WPC won't load

[Oldkid]

I've used WPC for years with no problem. Then a couple of weeks ago it refused to load on startup, with an error message that an attempt had been made to access an unnamed file past its end. I upgraded to 3.0 and have the same problem. The only thing I can think of that I did just before tis all started was to install the latest M$ security fixes. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

[Marc G]

This is strange...
It appears that somehow your .WCL file got corrupted and WPC can't load it anymore.
Would it be possible to send me your .WCL file, so that I can use it to try to find out what caused the corruption?

After this, close WPC and then you could try to rename your .WCL file on your harddisk and try to restart WPC. If WPC starts, it definitely is a corrupted .WCL.

[Guest]

I've sent you the file.

[Marc G]

Thank you.
I will take a look at it and try to find what is causing this issue.

[Max]

Did you find out yet what does that? It's still happening, you know...

[Marc G]

Is it correct that your WCL file that you've sent is wallpaper0907.wcl?
I don't see anything wrong in that WCL file.
When you get that error, can you open the WCL file correctly when you manually click File > Open and open the WCL file?
Is your WCL file located on a local drive or a network drive?

[Max]

Erm, sorry, I just chimed in - I'm not the original poster, just a guy with the exact same error message. My wcl file resides on a local harddisk; and when it stops working, I find it completely emptied: zero length file, zero bytes data in it (by hex editor). I've been trying to reproduce the problem but that's not the way it works apparently, even though it DID happen more than once before. I'm on WinXP media center edition, using the lite version wallpaper cycler, btw. And I did save a copy of the currently-working wcl, just in case it gets hosed again.

[Marc G]

Saving WCL files is between 2 and 3 times faster in the new version (in beta now) and the save algorithm has been changed as to prevent corruption of the WCL file when Windows is shutting down and Wallpaper Cycler doesn't get enough time to save its WCL file.

[Max]

Glad to hear that. I just found it corrupted again, and this time I can confirm that it must have happened at shutdown (that's when the "modified" date of the emptied file was set). Still don't know what exactly triggers it, though.

[Max]

Interesting turn: I've caught a different program losing its config, so I started to dig around a bit. What I came up with:
- HungAppTimeout was set to 200 millisec. (M$ default: 5000)
- WaitToKillAppTimeout was set to 1000 millisec. (M$ default: 20000)
- AutoEndTasks was set to 1 (M$ default: 0)
Apparently something has "optimized" my XP shutdown (no idea what did it, wasn't me), making the inability to save config in 1/5 sec. quite unsurprising. I reverted to defaults, and hope it should eliminate the problem. I just figured you might like to know about this if someone ever complains about it again.
cheers,
Max

[Marc G]

Wow, that is very interesting information. Thank you for sharing.
That might indeed be a problem. HungAppTimeout = 200 ms
However, it's a good thing that the new beta saves the files already much faster