Alice Has Trouble Launching

When I initially launch Alice I get a very quick splash screen then nothing. If I try to launch Alice again I will sometimes get a screen that says “you already have Alice running, do you want to open a second instance of Alice” – or something to that effect. If I answer yes Alice will sometimes launch sometimes not. I can always get Alice to launch eventually but, as you can imagine, it’s pretty frustrating (especially considering this is in a classroom environment).

Has anyone else had this issue? Thanks for any help.

[gabe]

This has come up infrequently in the bug database, but it's been difficult to pinpoint the problem. What would be very helpful for us is some information about the computer you are using. Make sure you are using the latest release of Alice (4/05/2005).

What are the specs? (Operating system, processor, type of video card, RAM, disk space available.)

Next, I'd like to get a list of all running processes on your machine when you start up. There are some programs out there that will give you a nice list of everything, but here is an easy way to get a text file of running processes (note, I have only tested this with XP Pro):

Start Menu > run > type "cmd" (without quotes) to open the terminal.

Type: cd desktop
Hit enter.

Finally, type: tasklist /svc >tasklist.txt
Hit enter.

You can now close the terminal. On your desktop should be a file named
tasklist.txt.

Please either attach the file here or PM it to me. Thanks in advance for the extra work.

Thanks for the reply.

I’m’ using Alice v 2.0 (4-5-2005)

Computer is a Gateway 4300 with:

XP Pro
Processor is an Intel 2.8G
Video card is an integrated Intel 82915G, GV, 910GL
1G of Ram

Here's the processes list.


Image Name PID Services
========================= ====== =============================================
System Idle Process 0 N/A
System 4 N/A
smss.exe 640 N/A
csrss.exe 708 N/A
winlogon.exe 732 N/A
services.exe 776 Eventlog, PlugPlay
lsass.exe 788 Netlogon, PolicyAgent, ProtectedStorage,
SamSs
svchost.exe 968 DcomLaunch, TermService
svchost.exe 1040 RpcSs
svchost.exe 1136 AppMgmt, AudioSrv, BITS, CryptSvc, Dhcp,
dmserver, ERSvc, EventSystem, helpsvc,
lanmanserver, lanmanworkstation, Netman,
Nla, RasMan, Schedule, seclogon, SENS,
SharedAccess, ShellHWDetection, TapiSrv,
Themes, TrkWks, W32Time, winmgmt, wuauserv,
WZCSVC
svchost.exe 1228 Dnscache
svchost.exe 1332 LmHosts, RemoteRegistry, SSDPSRV, WebClient
spoolsv.exe 1460 Spooler
ACLIENT.EXE 1616 AClient
AppServices.exe 1704 Iomega App Services
FrameworkService.exe 1740 McAfeeFramework
Mcshield.exe 1944 McShield
VsTskMgr.exe 1976 McTaskManager
mdm.exe 1992 MDM
mpd.exe 2024 mpich_mpd
CTskMstr.exe 192 Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster
PRISMXL.SYS 256 PrismXL
DistAgnt.exe 432 PSDistributionAgent
wdfmgr.exe 684 UMWdf
uphclean.exe 1120 UPHClean
ADService.exe 1216 _IOMEGA_ACTIVE_DISK_SERVICE_
alg.exe 700 ALG
svchost.exe 1612 stisvc
naPrdMgr.exe 2308 N/A
SRVANY.EXE 244 Delprof
explorer.exe 2964 N/A
hkcmd.exe 1432 N/A
AClntUsr.EXE 2220 N/A
ADUserMon.exe 3380 N/A
Imgicon.exe 2776 N/A
realsched.exe 3212 N/A
jusched.exe 3948 N/A
ctfmon.exe 3092 N/A
PDVDServ.exe 3400 N/A
shstat.exe 2800 N/A
UpdaterUI.exe 1364 N/A
TBMon.exe 2052 N/A
SoundMan.exe 2368 N/A
ALCWZRD.EXE 3120 N/A
Psnotify.exe 1564 N/A
cmd.exe 3028 N/A
wuauclt.exe 1444 N/A
wmiprvse.exe 160 N/A
tasklist.exe 3200 N/A

[gabe]

Try killing the process "imgicon.exe". This is an iomega process that launches with windows when you've installed iomegaware, and it doesn't play nice with Alice. It is safe to kill or even prevent from running, as far as our testing has shown. Try running Alice immediately after and let me know if this solves the problem.

(We thought we had squashed this bug, but if it's still alive when using the 4/05/2005 version of the software, it's something we will revisit.)

Thank you Gabe, that was the problem. As soon as I end that process Alice launches succesfully.

Have a great weekend!

[BillDunklau]

Originally Posted by Chusan

When I initially launch Alice I get a very quick splash screen then nothing. If I try to launch Alice again I will sometimes get a screen that says “you already have Alice running, do you want to open a second instance of Alice” – or something to that effect. If I answer yes Alice will sometimes launch sometimes not. I can always get Alice to launch eventually but, as you can imagine, it’s pretty frustrating (especially considering this is in a classroom environment).

Has anyone else had this issue? Thanks for any help.

We are running old Dell Celeron machines, about 433 MHz. Alice takes a full 55 seconds to launch! We are scheduled to get new machines soon.

[David B]

This may seem strange considering that the last post was in 2006, but today in 2011, people are experiencing the same problem, so I am bringing this thread back to the front of the forums.

Besides, I like bringing old threads back to life.

[aikmin]

What version of Alice 2.2 are you using? (Check the distribution date at the splash screen). Have you tried using an earlier version of Alice 2.2?

I wanted to reply to this thread in case this information is useful to anyone struggling with this issue. I recently had a student who was unable to launch Alice 2.2 (last updated 2/10/2011). The PC was a brand new Lenovo running Windows 7. Alice would load the splash screen but after it disappeared the application would not actually start. I inspected the running processes to see if Alice was there and it wasn't. After several weeks of trying to figure out what might be happening, we found that if you right click on the EXE, choose Properties, click on the Compatibility tab, choose "Run this program in compatibility mode for", and then choose Windows XP from the list, the program ran just fine. The person who figured this out is a game developer and he said that he thought the student's PC was too fast for Alice 2.2 (Alice 3.0 ran just fine without the extra tweak). Her processor was a 2.67GHz. I am running the same build of Alice 2.2 on my PC with a 2.2GHz processor and it is running just fine. So I'm not sure if this change will "fix" the launch for everyone having trouble, but it is definitely worth a try. Good luck!

I have Windows 7 Professional 32-bit on a custom PC. Using your suggestion I set alice.exe to Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode and it works! Thanks sonya!