Forums Bug Reports Mirc Keeps freezing

hey guys any of you know why the latest mirc keep freezing ?

somewhat every hour with a load of 50% dual core, but strange thing is i stay online i just get the msg in windows (not responding)

im using windows 7 64bit ultimate

There could be a number of reasons for this: one of the issues that has been reported by some users is that mIRC can use 50% cpu cycles when you place your mouse over a channel switchbar button. If that happens, you can move your mouse off the switchbar button to resolve it.

Other potential causes: you may be using a script that is running for too long, in which case you would need to unload your scripts one at a time to see which script is the cause of the problem. Also quite common is if you are using anti-virus software and are downloading large files; the anti-virus software will scan the file at the end of the download, freezing the application that downloaded it.

well thing is, i reinstalled it and yet it still happends even without scripts, but once i use the fully loaded scripted mirc in virtual pc windows xp it runs normaly

my computer spec
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2334/37407538.png

its wierd though if it freeze that it use 50% load of my dual core also i stay online if it freeze

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7/36034800.png

this is upp 2.20 , i tryed it since mirc kept freezing, but no luck on it upp does the same

its totaly wierd though why it acts like a b*tch in windows 7

even if im idle or place it in taskbar it still freeze and i cant find out the reason why

The fact that it happens with programs other than mIRC eliminates mIRC as being the cause of the freeze, thus the freezing is not due to a mIRC bug.

Where did he say that other programs freeze?

So you're using a script. Get rid of your buggy script and mIRC will likely stop freezing.

as i said even a clean install of mirc with out scripts dont help and the only script i use is gtsdll if i use one

and i beleve i also said in virtual pc windows xp i have no troubles even with scrips on, some ppl said it can be my nic driver , but i reinsalled those to but it dont help

i just was hopeing here they could help find out this bug , its eighter the 64bit os or mirc that couse it , cuz the virtual pc is 32bit xp

Since it is still happening with a clean install of mIRC, we would need to know a little more to track down the issue.

It could be due to an incompatibility of mIRC 32bit with Windows 64bit, however there are other potential causes.

Did you use a clean mirc.ini or your existing mirc.ini when you tested the clean install of mIRC? The issue could be related to a specific setting in mIRC.

Are you using anti-virus software? Are you downloading files? This can often lead to temporary freezes due to virus scans.

I find it odd that you state you run no scripts in the same sentence that you claim to "possibly" use one. Also, your claim contradicts your very previous post where you said you were using upp. Clearly gtsdll is not the only script you use. Now you can see why I find it hard to believe your situation. Are you positive you're running a clean install of mIRC from http://www.mirc.com ?

In your clean mIRC, type the following in any window:

//echo -a $version $os $md5($mircexe,2) $script(0) $dll(0) $com(0)

Paste the resulting line here. Then make sure that you actually keep it on and reproduce the issue again with the clean install.

On a sidenote, it would help if you more accurately described "freezing". What are you doing when it "freezes". How long does it "freeze" for? Indefinitely? Or for a few seconds?

And if it matters, I'm able to run mIRC without any freezing issues on Windows7 64bit.

yes a clean install , and folders deleted windows firewall and microsoft securety essentials is what i use, sitecome xr gaming router , ssl with openssl port +9999, what more do you need to know ?

1 i have mirc uninstalled after that i installed upp 2.20
2 i use upp 2.20 extrackt pack of kyd (not an installer) just
extrackt and run, i talked with kyd about it he find it odd to
3 only gtsdll is activated now
4 if it freeze it freeze until i shut it down
5 it happend when im chatting or idleing or when i sleep
6 6.35 XP 193d37fa9918657116cf141572085703 47 3


i hope this is enough info

its odd yes as it freeze i stay online like i said but i just get in windows (not responding)

UPP is a script, not just mIRC. And it may be why you are having the problems. Download *just* mIRC from http://www.mirc.com/ instead of using UPP and try that. If it still freezes, let us know.

So, given the results of the command you executed:

a) Your copy was not downloaded from mirc.com (or you modified it from the original, which you were not told to do). You're using a hacked/cracked/patched copy of mIRC, which violates the EULA, not to mention is a probable cause for any issues you might have.

b) Your copy of mIRC is not a clean install. You have 47 scripts loaded and 3 dll files. That is certainly problematic, especially since you claim you have a fresh install. Either you can't follow directions (to absolutely test this on a clean install) or you're unaware what you're using.

47 script files is a lot, especially when you're using a buggy script. We won't debug those files for you. If you don't use an actual clean vanilla install of mIRC from http://www.mirc.com to reproduce this issue there's not much we can do for you, since there's no way to isolate mIRC as the cause.

I therefore maintain my original statement: "you're using a script. Get rid of your buggy script and mIRC will likely stop freezing."

dont know if i had a cracked/hacked one, someone gave me this mirc , but anyways i bought the app yesterday and it still happends with upp or mirc

upp clean
6.35 Vista 193d37fa9918657116cf141572085703 51 3 0

mirc clean
6.35 Vista 2f63a83968f9586fe4fb48134253619c 1 0 0

if we cant slove this problem , im gonna refund this and you may disable this key, there is no point in running an app that keeps freezing

so running just that clean mIRC (2f63a83968f9586fe4fb48134253619c) it still freezes up for you? are you not running the UPP install at the same time? what other activities are you performing while using the program? how many networks and channels are you on? any DCC's active?

I'm also running mIRC under win7 64bit ultimate and experience no problems what so ever (having NOD32 as a virus scanner, with real-time file system protection turned on). However, I'm not connected to any SSL enabled networks at this time.

@ShiroiTaiga:

One thing to keep in mind. There are times when a program can freeze because another program is not responding. I've had that happen, where a program such as Firefox stops working and another program (or programs) freezes. Looking in task manager, Firefox shows normal (0-2% CPU usage) while the other program shows 50+% usage. Killing the program task for the program with 50+% usage just moved that usage to another unrelated program. However, killing Firefox caused everything to start working again. That may not be what you're experiencing and my example has happened with programs besides just Firefox, but it's something to consider. Try closing all other programs and see if you still have the problem. ***And only test with plain mIRC and NOT with UPP loaded/running***

Beyond that, give any details you can about what else is happening with other software at that time (such as virus scans, automatic email download in a program like Outlook, etc), what softare is running, number of networks and channels are open (and total # of people in those channels), your system specs (cpu, memory, graphics card, etc), how often it happens - try to get specific times on it... is it every X minutes exactly, or does it vary, for example. Basically, just give as much information as you possibly can so people can try and figure out what the cause is.

clean mirc as i said and no i dont run both at same time

its not like that ,mirc is the onlyone that freeze, like i said befor it even freeze when im asleep, once im asleep only mirc is on and speedfan becuz if mirc use 50%load all nicht it can cause overheat so i have speedfan watching that , and i never had problems with firefox, as for othersoftware they work normaly , i use windows virus scanner , to tell you the truth, i barly have any active apps , i dont even use outlook or something like that

and what im running in mirc eh,
only rizon network i use

#ayako 454 users
#chihiro 336 users
#gg 782 users
#hf-network 64 users
#jishaku 43 users
#losslessone 378 users
#news 1626 users
#nibl 666 users
#nipponsei 785 users
#thoranime 426 users
#tokyotosho 644 users

those are my current active channels
i just hope i can get it fixed, sofar only mirc freeze but on one of my cores and thats wierd + i stay logged on on rizon so mirc is active just not responding

these are my programs that startup on boot dont know if tihs is any use to show though

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/962/50735655.png

With large numbers of users and many channels, I might suggest checking your buffer size and make sure it's not too large. That's in mIRC's option at the bottom (Display, I believe). If the buffer is really large and you have many channels that are active, it can really slow things down. For most people, 1000 is plenty, but some like more and some like less than that. You might also check what your logging settings are. If you're logging a lot of lines at once, it's possible to get some lag.

Though, I think I read that it actually locks up permantly until you exit it? If that's the case, I'm not really sure. These would mainly be things that might potentially cause a temporary freeze (just like antivirus could).

If the initial claim was that there's a Win7 compatibility issue you could try running in compatibility mode for XP or Vista (right click mirc.exe, go to Properties -> Compatibility). If it still freezes there, it could be something with your hardware/drivers/AV that doesn't like mIRC + Win7, but it wouldn't *just* be mIRC.

i already did that

well, i got a 120/10mbit fiber line , so i dont think thats the problem, anyways where do i find this mirc buffer thing ?

Alt-O > Display I think. I don't have mIRC here to check. Just check one of the last sections in the options for buffer. Like I said, though... that probably won't be the issue if it's locking up completely rather than just freezing. argv0's comment about drivers is more likely the issue. There are times when having the newest driver is worse and vice versa.

Btw, your internet connection has nothing to do with slow downs caused by buffer or logging. Those are internal to your computer relating to RAM, hard drive, and CPU.

I still think it would help you to find out if it freezes at regular intervals or if it's random. You could time it with a watch or else run a timer script that displays every second so that you know when it stops by looking at the number of seconds. A good test would be this:



Then, exit mIRC and start it up and leave the status window in focus. Take note of the time it starts (including seconds). It will keep showing the time every second. Leave it until it freezes and then note that time. Once it freezes, close mIRC and repeat. Do this at least a 3-4 times. Then compare the times and see if either: 1) it freezes at a specific time (such as right at XX:50:00 or whatever), or 2) if the time between when it started and the time when it locked up is the same each time.

Note that if mIRC doesn't lock up permanently, but only freezes for a short time, you should not close mIRC, but let it unfreeze on its own. Otherwise, you can close it each time you test.

If there is any common thing in your results (such as the 2 results I mentioned), post the results here. Commonality in the results will tell us that something timed is happening and will narrow down the possible causes. If it's completely random (for both results I mentioned... not just one of them), then it also helps narrow the cause down, though not as much.

Beyond that, you might also try an older version of mIRC and see if you have the same problem.

if 50% CPU load could cause overheating I think you have a hardware problem... even 100% CPU is not supposed to cause overheating and serious problems other then lag since it eats up all your processing power.

I still believe the problem is not mIRC or it must be something quite obscure since I haven't heard anywhere here saying "Yes I experience this too" to make it reproduceable.

and you were not downloading content using the DCC feature in mIRC either? because running many DCC's could be another piece of the puzzle.

well im not so sure about overheating though

http://img32.imageshack.us/my.php?image=07122009386.jpg
its watercooled

well i dced a few times yes , its nice they resueme when mirc froze
xdcc bots are realy nice speed of 2.6 MB/s with some

but somehow the freezing has cooled down , it stil freze sometimes

but does anyone knows what script it is what upp use ? for when highlighting my name i get a pm when mirc is on the back ground or a notice in the channel im active on , i realy like that part of upp also does anyone knows something like gtsdll ?, mainly for foobar

UPP is a script. It doesn't use scripts.

"Highlighting" your name when you have a PM is easy enough to do. It just depends what exactly you mean by highlighting. You can have a tooltip popup, you can have it show the PM in the active window. You can have all PMs go to a single window. Some of this is available right from mIRC and some you might need to use a small script to do. I'd suggest asking in the Scripts forum for help if you want a small script to do that or else checking sites like Hawkeye and Mircscripts for ones that are already done.

I have this problem as well, mirc just gives me the apphangb1 thing in Windows 7 Ultimate x64. It happens when I idle for a bit and return almost always. I'm running mirc 6.35 with one script, gtsdll. The thing is for me, it only happens when I'm in Japanese locale. Works fine in US locale, as far as I know anyway.

I have been experiencing this occasionally as well out of the blue on Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

I am not using any DLLs like these other guys are using. I'm using mIRC 6.35 directly from mirc.com.

I have confirmed that I have no sort of malware of any kind on the machine. I'm highly involved with doing that sort of forensic work.

The freeze is similar to what occurs whenever you force a script into an infinite loop, except the break button does not fix the issue. My issue disappears after about 20-30 seconds when mIRC decides to start responding again. It's kinda strange.

If you have an anti-virus program (and I hope you do), check to see what, if any, kind of scan is initiated upon program access.

This is the point where your anti-virus, unless told otherwise, will perform a scan when a .exe file is opened.

I've seen some people have their anti-viruses set to do a full system scan every time a .exe file is opened. This, fairly obviously, is overkill for safety and extremely slows down the system.

Without knowing which anti-virus you have, I can't be of any more assistance regarding where to go to check/change those settings.

seems it isnt just me realy that freeze , its realy the compactability on windows 2 and mirc, guess i should head over to kvirc or something , its a waste for the license i paid for though, but it seems you guys cant figure it out , so the other potion is for me to use a other client , i tyed it w/o scrips, and w/o foobar , wit h my pc it frreze still, and i just heart from another user it hapends the same with him to

It's not mIRC, or if it is, it's a conflict specific to your hardware and/or drivers. Why? Because there are a LOT of people using Windows 7 (both 32bit and 64bit) and mIRC without problems. For that reason, it's a setting on your end either in mIRC or in Windows or in some other program you are running. Or else, as mentioned, it's some hardware or driver issue.

In addition, many suggestions were given to you and you haven't responded with the results of those suggestions (such as the time between freezing that I suggested). You want people to help you and they are... but if you don't respond back with results, no one can do much for you. Troubleshooting is no good without results.

A revious post by ShiroiTaiga:

only mirc is on and speedfan becuz if mirc use 50%load all nicht it can cause overheat so i have speedfan watching that

Then later on:

well im not so sure about overheating though
its watercooled

And? That does not respond in any way to the majority of suggestions for troubleshooting the problem.

I knew someone would reply with "And?" typical post ..
Your post just did the same if you want to be picky.

It suggests that the OP is lying about certain things, and that it's not mIRC at all. I'm also willing to bet that the Windows 7 copy isn't legit either. These are all factors.

The point was that your reply to me didn't tell me anything that wasn't already known and didn't respond to what I had said in the first place. And, nowhere did I say that the OP was lying, nor do I think so. I was pointing out that the OP needs to respond to suggestions if he wants help. Why you're in here confusing the issue, I have no idea.

To no one in particular ( you were handy, Riamus2 ) I am using Windows 7 64bit (validated), AMD Phenom quad core processor, 4GB ram, mIRC6.35 (registered), and several scripts of my own installed .. some that SHOULD cause freezing, but don't (at least not noticeably). I am wondering if the problem could be processor or ram related instead of mIRC or installed scripts?

I SAID he was lying about a few things.
If you're getting easily confused, then something is seriously wrong. Every answer he seems to give, goes against his previous replies. It's not that hard to notice.

PS: It was a general reply in the first place, as CtrlAltDel said .. 'you were handy'

Can anyone verify that it works in Japanese locale in x64 Windows 7 Ultimate? That's when it crashes on my end.

If you could answer the following questions it may help narrow down the issue:

Does this issue happen with a clean install of the official version of mIRC v6.35 from the mIRC website, with no scripts or addons? If you are using anything else, it will be impossible to track down the issue.

Are you downloading large files? If you are, your anti-virus software will freeze mIRC at the end of each download while it scans the downloaded files.

Are you connecting to the server using an SSL secure connection? If you are, does the issue still happen if you use a non-SSL connection?

Hi, was pointed to this thread as I have the same issue. I noticed early on that mirc would crash only when there were Japanese characters on screen. And only when the chat window was active. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, Japanese characters are on the active chat window. At first I assumed it was font or otherwise utf8 related. But as others have reported problems specifically with win7 and system locale set to Japanese, I'm now leaning towards that theory as well.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and a clean official version of mIRC v6.35 (technically not anymore as I now use gtsdll, but I only got that recently and mirc was crashing prior to that). I don't download files with mirc (or at least never have when mirc has crashed) and I'm not using a SSL connection. Before Win7, I was using 32bit Win XP with system locale set to Japanese and this sort of crash never happened.

In your clean mIRC, type the following in any window:

//echo -a $version $os $md5($mircexe,2) $script(0) $dll(0) $com(0)

Report the results here.

6.35 Vista 2f63a83968f9586fe4fb48134253619c 1 0 0

The issue happens randomly when I'm idling or otherwise, downloads go through fine. I'm not using SSL. The issue did happen before I added any scripts, but I'm going to do another clean reinstall and see how it goes for a couple days.

Does this happen only when mIRC is maximized? Or whenever it's the active window? Or when it is minimized? Or does it happen no matter the state of the mIRC window?

If it only happens when mIRC is the active window (maximized or not), does it happen if your mouse is NOT over the switchbar (if you have that enabled)?

I never have the mirc window maximised. It happens for me only when the channel the Japanese characters are displayed on is active. I do use the switchbar, but it doesn't seem to matter whether my mouse is over it or not, it has crashed in both occasions. It is very simple for me to reproduce this, but only when using gtsdll. All I need to do is play a song on winamp that has fullwidth characters in it (taking into account that all Japanese characters are usually fullwidth), for example ノート・ネイティヴ - Ｔｗｉｌｉｇｈｔ, use /aud to display what I'm playing, the encoding gets screwed along the way and it displays garbage in the mirc channel window, I'd copy the garbage to show, but mirc pretty much crashes instantly with AppHangB1. Note that this is the on-demand way to make it crash, not the only way it happens to me.

*Edit: before someone says this is because of gtsdll sending mirc crap it can't handle, that's not entirely true. I can't make it crash by simply copying those same characters straight into the chat window, it displays the characters correctly and nothing happens. However, when I use the gtsdll command /aud in a different chat channel, it displays the characters correctly and does not crash. The difference is in font script. In the channel it didn't crash I use Arial Unicode MS with Japanese script, in the channel it displayed garbage and crashed I use Arial Unicode MS with Western script. Why Western script can display Japanese characters often times just fine, but occasionally crashes on them, I have no idea.

With your situation, I'm sure it's an issue in the DLL. It may not handle multibyte/unicode characters properly. If you were to display the song using either COM or mIRC's built in methods ($sound, $mp3, $insong, etc), it probably wouldn't crash for you. That, of course, means playing the songs in mIRC to test.

You might check to see if anyone can use that DLL to display the same title(s) without crashing. If no one can, then the DLL likely needs updated or another method should be used. If anyone does, then see what OS and mIRC version they have and that would narrow down if it's an OS change or mIRC change.

For the others in this thread, please also respond with the answers to those questions as they may help narrow down the cause(s) of those particular situations.

I had edited my previous post while you replied. This shouldn't be an issue with gtsdll, as this has happened with simply having correctly displayed Japanese characters in the channel window (with the Western script). I can't recall there ever being a crash in the chat window where I had Japanese as font script since the time I had changed it to Japanese there (should've noticed this when I did the change, but I still thought it was about the font).

*Edit: before someone says this is because of gtsdll sending mirc crap it can't handle, that's not entirely true. I can't make it crash by simply copying those same characters straight into the chat window, it displays the characters correctly and nothing happens. However, when I use the gtsdll command /aud in a different chat channel, it displays the characters correctly and does not crash. The difference is in font script. In the channel it didn't crash I use Arial Unicode MS with Japanese script, in the channel it displayed garbage and crashed I use Arial Unicode MS with Western script. Why Western script can display Japanese characters often times just fine, but occasionally crashes on them, I have no idea.

It helps to know that the font/encoding plays a part. That definitely narrows it down a lot better. Because you can copy/paste the text directly into mIRC and it shows fine regardless of encoding (Japanese vs Western), it still points to the DLL being at least partially the cause. It may also be possible that the text you're trying to display actually has another character that you're not seeing... one that Japanese encoding can deal with, but Western cannot. If you were to edit the ID3 for that song (make a backup of the song first so we still have the original to test with) and paste in what you see in the channel then try displaying it in the Western encoded channel, it might work because you might not end up pasting in a "bad" character. I've come across certain MP3s that had corrupted ID3 tags that mIRC didn't like and just editing the ID3 with what appeared to be the same information fixed the problem. Just to note, a better way than copy/paste of that would be to get someone to type the song name using the Japanese characters and then copy that so that you can't accidentally copy some character that isn't visible from the original.

Just to check, see if you can display the title in the Western encoded channel using mIRC's built in identifiers like I mentioned earlier. If it crashes then too, then it's likely a problem with the ID3 tag. If it doesn't, then it's likely a problem with how the DLL sends that particular tag to mIRC. Remember to display the title tag rather than the filename.

I can do that, yes, but before I do, you should know that using DLL was just a way for me to reproduce the issue on demand. gtsdll or mp3 ID3 tags are definitely NOT the cause of the problem, or it's a different issue. There is a log channel I'm in where a bot reports any changes made in a database of a website, often the changes include titles and names in Japanese characters. So what I did was change font script from Japanese to Western in that channel and scrolled up until mirc crashed. During that time the following non-ascii characters were on screen: "ギルバート・ケント", "魔星降臨" and "Le siècle de l`enfer". I later forced that same bot to report the same words again to see which of them makes mirc crash, "魔星降臨" and "Le siècle de l`enfer" didn't, but right after "ギルバート・ケント" appeared, mirc crashed. These are all katakana characters, save for the middle dot and the long vowel mark ー. I checked if there were any characters specifically that would make it crash, but none of them displayed alone did. Eventually I narrowed it down to バー, that made mirc crash (while ート didn't). However, when I entered that text myself or had someone else type it to channel, it didn't cause any crashes. What's the difference? Colour codes. DLL and the bot both output with colour codes. I can type in "(ctrl+k 3)バー (ctrl+k 7)bla" or "(ctrl+k 3)バ・ (ctrl+k 7)bla" and crash myself and so can anyone else. It only seems to work with certain character combinations, which I suppose happen often enough if you are in the right channels. This would explain the crashes with DLL and fullwidth characters, when encoding fails and it displays garbage, there are many non-standard characters there and combined with colour coding, they'll make mirc crash. But you still need to have Windows 7 (not sure if it matters if it's 32 or 64 bit), Japanese locale and mirc font script set to Western (or probably anything unable to properly handle certain characters).

Very interesting. Thanks for the detailed testing and results. That should make it much easier for Khaled to reproduce and fix the bug. If I were to make a guess, I'd imagine that the Western encoding is trying to display a character by combining the $chr(3) with the katakana... basically what multibyte is meant to do in the first place, but just getting confused over which bytes to combine. Of course, I may be way off there.

I'll test this out at home later today and see if I can make it work. Unfortunately, I don't have a Japanese locale. I'm not sure if that will matter, but I'll try anyhow. I'll probably run it through a few different versions of mIRC to see if it affects "all" versions (of the ones I test) or if it might be a change made somewhere along the road that caused it. If that turns up anything, it might help to point out exactly what the cause is.

Thanks again for all the testing and detail. That kind of bug report makes fixing bugs much easier!

Ok well after running it for a few hours it was working pretty well, but after I went to sleep (literally, didn't put the computer to sleep)and woke up the program crashed. mIRC was maximized, but it happens regardless if it's active or not. I disabled the switchbar cause I use the tree instead. I have one more thing to test out. Currently I'm in a couple of channels that use different Japanese encoding (UTF-8 vs SJIS or ISO2022). I'm going to try leaving all those channels today and see if it still crashes.

Yeah, try that and see. You might also want to check timestamps when it crashes (leave it active so you can see even if it freezes) and see what time it freezes if it does. If you can find any common time, there is a possibility of a conflict with some program that does something at a specific time of day or night (such as an antivirus scan). If the times vary, then it isn't related to a timed event. It's something to check, though. But because you are also in Japanese language channels, I'm thinking it may end up being a similar situation. If it doesn't crash when you're not in those channels, let us know.

It's possible that all of this will be fixed "automatically" when we get the unicode version of mIRC as that will handle unicode differently than it does now since it will be fully unicode compliant.

Well it still crashed even after leaving the channels. Let's hope the unicode version of mIRC fixes this issue, since I'm in channels where people still use Japanese occasionally.

For those experiencing the freezing issues I have found a few very aggravating factors:
1.having a switchbar that's filled(and forced to reduce size of the buttons there), this somehow critically slows down mirc very slowly.(it makes me wish that the switchbar could get more than 10 lines)
2.Having font linking on

Another problem might be having more than 128 windows open... but I have not yet been able to confirm that.

So far with a non full switchbar, less than 128 windows and font linking off I'm not experiencing any freezes any more.

If you are logging 128 windows and/or have the buffer set high, you will experience lag issues and potential freezing. Consider what happens if you are trying to write data from even half those windows on a regular basis, or if you had for example a 5000 line buffer, then that is 128 * 5000 (640,000) lines to keep in memory. These things are going to slow down the computer and there's not a lot you can do other than to limit logging or reduce the buffer... 1000 is plenty for most people for a buffer, especially with that many windows open at once. Even less may even be advisable for that many windows.

Obviously, there may be other factors involved, but either of these items is likely to be a major factor for you. And, font linking that many channels may also be a slow down as well, though I'm not sure if that's only used when a line is received, or all the time. If it's only when a line is received, then it's not likely an issue unless you're getting constant lines in all of those windows at once.

I'm just wondering: are you aware of the Treebar? (View > Treebar or /treebar on)

Font linking should only slow down on the first (few) run(s) as mIRC builds up its internal cache. Afterwards the delay should not be noticeable.

Low buffer helped here too, forgot to mention that. Also I turned off logging on the mirc side a long time ago.


If I have to scroll, which is quickly the case with the treebar, then it's not useful to me. That's why multi-row switchbars are great, they display everything.


Maybe the linking is fast, but maybe having to query (certain) other fonts is slow. It certainly did change display speed in some cases with tons of odd glyphs.

I think the point in your case is that your slow downs or freezing aren't likely bugs. If lowering the buffer enough prevents it, then that's just a matter of memory usage caused by so many windows. Yes, it may be possible to optimize things some more to make it possible to handle larger numbers of windows with large buffers, but in the end, you're still going to be limited to what the system can handle. That's not a bug. The same with font linking - it can possible be optimized some, if that's even necessary when we get the new unicode release, but it isn't a bug.

It's no different than if you tried to open a hundred programs... unless they were really small, that many would likely slow Windows (or any OS) to a crawl. That isn't the OS's fault - it's not a bug. Just a limitation on system resources.

As such, I think it would be good to stick to actual bugs, or what are possibly bugs, in this thread/forum to avoid confusing the issue and making it more difficult to find the actual bugs. If you'd like to request optimization of mIRC's features to allow so many windows, that is better placed in the feature suggestion forum even though it's not technically a feature. So many people with completely different (or seemingly different) problems have used this same thread just because the results are the same... it makes it difficult to determine what the cause is or even if they are related.

Thanks for your help in narrowing down this issue. I have not been able to reproduce it yet (tested under Windows 7 32bit, an English version with system locale set to Japanese, using Western/Japanese font scripts in mIRC, and /echoing and /msging myself with the combination of characters you mentioned).

Could you try one more thing: could you try toggling the switches in the Options/IRC/Messages dialog "SJIS/JIS conversion", "Multibyte display" and "UTF-8 display" to see which one is the cause of the crash? That would help narrow it down even further.

Also, if you use the "/debug on" command it will output raw server text to a debug.log file. When mIRC crashes, the last line or two in the debug.log file will likely be the cause of the crash. That would be of immense help as well.

I ran mIRC and put debug mode. It's crashed again so where do I find the debug.log? I don't see it in my mIRC folder.

It should be in whatever folder $mircdir points to (the same location mirc.ini is). Unless you put mirc.ini into your install folder, then you should find it in your Application Data folder. In Windows 7, that would be c:\users\yourlogin\appdata\roaming\mirc\ . It's something similar in Vista, but without "roaming".

Of course, from within mirc, you can just type /run debug.log and it should open it for you (or at least pop up the dialog asking what program to use to open it if you don't have notepad or whatever set up to load log files).

Ok I found it, should I PM it to someone? Although I'm not sure how useful it'll be since I'm on like 70 channels.

You could probably email it to khaled@mirc.com, but I think just pasting the bottom 2-5 lines here would be enough. If there's any personal information, you can **** it out, but try to avoid that unless it's really necessary in case you accidentally **** out something that's important.

I disabled all the encoding/font related options in Options/IRC/Messages and it still crashed, I did not try different combinations. About the debug.log, is there a detail level to it? Or is this really simply a channel log? Depending on the encoding setting for the log file, the lines that make me crash are
<- :nwa!~defianze@somewhere PRIVMSG #channel :4&#32349;&#33292;&#12539; 7blah in ANSI and
<- :nwa!~defianze@somewhere PRIVMSG nwa :2&#12496;&#12540;6nbn in UTF-8

No, there's no detailed level. Debugging shows all information sent or received over the network as well as the format in which it's being sent or received (such as PRIVMSG). That gives it more detail already than a standard log. Those are the very last lines in the log, right (unedited other than removing host info)? You'll need to wait and see what Khaled thinks when he sees that and if he needs any more information. I've tried reproducing it, but I don't have Japanese locale, so that may be why I can't crash mIRC using any of the combinations of text that you've shown.

Thanks, that helps narrow it down - it's proving to be a tricky issue though as I have not been able to reproduce it yet. Here are the exact steps I took to try to reproduce it:

1. Using Windows 7 32bit, Japanese System Locale.
2. Create an empty folder on the Windows Desktop.
3. Copy mirc.exe for mIRC 6.35 into this folder - and no other files.
4. Create an empty mirc.ini in this folder.
5. Run mIRC.
6. Fill in details in the Connect dialog.
7. In Options/IRC/Messages disable/uncheck the following:
"SJIS/JIS conversion"
"Multibyte display"
"Multibyte editbox"
"UTF-8 display"
"Font linking"
"ANSI codes"
8. Connect to a server on irc.efnet.org.
9. Try the following commands:
//echo 4繝舌・ 7blah in ANSI
//echo 2バー6nbn in UTF-8
//msg $me 4繝舌・ 7blah in ANSI
//msg $me 2バー6nbn in UTF-8

If you follow the above steps exactly, does mIRC still crash for you?

Yes (with font script set to Western).
Although I'm on 64 bit Win7.

Following those steps to the letter, no crash here under Windows 7 64.

Yep, did exactly the same things. Debug log starting from connecting to efnet:

-> irc.efnet.org NICK defianze
-> irc.efnet.org USER defianze "?.com" "irc.efnet.org" :defianze
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Processing connection to irc.easynews.com
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Looking up your hostname...
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Checking Ident
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Found your hostname
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** No Ident response
<- ERROR :Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (You are not authorised to use this server)
-> irc.efnet.org NICK defianze
-> irc.efnet.org USER defianze "?.com" "irc.efnet.org" :defianze
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Processing connection to irc.easynews.com
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Looking up your hostname...
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Checking Ident
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Found your hostname
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** No Ident response
<- ERROR :Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (You are not authorised to use this server)
-> irc.efnet.org NICK defianze
-> irc.efnet.org USER defianze "?.com" "irc.efnet.org" :defianze
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Processing connection to irc.inet.tele.dk
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Looking up your hostname...
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Checking Ident
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** Found your hostname
<- NOTICE AUTH :*** No Ident response
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 001 defianze :Welcome to the EFNet Internet Relay Chat Network defianze
-> irc.inet.tele.dk USERHOST defianze
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 002 defianze :Your host is irc.inet.tele.dk[irc.inet.tele.dk/6667], running version ircd-ratbox-2.2.4
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 003 defianze :This server was created Mon Jan 29 2007 at 12:52:38 CET
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 004 defianze irc.inet.tele.dk ircd-ratbox-2.2.4 oiwszcerkfydnxbauglZCD biklmnopstveI bkloveI
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 005 defianze CHANTYPES=&# EXCEPTS INVEX CHANMODES=eIb,k,l,imnpst CHANLIMIT=&#:20 PREFIX=(ov)@+ MAXLIST=beI:100 NETWORK=EFNet MODES=4 STATUSMSG=@+ KNOCK CALLERID=g :are supported by this server
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 005 defianze SAFELIST ELIST=U CASEMAPPING=rfc1459 CHARSET=ascii NICKLEN=9 CHANNELLEN=50 TOPICLEN=160 ETRACE CPRIVMSG CNOTICE DEAF=D MONITOR=60 :are supported by this server
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 005 defianze TARGMAX=NAMES:1,LIST:1,KICK:1,WHOIS:1,PRIVMSG:4,NOTICE:4,ACCEPT:,MONITOR: :are supported by this server
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 251 defianze :There are 8728 users and 38683 invisible on 51 servers
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 252 defianze 341 :IRC Operators online
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 253 defianze 1 :unknown connection(s)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 254 defianze 22577 :channels formed
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 255 defianze :I have 3739 clients and 1 servers
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 265 defianze 3739 6524 :Current local users 3739, max 6524
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 266 defianze 47411 73175 :Current global users 47411, max 73175
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 250 defianze :Highest connection count: 6525 (6524 clients) (7846222 connections received)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 375 defianze :- irc.inet.tele.dk Message of the Day -
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- __ .___ .__ __ __
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- _/ |_ __| _/____ |__| _____/ |_ ___________ ____ _____/ |_
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- \ __\/ __ |/ ___\ | |/ \ __\/ __ \_ __ \/ \_/ __ \ __\
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- | | / /_/ \ \___ | | | \ | \ ___/| | \/ | \ ___/| |
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- |__| \____ |\___ > |__|___| /__| \___ >__| |___| /\___ >__|
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Welcome to TDC Solution's IRC server
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Location: Aarhus, Denmark (56 11 N 10 11 E)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Operated by: TDC Solutions, http://www.tdc.dk
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Operating since: 17 Jan 2002.
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Ports: 6661-6669.
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Rules on this server:
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - No bots (but if it's quiet and we don't know it's a bot we don't care)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - No abuse (clones, flooding, spam and mass advertising)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - No begging for O-lines - we have enough opers.
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Sorry, but you cannot join any channels on split.
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- You can contact our oper team:
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Sonny T. Larsen - STL (Server admin)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Jan Chrillesen - Chrille (Server admin)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Anders Hardangen - Hardy
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Jaded
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - sprite-dk
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Alex Short - MrDev
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Patrik Hildingsson - KurD
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Anders Mundt Due - Kralian
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - David B. - tel
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Glenn Bergland - swift
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Try `/stats p irc.inet.tele.dk' to find an active oper
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- (TeleOPM and TeleMon are bots - not real opers)
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- Contacts:
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Send questions regarding server to efnet-opers@tdk.net.
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- - Abuse reports to: abuse@eris.dk.
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- ATTENTION:
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- proxy-scanner.eris.dk is not trying to hack you! On join we connect to
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- a number of ports to scan for open proxies, routers with default
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- passwords, jeem.mail.pv trojans and misconfigured wingates
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :- This is the new server!!!
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 372 defianze :-
<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 376 defianze :End of /MOTD command.
<- :dkbot!monitor@tele.bot PRIVMSG defianze :
VERSION

-> irc.inet.tele.dk NOTICE dkbot :
VERSION mIRC v6.35 Khaled Mardam-Bey

<- :irc.inet.tele.dk 302 defianze :defianze=+~defianze@somewhere
-> irc.inet.tele.dk PRIVMSG defianze :2ƒo[6nbn
<- :defianze!~defianze@somewhere PRIVMSG defianze :2ƒo[6nbn

Moved my mouse over the message, selected the text (this tends to speed up the crash, but it's not necessary) --> crash.

Thanks, I was able to reproduce it. After closing the options dialog, I copied the //echo command and pasted it into the Status Window editbox and pressed the enter key. I then opened the font dialog, changed the font from FixedSys Japanese script (which was the default) to Georgia Western script, and pressed OK. At that point, if I highlighted the text (which was now Mojibake) in a certain way, mIRC would freeze.

I tested the Unicode beta version of mIRC and could not reproduce it, so it appears to be a non-unicode multi-byte issue. Thanks for helping to track it down.

ok... now i found something wierd, i use a laptop and a pc with mirc and my own key one is a 32bit w7 and my main pc is 64bit w7 on my lappy i only have mirc installed, when it froze it froze on both my laptop and pc at the same time so its mirc that cause it

not foobar or its plugins

If they both froze at the same time, then it would have to be caused by something sent from/through the server such as the Japanese text issue mentioned.