Bug Report: Web Designer crashes with DEP

**Thack** · 27 February 2010, 06:03 PM

Running Web Designer 5.0.2.10712 DL, in Windows 7 Professional, as a standard user.

Web Designer crashes on start up (or, the first time, when clicking Help | Update Program).

This is caused when DEP is set for all programs. The crash can be avoided by adding Web Designer to the DEP exclude list.

However, DEP is a valuable security and stability feature, and it is wrong for a program to require it to be switched off before it will run. Trying to execute from memory flagged as 'data' implies a bug or design error.

Hopefully you'll be able to fix soon.

Thack

**steve.ledger** · 27 February 2010, 07:26 PM

No problems here with my Windows 7 Pro 64bit or Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit and 64bit RC running on systems with processors that support hardware-based DEP.

**Thack** · 27 February 2010, 11:00 PM

Thanks for trying, sledger. But have you actually got DEP switched on?

Remember, by default it is only on for Windows itself, not for the applications. I've switched it on for all applications.

Would you try that and see if you can make it happen?

Yes, I realise I can work around it just by adding it to the DEP exclusion list (or disable DEP for all applications), but switching DEP on for everything is a useful layer of protection, and no application should try to execute from a data space, anyway. It's a bug, plain and simple.

If you (or others) can reproduce, then hopefully Xara will sort it out.

Thanks,

Thack

**steve.ledger** · 27 February 2010, 11:09 PM

Yes I have. No problems.

**Thack** · 28 February 2010, 12:55 AM

Wow, that's amazing. It is 100% repeatable here, which would make it an ideal bug report if others could reproduce it!

Would someone else like to try? Here's what you do in Windows 7 32-bit:

1/ Start | Control Panel | View by: Large icons

2/ Click System | Advanced System Settings (which is at the left of the window) - the System Properties window should appear

3/ In the Performance section, click Settings...

4/ Click the Data Execution Prevention tab

5/ Select "Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select:"

'OK' your way out and try running Web Designer - INSTANT CRASH on my machine. (*But see my next note, below.)

Get back to the 'Data Execution Prevention' tab, and this time use the 'Add...' button to add WebDesigner.exe to the exclusion list. Make sure the check box next to its entry in the list is checked.

'OK' your way out and try running Web Designer again - works perfectly on my machine.

Toggle the checkbox next to 'Xara Web Designer 5.0' on the 'Data Execution Prevention' tab, and you can toggle the crash on and off at will.

I'm sure this is a solid bug in Web Designer, rather than something freaky on my machine. It's just too easy to make it occur, and totally repeatable.

If anyone else with W7 could confirm/deny, that would be really helpful.

Thack

**Thack** · 28 February 2010, 01:04 AM

One last thing to add: the crash seems to occur at the moment the pop-up window advertising "New: Template Pack 1" appears, which is immediately after the main window has loaded.

If you've already told it not to appear, then the program doesn't crash. But, you can make it crash by selecting Help | Update Program.

sledger - I bet that's why we are seeing something different: you've got that advertising pop-up cancelled.

Please try the procedure I've described in my previous note, followed by starting the program and selecting Help | Update Program.

I betcha it crashes!

This is good, though - the fact that the crash only occurs when the advertising pop-up window appears, or the update window appears, probably points to one fairly small area of code. Xara will be pleased.

Thack

**steve.ledger** · 28 February 2010, 01:15 AM

Sorry - no crashing..

I already have the Template Pack 1 installed.
But previously to this, when the advertising for the pack was happening = no crashing.

**Thack** · 28 February 2010, 01:45 AM

And you've DEFINITELY switched on DEP for all programs?

If so, then I'm stumped!! The crash is totally repeatable on my machine, and toggles with complete reliability just by switching DEP on and off.

I realise the bug report can't go anywhere until someone else can reproduce it. I'm hoping a few others will at least give it a try and report their findings. Perhaps one of the guys/gals at Xara might try it, too.

If it really is just me, I guess I'll have to uninstall it and go back to my trusty WYSIWYG Web Builder

SteveT

**steve.ledger** · 28 February 2010, 02:11 AM

When WD crashes, do you get the DEP error message? If it's DEP that's closing WD, you should be seeing something - it should not simply crash without a warning.
The cause could be smaller programs, such as shell extensions etc, that are created by other software publishers and that operate inside Windows.
Are you sure it's not your security software intercepting the web access request from Web Designer update server?

Install the trial of Xara Xtreme 5 and see if it happens with that too.

**Thack** · 28 February 2010, 01:29 PM

Sorry, I was messing about trying to get the screenshots down to just 800 pixels wide.

I'm not running any shell extensions, no security software of any kind (no anti-virus, no anti-spam, etc) apart from that which is built into W7. In fact I've stripped every running process out that I can.

I've attached four screen shots showing the sequence. I think this is a pretty comprehensive demonstration of the problem. I've numbered the screenshots.

In (1), DEP is switched on. You can see the white outline where Web Designer's "checking for updates" window would have appeared. At this point Web Designer is completely frozen.

After a few moments the 'Access violation' window pops up.

Note the task manager, which gives the list of the few processes I have running. Note the DEP window, showing DEP switched on for all programs.

In (2), I've clicked 'Continue' on the 'Access violation' window, and an 'Error' window pops up. Clicking 'OK' gives me........

(3)...in which it reports a Visual C++ Runtime error.

In (4), the ONLY thing I did differently was to check the checkbox next to Web Designer in the DEP exclusion list, and click 'Apply'.

This time Help | Program Update proceeds perfectly, as you can see.

I can toggle this behaviour just by toggling the checkbox in the DEP exclusion list.

BUT - I would repeat something: if nobody else can replicate this problem then I suppose it must be something weird about my particular installation of W7 (although it is very clean, and fairly recently installed). In that case I suggest we forget about it.

I'm hoping at least one or two other people will have a go and report back one way or the other.

Thanks,

Thack