Copy Selection To Clipboard Fails Silently Options

[asavage]

WinXP SP3
PMV v3.71

Sometimes, often when copying a large selection to the clipboard (~4000x4000 pixels, 24-bit), the clock mouse cursor works as normal, but the clipboard is not populated with the data, and no error is displayed.

(Test: I open a 2nd instance of PMV and attempt to paste into a new image, but the Paste option is greyed out. Same for pasting into CS3.)

I am unable to find a reproducible sequence of steps to obtain this problem, but I have seen it intermittently and more than ten times. I reboot to clear the problem. I note it here in case others have the issue as well.

[asavage]

Adding the "/3GB" switch to boot.ini did not seem to change the symptom here: copying a large section of a large image to clipboard does not work 100%.

My workaround has been to crop, save, Undo, then File->New->PMView Window, and open the saved crop there.

However, this doesn't work as smoothly when what I desire is a direct copy to CS3. The clipboard would be a lot faster

[Peter]

Adding the "/3GB" switch to boot.ini did not seem to change the symptom here: copying a large section of a large image to clipboard does not work 100%.

My workaround has been to crop, save, Undo, then File->New->PMView Window, and open the saved crop there.

However, this doesn't work as smoothly when what I desire is a direct copy to CS3. The clipboard would be a lot faster

I just copied a 5000x5000 image to the clipboard and pasted it into CS6 (64-bit). Works fine here with PMView v3.72 64-bit on Windows 7 x64 w/ 4GB RAM.

If you work with images this big, it's time to move on to 64 bits!

Thanks,
Peter

[asavage]

I do work with images that large, yes. But W7 is not on my To-Do list yet.

Just the cost of a W7 license is scandalous, and I'd have to vet all my existing software against the new OS. I don't do this lightly.

FWIW, I don't think saying that "it works for me (on an entirely different OS)" is saying much

And, if the copy can't be made, it can't be made. But shouldn't I get a dialogue saying that?

(I do get a dialogue saying that, in the OS/2 version . . . right before PMV crashes into the sea )

[Peter]

And, if the copy can't be made, it can't be made. But shouldn't I get a dialogue saying that?

Ideally, yes. The situation is exactly the same as the "Out of memory" dialog added in v3.24: It's not supposed to happen. Unfortunately it does happen due to the 32-bit adressing limit.

The copying is done in a background thread. Currently PMView does not pass errors from background threads to the user. I will need to implement a mechanism for this, and once that's done, I can send the message. (You would not want PMView to throw an exception that results in the application terminating after the message - that would be the easy fix).

(I do get a dialogue saying that, in the OS/2 version . . . right before PMV crashes into the sea )

This happens when PMView runs out of memory. A failed clipboard copy on OS/2 results in the same "no action" behavior as in Windows.

[asavage]

The copying is done in a background thread. Currently PMView does not pass errors from background threads to the user. I will need to implement a mechanism for this, and once that's done, I can send the message.

Yeah, I can see how that could be a problem.

(You would not want PMView to throw an exception that results in the application terminating after the message - that would be the easy fix).

For a failed clipboard copy? No, that would not be an improvement over just not doing the copy. Unexpected data loss is never a good plan.

[Peter]

I will fix this issue in the next version so that you get the appropriate message on both Windows and OS/2 if copying to the clipboard fails.