If Gaim Hangs in Windows
If you’re running Gaim under Windows and it hangs, remember to check to see if the TCL/Tk DLL might be the offender: I spent fifteen frustrated minutes uninstalling or disabling everything from codecs to antivirus software before I remembered that tcl.dll (under %GAIMDIR%\plugins\, where %GAIMDIR% is by default “C:\Program Files\Gaim”) causes Gaim to hang on my machines consistently for some reason. Renaming it tcl.dll.NO made Gaim skip it.
If you start Gaim and the process is running without complaint and without crashing, but never appears, it has likely hung on the TCL DLL; you can check this by opening a command prompt (Start -> Run… -> “cmd” [Enter]) and running gaim.exe with the –debug option on.
to “If Gaim Hangs in Windows”
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Jeff Says:
October 28th, 2006 at 01:03:41What version of gaim are you seeing this?
What effect does disabling this DLL have?
I know my instance of gaim in Windows often has issues, so I’m wondering if this is related.
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Michael Says:
October 28th, 2006 at 18:48:31This is Gaim 1.5.0 under WinXP Pro using GTK+ v2.6.10 rev a. This bug has occurred on all my Windows machines since the beginning of WinGaim.
The only thing I could find about anything related to TCL/Tk was this snippet from the Sourceforge page regarding WinGaim (cited below):
TCL Loader Plugin + Cygwin = WinGaim crash - Starting with 0.75, Win Gaim comes with a tcl plugin loader. The loader plugin is dependant on tcl84.dll and will use the first one found in the dll search path. If you have a cygwin installation (with tcl 8.4), and have added its bin directory to your PATH, then WinGaim will crash on startup. The solution is to remove cygwin’s bin directory from your path. Introducing cygwin dlls into the native win32 environment is a very bad idea, and is likely to cause problems with other programs.
However, this is not a conflict on my machine with Cygwin DLLs as far as I can tell; just something to do with the TCL.dll included with Gaim.
The point of the DLL itself is to allow ActiveTCL plugins to be loaded into Gaim; but I don’t use any TCL-based plugins in Gaim (chances are most people don’t, I would think). So disabling it removes no functionality unless you explicitly downloaded and installed a TCL-based plugin.
*** When I double-checked, it looked like Gaim actually loaded the DLL anyway, but that there wasn’t a conflict because the name was different. See below:
Here’s my debug output from when Gaim refuses to fully load:
C:\Program Files\Gaim>gaim –debug
C:\Program Files\Gaim>GTK+ path found: C:\Program Files\GTK20\bin
Using SetDllDirectory
Setting locale: LANG=en
wgaim: wgaim_init start
wgaim: This version of user32.dll contains FlashWindowEx
wgaim: shfolder.dll not found. Loading it..
wgaim: This version of shfolder.dll contains SHGetFolderPathW
wgaim: Gaim settings dir: C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data
wspell: Couldn’t find path for Aspell
wgaim: wgaim_init end
plugins: registering plugin-load signal
plugins: registering plugin-unload signal
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\autorecon.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\docklet.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\extplacement.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\history.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\iconaway.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\idle.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libgg.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libirc.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libjabber.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libmsn.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libnapster.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libnovell.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\liboscar.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libsilc.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libyahoo.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\relnot.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\spellchk.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\ssl-nss.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\ssl.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\statenotify.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\tcl.dll
wgaim: tcl84.dll not found. Loading it..(Of course, it never DOES load it.) Here’s when everything works perfectly with tcl.dll renamed to *.NO (notice that I do not have a Buddy Pounce file, which Gaim dutifully reports, but which is perfectly normal and does not inhibit performance):
C:\Program Files\Gaim>gaim –debug
C:\Program Files\Gaim>GTK+ path found: C:\Program Files\GTK20\bin
Using SetDllDirectory
Setting locale: LANG=en
wgaim: wgaim_init start
wgaim: This version of user32.dll contains FlashWindowEx
wgaim: shfolder.dll not found. Loading it..
wgaim: This version of shfolder.dll contains SHGetFolderPathW
wgaim: Gaim settings dir: C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data
wspell: Couldn’t find path for Aspell
wgaim: wgaim_init end
plugins: registering plugin-load signal
plugins: registering plugin-unload signal
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\autorecon.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\docklet.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\extplacement.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\history.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\iconaway.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\idle.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libgg.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libirc.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libjabber.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libmsn.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libnapster.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libnovell.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\liboscar.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libsilc.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\libyahoo.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\relnot.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\spellchk.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\ssl-nss.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\ssl.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\statenotify.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\tcl.dll.NO
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\ticker.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\timestamp.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\win2ktrans.dll
plugins: probing C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\winprefs.dll
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\accels
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\accounts.xml
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\blist.xml
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\icons
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\logs
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\prefs.xml
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\smileys
plugins: probing C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\status.xml
blist import: Reading C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\blist.xml
blist import: Finished reading C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\blist.xml
prefs: Reading C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\prefs.xml
prefs: Finished reading C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data\.gaim\prefs.xml
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\extplacement.dll
prefs: /gaim/gtk/conversations/placement changed, scheduling save.
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\history.dll
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\docklet.dll
tray icon: plugin loaded
tray icon: WM_CREATE
tray icon: created
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\autorecon.dll
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\statenotify.dll
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\iconaway.dll
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\idle.dll
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\winprefs.dll
plugins: Loading saved plugin C:\Program Files\Gaim\plugins\win2ktrans.dll
wgaim: This version of user32.dll contains SetLayeredWindowAttributes
pounces: Error reading pounces: Failed to open file ‘C:\Documents and Settings\mike\Application Data
\.gaim\pounces.xml’: No such file or directory
accounts: Writing accounts to disk.
prefs: writing prefs out to disk.You can read more about “DLL Hell” on the Win32 Gaim page: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/index.php
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Jeff Says:
October 28th, 2006 at 21:09:50Gaim 2.0 beta 3 ran a lot better than Gaim 2.0 beta 4 has been running so far. 2.0 beta 3 was a really, really solid release.
October 28th, 2006 at 01:03:41
What version of gaim are you seeing this?
What effect does disabling this DLL have?
I know my instance of gaim in Windows often has issues, so I’m wondering if this is related.
October 28th, 2006 at 18:48:31
This is Gaim 1.5.0 under WinXP Pro using GTK+ v2.6.10 rev a. This bug has occurred on all my Windows machines since the beginning of WinGaim.
The only thing I could find about anything related to TCL/Tk was this snippet from the Sourceforge page regarding WinGaim (cited below):
However, this is not a conflict on my machine with Cygwin DLLs as far as I can tell; just something to do with the TCL.dll included with Gaim.
The point of the DLL itself is to allow ActiveTCL plugins to be loaded into Gaim; but I don’t use any TCL-based plugins in Gaim (chances are most people don’t, I would think). So disabling it removes no functionality unless you explicitly downloaded and installed a TCL-based plugin.
*** When I double-checked, it looked like Gaim actually loaded the DLL anyway, but that there wasn’t a conflict because the name was different. See below:
Here’s my debug output from when Gaim refuses to fully load:
(Of course, it never DOES load it.) Here’s when everything works perfectly with tcl.dll renamed to *.NO (notice that I do not have a Buddy Pounce file, which Gaim dutifully reports, but which is perfectly normal and does not inhibit performance):
You can read more about “DLL Hell” on the Win32 Gaim page: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/index.php
October 28th, 2006 at 21:09:50
Gaim 2.0 beta 3 ran a lot better than Gaim 2.0 beta 4 has been running so far. 2.0 beta 3 was a really, really solid release.