> to show hidden files and folders to see it.
>>>
>>> Frankie
>>>

Jim,

I once had a similar problem, "caused"
by a large comment block (obsolete code)
at the end of a prg.

It disappeared by placing a function below the
comment block.

Regards,
Frans Vermeulen

I have pinpointed the point where the problem occurs. It is with the
last dialog prg added. I thought you might have something with the
remarks since the body of the last function in the file was commented
out. But, no go. I found that if I commented out the call to the code
and removed it from the build and did a full rebuild the program would
link. If I reinstated the call and add the program back to the build and
did a simply build the program linked. If I then forced a build all
again the link failed. I tried a build without debugging and it linked.
So I can work around it for the moment by not including debug code.
Leaving debug out reduced the exe size by about 1.5 meg. So the question
is will this arise again when the exe again approaches 42+ meg. But I
know others have had larger exe sizes without this apparent problem.
Maybe breaking some of the code out into static DLL's might help. I have
planned to do this but wanted to get all the major coding done first.

Jim

Frans Vermeulen wrote:
> Jim,
> 
> I once had a similar problem, "caused"
> by a large comment block (obsolete code)
> at the end of a prg.
> 
> It disappeared by placing a function below the
> comment block.
> 
> Regards,
> Frans Vermeulen
>

So the actual cause remains a mystery.

Thanks for reporting back,
Frans Vermeulen

> I have pinpointed the point where the problem occurs. It is with the
> last dialog prg added. I thought you might have something with the
> remarks since the body of the last function in the file was commented
> out. But, no go. I found that if I commented out the call to the code
> and removed it from the build and did a full rebuild the program would
> link. If I reinstated the call and add the program back to the build and
> did a simply build the program linked. If I then forced a build all
> again the link failed. I tried a build without debugging and it linked.
> So I can work around it for the moment by not including debug code.
> Leaving debug out reduced the exe size by about 1.5 meg. So the question
> is will this arise again when the exe again approaches 42+ meg. But I
> know others have had larger exe sizes without this apparent problem.
> Maybe breaking some of the code out into static DLL's might help. I have
> planned to do this but wanted to get all the major coding done first.
> 
> Jim
> 
> Frans Vermeulen wrote:
> > Jim,
> > 
> > I once had a similar problem, "caused"
> > by a large comment block (obsolete code)
> > at the end of a prg.
> > 
> > It disappeared by placing a function below the
> > comment block.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Frans Vermeulen
> >

Jim,

> I have pinpointed the point where the problem occurs. 

If your case is so clear and reproduceable, why don't you send it to Alaska
to be analysed. At least it would save me from looking for a similar issue
when the time comes...

Peter