PMV 2.13: lockup after acquire Options

[asavage]

Hello, Peter:

I have two different computers, one running the PMV under W95c, the other under OS/2 W4 FP13. The problem I'm having today is with the W95c system. It is a rather low-end system that I use for Win programs that I must occasionally use.

Asus P55 series clone
Cyrix P166+ CPU
64mb RAM
Generic/SymBios ISA SCSI for scanner only.
Scanner is Mustek Paragon 1200 A3 Pro (11"x17")

I can acquire an image via the scanner using Adobe Photoshop v5.5. I have no problems scanning this way.

PMV v2.13: Initially, I was able to acquire & Save four images by unselecting "Use buffered memory transfer", although it takes a _long_ time, perhaps three minutes. But it did work. Then I changed the scan size via (I assume) Mustek's TWAIN window, making it slightly larger, and I have been unable to Save any scans since.

When using PMV File->Acquire, the image is acquired and eventually displayed, but I cannot do anything with the image. That is, I can choose File->Save, but nothing happens -- the FOC does not open, and the menu is no longer responsive. I have waited 15 minutes with no change. I finally have to kill PMV using C-A-D->End Task.

If I enable the "buffered memory transfer", the image appears much faster, but I have the same problem with Save.

I have tried scanning many different sizes, and they all exhibit the same behaviour, small or large.

I tried a suggestion, starting pmview /ini=fresh.ini, but I assume this must be for the OS/2 version only.

Though I have registered both the OS/2 & Win versions of PMV, I rarely use the Win version, because I rarely use Win , but this Mustek scanner does not like SANE for OS/2, and it is larger than my 5P scanner that I've been using, so I thought I'd try PMV's Win Acquire. With little success.

I hope that this is a repairable problem, because Photoshop is quite poky with "only" a P166! For now, I have recommenced using Photoshop, as it still works OK.

Regards,
Al S.

[Peter]

Al,

Try these four settings on the Special/TWAIN page: OFF/ON/ON/ON. (Pressing the [Default] button should give you these settings).
Please press [OK] and restart PMView so that
all settings are in effect.

Now try it. If it still does not work, then
try to disable "Use buffered memory". (Photoshop does not use buffered memory transfers).

Unfortunately it sounds like this is a problem with thread priorities. Probably the Mustek TWAIN interface does not like the fact that PMView runs at several priority levels. (PMView lowers its main priority to 0-level when communicating with TWAIN, still there might be some problem). There are two ways to solve this problem. 1. Mustek fixes its driver to behave well in multithreaded environments. 2. I add an option for running PMView at flat priority (this is a bad solution since this gives PMView an overall jerky performance).

------------------
Peter Nielsen (peter@pmview.com) "If you can dream it, you can do it" JFK.

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited November 28, 2000).]