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Resolved AnyStream can't start after SF ran

SomeRandoDude

SomeRandoDude

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Sorry it's taken me so long to come back to this, but it just happened again tonight. I really don't know what's causing it to hang as I'm closing AnyStream out properly by choosing 'Quit Anystream' from the menu. It shouldn't make a difference from clicking the x to close it, but in any event...

I had just completed downloading a few things and closed out. Then 5-10 mins later I remembered I forgot something and tried to re-launch. It wouldn't open. Tried opening a couple times with no joy. Opened a terminal and tried launching a couple different ways. Dragging the app into the term, and open -n AnyStream.app. Neither gave me an error, but neither also launched the app.

So I rebooted again and immediately saved running processes to a text file. Then I launched AnyStream and saved running processes to a text file and ran a diff between them. There are literally hundreds of processes in the output, none of which I immediately recognize as belonging to AnyStream. I didn't launch any other apps between those two actions other than terminal.

But I did look at Activity Monitor and sorted by PID as it's simply easier to see all the processes there and I can sort them in various ways. Nothing stands out so I'm at a loss. I'm no closer to determining what processes is being orphaned, making it impossible to periodically relaunch AnyStream without forcing a reboot. If I knew what the process was I could simply kill it, and not have to do a reboot.
 

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Oh sorry, yes I had already upgraded to 1.6.6.0. Simply posting in this thread as that's where the previous discussion about this issue has been.
 
No, not every time. Its periodic, and by periodic I mean very periodic. Its also not only when using 'Quit Anystream' from the menu. Also has happened when clicking the x to close the Anystream App as well.
 
Ivan, it might not anything to do with AnyStream specifically. I updated to MacOS 14.0 last week and haven't launched AS until this morning. AS wouldn't launch and I had to reboot so that it would.

I did launch and close a competing product earlier this morning. Hadn't launched it since updating to MacOS 14 either.

So I did a quick test after my reboot. I launched AS, recorded two episodes and closed it down. Then a few seconds later I relaunched it without problem.

Then I launched the competing product. It launched without issue and I closed it. Relaunched it and closed it again. Then I tried to relaunch AS again and it wouldn't launch. The completing product still launches.
 
Maybe the "competing product" is evil :cool:

Please try to start AnyStream from the terminal (type "AnyStream" and press Enter).
Most probably you see some useful messages.
 
Two things you should never do: update an OS and install "a competing product" :p

Anyway...
SomeRandoDude said:
Then I tried to relaunch AS again and it wouldn't launch.
Click to expand...


An explanation, that might help at least in handling of this problem:

AnyStream will, on startup, detect, whether there is already an instance running (by checking a system wide semaphore) and if so, will try to bring that other instance to the front instead of launching again.
That is, because it would cause numerous problems, if multiple instances were running simultaneously.

From what you're describing, AnyStream seams to somehow get stuck on exit and continues sitting there in the process list? Invisibly?
In that case, you'd not be able to start it again.
But all it would require, is to kill the AnyStream process itself, that should fix the problem right there and then.
At least that would work 100% on Windows.
Linux may require 2 starts of AnyStream (because it has no automatic semaphore cleanup on process exit).
MacOS: has the most limited handling of synchronization objects of the three operating systems and I'm not entirely sure.

I will do some testing, to see if I can, at least, reproduce it.
 
Pete said:
From what you're describing, AnyStream seams to somehow get stuck on exit and continues sitting there in the process list? Invisibly?
Click to expand...
I'll get back to you on the other things, but this is what I was thinking initially. That Anystream was orphaning a process when it shut down. But after this morning's tests I'm not sure that is what's actually happening. As discussed in the initial post for this thread, I've looked at the running processes and don't see anything belonging to Anystream.

This morning's test leads me to believe Anystream is trying to use something the competing product hasn't let go of? Or otherwise didn't close, and anystream for whatever reason isn't able to hook or start new?
 
Again: please launch AnyStream from terminal and check the messages....
 
SomeRandoDude said:
I'll get back to you on the other things, but this is what I was thinking initially. That Anystream was orphaning a process when it shut down. But after this morning's tests I'm not sure that is what's actually happening. As discussed in the initial post for this thread, I've looked at the running processes and don't see anything belonging to Anystream.
Click to expand...
AnyStream only launches the process AnyStream (and, if you're doing Amazon, also cefproc, the Browser, which is part of the AnyStream installation).
No 3rd party processes are launched at all.

Other than "a competing product" (you don't have to dance around that name, even if it buys you some shame :) ), AnyStream is totally monolithic, does everything by itself and is not a collection of dozens of other tools gathered from the internet.

But MacOS itself does a lot of stuff in the guise of "security", so I couldn't tell you what processes it throws at AnyStream or any other application to hook into it and sniff and transfer to Apple headquarters...

But still: I seriously doubt, that it has anything to do with other processes or whatever "a competing product" is doing. That was probably pure coincidence.
 
Pete I'm far from an expert on MacOS. I'll take your word on anything about this over my own assumptions. But The issue is repeatable. If I reboot I can launch AS any number of times. Until I launch SF. After I launch SF I can no longer launch AS without a reboot.
 
SomeRandoDude said:
Pete I'm far from an expert on MacOS. I'll take your word on anything about this over my own assumptions. But The issue is repeatable. If I reboot I can launch AS any number of times. Until I launch SF. After I launch SF I can no longer launch AS without a reboot.
Click to expand...
Interesting, thanks for the info.
I'll try to find out why.
 
Ok, did some testing. I have no idea what the immediate cause is, but StreamFab seems to be messing something up, leaves some conflicting remnants after exiting.

Whenever it ran only once, you'll never get AnyStream started after that. It's not that AnyStream orphans something, it is Streamfab doing that.
Don't know whether it's a process, a file of some system object, yet.
 
SomeRandoDude said:
Pete I'm far from an expert on MacOS. I'll take your word on anything about this over my own assumptions. But The issue is repeatable. If I reboot I can launch AS any number of times. Until I launch SF. After I launch SF I can no longer launch AS without a reboot.
Click to expand...
I finally found the cause.
StreamFab seems to eat certain resources and doesn't free them after exiting.
After that, AnyStream is unable to acquire shared memory.

For this to happen, it's enough to run Streamfab once, exit it immediately, without doing anything.

I added a workaround in beta 1.6.6.6 by avoiding shared memory and using a different approach, that will still work after StreamFab messed up the resources.
It is possible, that there are other applications that might also fail, though shared memory is not often used.

Please let me know, if this fixes the problem for you as well.
 
Hot damn! Fixed. Tested just now without issue. Thanks Pete! So glad this issue is resolved and even more so that it turned out not to even be your issue. Thanks very much!
 
I've noticed I have to force quit Streamfab and it's lingering processes, even if appears closed on Mac.
Pete said:
I finally found the cause.
StreamFab seems to eat certain resources and doesn't free them after exiting.
After that, AnyStream is unable to acquire shared memory.

For this to happen, it's enough to run Streamfab once, exit it immediately, without doing anything.

I added a workaround in beta 1.6.6.6 by avoiding shared memory and using a different approach, that will still work after StreamFab messed up the resources.
It is possible, that there are other applications that might also fail, though shared memory is not often used.

Please let me know, if this fixes the problem for you as well.
Click to expand...
Nice find! I've found SF on MacOS to be a hot mess.
 
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