#9 AllChars v3.6.2 causes crashes, especially with F.E.A.R
[I'm pasting this from an eMail I received from Rob Mackenzie; to leave a searchable public record.]
I had started seeing strange behavior in some programs. A program would crash, followed by the windows standard "ThisProgram.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close," followed by the error "the instruction at 0x77f41d24 referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be read." The first number was always random, the second always all zeros. I saw this most notably in F.E.A.R. the pc game, and could replicate the error message every time by going to Multiplayer->Host->Game Type Options. This should have just opened another menu. I also saw it once in Windows Media Player, and one or two other programs (memory fails me!). I tested RAM, swapped RAM, uninstalled recent Windows Updates, a new video card driver, cleaned up any malware, and basically pulled my hair out for a couple days before I discovered closing AllChars stopped the problem. Also, running AllChars but unchecking "Enabled" prevented the error from occurring. I didn't know if this is a known issue or not (I didn't see it in the bug list), or something particular to my system, but I thought I would report it to you in case it is useful.
Finally, what makes this less important is that I tried installing the new AllChars 4.0.279 and it does not lead to any errors.
Discussion
Anonymous
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AllChars v4.0.x is the direct continuation of the earlier AllChars v3.6 versions; so if the bug does not occur with the current v4.0.279 I'd say it is fixed.
Also, there is a known problem with v3.6.2 and modern operating systems which can be alleviated by installing the v3.6.3 patch after installing AllChars v3.6.2.