Bitmap region is locked

[gregoryrwalker]

When compiling printed help I occasionally get a compile error that reads "Bitmap region is already locked." Anyone know what that's about?

--gw

[dalewood]

Hi GW -

I have also ran into this problem. If I build a PDF twice, using the new direct capability, the second occurence encounters this error.

I submitted a problem to Madcap support, and a test case, but they have not been able to reproduce the problem.

By chance, is your PC multi-core? I have a quad core Intel PC.

[gregoryrwalker]

Indeed! It is a multi quad core intel PC running Vista 32. The problem actually has increased in frequency recently. Now I'm lucky to get one out of every five publication attempts to go through. I've got a support ticket in the works, but haven't heard back from them yet.

--gw

[dalewood]

I have a Windows XP 32-bit and just constructed a Vista 64-bit, both quad core and both experiencing the "Bitmap region is locked" when generating a PDF the second time (i.e. two times in a row). The PDF takes 10 minutes or so to generate, so this is time consuming bug. The new machine has just the O/S, Office 2007, Visual Studio 2005 and Flare V4. Does not yet even have Antivirus (i.e. this is a fresh PC).

Since at least two users are having this problem with Flare, I suspect we have a real bug

I have a question out to the support folks at Madcap if they are testing with a multi-core PC. Flare has 22 or so threads, according to Task Mananger.

[gregoryrwalker]

I did a quick google search for the error message, and it appears on some non Flare related DOTNet and Visual Basic forums. I was quickly out of my depth.

I also routinely get an "Out of Memory" error with is equally frustrating. I have a pretty powerful PC to handle the graphic design side of things and when Flare runs out of memory and photoshop never does, it makes me curious.

But, I do agree that with the amount of time it takes Flare to build a pdf target that these errors are edging out of the "what a nuisance" category and into the "affecting my bottom-line" area.

--gw

[dalewood]

You might want to check the size of your Windows Paging file (i.e. Virtual Memory).

During PDF generation, Flare takes about 1.4 Gigabytes for my build.

I suspect this amount is dependant on the size of the document.

[gregoryrwalker]

Customer support provided me with a patch they thought might help with the OutOfMemory problem. I installed it, but haven't seen any difference.

--gw

[dalewood]

Thanks for the update.

I submitted a reproduce-able case to support but they could not reproduce the problem I did mention the long time, 10 minutes in my situation, to directly produce a PDF.

They did say they would pass my files and comments over to developers.

Now, I just discovered yesterday that Flare V4 spell checking is not working. This appears to be a Vista, perhaps 64-bit issue, an I just upgraded to a new PC and this worked correctly on Windows XP 32-bit.

Flare V4 I suspect has some major issues to address. I hope that Flare is not super busy on the next major upgrade but will instead actually look into and address the various concerns brought up by folks.

[dalewood]

Well, problem appears to be worse in V 4.1.

Spell checking was fixed (when running under Vista 64-bit), but now PDF is even harder to generate.

[mymojo]

I am so tired of this bug. It takes me 10 minutes to build a pdf as well, and it doesn't matter if I clean my project, or if I shut down Flare and restart, it punks out on me right before it's finished. If anyone has further suggestions, I would so love to hear them.

[dalewood]

Just received word, reply to a problem report, that this problem is corrected.

Have Flare check for updates. V4.1 SP1 (or is shows up as 4.1.30 in Help / About) has the fixes.

I have a project that took 8 minutes to build and now takes 1 1/2 minutes with no "Bitmap" or "out of memory" errors. Flare was taking 1.3 Gigabytes of memory during a PDF build and now takes just under 1/2 gigabyte.

They fixed some big leak

[helen]

I'm seeing similar results too. PDF generation used to give me the bitmap error sporadically and take an absolute age to generate. It's speeded up significantly with the latest patch.

[techwriter12]

I am receiving both messages described here, as well as the long run times to build PDF, and I am on Flare version 4.1.40. I am on Windows XP.

[SteveS]

Hi Techwriter12,

Welcome to the forums.

Make sure you have the latest DotNet updates and your version of Flare is up to date as well (4.1.40).

Working locally is the best, networks are subject to bottlenecks. Try turning off virus scanning for the Flare project during the build. If you are using source control try booking the entire project out before the build (although that takes time, as does booking the whole thing back in again - and that will be subject to network bottlenecks).

Failing that, start the build and wander off for a good cup of coffee. At least you won't get as frustrated as we get when things have a slow build

[techwriter12]

My project takes almost an hour to build PDF output (granted, it is over 1000 pages), so these errors causing it to bomb once almost built are a major problem for me. I am wondering, since the problem was supposedly fixed in 4.1.3 but is still showing up in 4.1.4, if the new patch somehow broke the fix. Of course, this is just speculation. I am on a new computer with everything updated so as a newish Flare user, I will be disappointed if it is having trouble running in my environment.

[helen]

I've just run into this little bug again in Flare 5.0. I will of course be submitting a bug. It's not in a particularly big project - direct to PDF as always. Has anyone else seen it in Flare 5.0 or do I get the lucky prize? I simply can't even compile - it's not as if it takes an hour - it dies with an error.

Code: Select all

Adding PDF for Title Page.htm...
Adding PDF for Disclaimer.htm...
Adding PDF for XX Introduction.htm...
Adding PDF for Launching XX.htm...
Adding PDF for XX Workspace.htm...
Adding PDF for XX Module 4.0.htm...
Saving PDF Preparation 4.0 Guide.pdf...
Compiler (Internal Error): Bitmap region is already locked.

[helen]

Hmmm - two restarts later and it's "fixed". Although Flare took no less than 6 minutes to come to life the first time, I guess it got its knickers in a knot

[super-structure]

I ran into this problem, too, using Flare v5.0.1. I'm convinced that is entirely a systems resources issue, which can be both good and bad (and not to say that MadCap shouldn't work on a bug fix). For reference, I have a 2.20GHz Core2 Duo Laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a 2 GB paging file, running Windows XP SP3 (32bit). My project is a fairly large help file which I also need to output as a PDF for a very large client of ours. The final PDF is 790 pp (about 14MB). Fairly large, but not the largest project one could imagine (certainly not the largest I need to produce for this product line, either).

First, the problem only occurred (for this particular project, at least) when I had selected the option to use TOC Heading level for Bookmarks. It seemed this last step was enough to push it over the edge when saving the PDF under normal operating conditions. I had tried a system restart, and then re-compiling the .PDF. Still no good.

Then, after reading some of these comments, I decided to try and kill every program and restart only Flare. So, I exited Outlook, SnagIt, RegexBuddy, Office Communicator, along with Flare (mind you, none of these programs were actually doing anything; I wasn't even using the machine for anything else during the build process). After restarting Flare and then attempting to re-compile the PDF (still with TOC Headings option selected), success! It even only took 4'41" for a build that was previously running 10'+ before throwing up an error.

I I'm correct, then the bad news is that if you're all out of programs or processes to quit - and your machine still doesn't have the extra go-power - you may just be out of luck. However, you might try turning off a couple of features in the build to see if you can get something out.