[UPDATED] Windows crashes
UPDATE: I had another BSOD with only Firefox open. I will post another article when I complete my investigations.
This crashes may be just a coincidence. If you are using Gridcoin wallet without problems I encourage you to keep using it. I also encourage everyone for backing up all his important files on a regular basis, this is one of the most important security measures for every electronic device.
I have been staking Gridcoin with my Windows wallet for a few days, only several hours per day, and my computer has crashed two times while having Gridcoin wallet open. The first one was only few minutes after starting Windows(10 64 bit), I had many programs open at the same time (Gridcoin, Storj Share, Firefox and Thunderbird), then I got a KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE Blue Screen Of Death. Then the computer restarted but few minutes idling after the start finished, without opening any programs or files, it showed another BSOD. I finally managed to boot up in safe mode thanks to the Windows 10 installation disk by using this guide , I used chkdsk and then I managed to start Windows at normal mode.
For more information about Windows crash troubleshooting you can check my previous article
Some files were corrupted, including my encrypted passwords at Firefox, fortunately I had a backup of most of them, but not for my Openledger account r0paga The dump file was also corrupt and I did not get any additional info from Windows Event Manager.
My accidental contribution to crypto graveyard, the coins were collected thanks to @virtualgrowth giveaways.
The second time was few minutes after waking up my computer for being suspended, I only had Firefox(Youtube) and Gridcoin open, suddenly the screen get frozen and the speakears started to buzz. Not even Ctrl+Alt+Supr worked so I had to keep power button pressed.
The next time I booted the computer it worked fine and I did not found any useful info at error reports either.
I do not have any evidences about the cause of both crashes, but since my computer did not crashed for months before, Gridcoin wallet is very likely the problem.
So I have saved all the logs I collected, and I am going to move my GRC to Coinomi, which is my favourite multicoin wallet for smarpthones, leaving a little amount of GRC just in case I do more debugging. I also opened another Openledger account, rop4ga, and saved a copy of the password, two copies of the backup file and one brain key wallet.
I may sell some GRC when the prices stabilizes, I am considering starting a new project in Steemit but for that I will need some liquid Steem to start with. I am also looking forward for autum to start mining because with current temperatures BOINC crunching in my small room is not a good idea. I do pool mining so the Gridcoin wallet is not a problem.
My intention is not to blame anyone for that, but just explaining my observations. I am not interested at running Gridcoin wallet anymore, at least not in Windows, however if any Gridcoin developer is interested about investigating that, I offer my cooperation.
Thanks for reading and do not forget about making backups.
I disagree!
Been running the latest version of the wallet on my Win10 Surface Pro 4, and nothing like this has happened ever!
Stop spreading unconfirmed rumors about something you can't back up with evidence. If you can return with pointing out something and what in the wallet made your system do this you should post this to the GitHub repo as an issue, but I highly doubt that.
UPDATE: I had another BSOD with only Firefox open. I will post another article when I complete my investigations.
Why not join our Slack, we would have provided you with some immediate assistance there. Posts like this ("Gridcoin wallet is crashing my Windows") are hardly helpful to anyone. OK, you've edited it now, but still it was some bad publicity and completely unfounded.
Yes, I know I made a mistake, I have learned from that and it won´t happen again. Thanks for the assistance.
Claiming that Gridcoin wallet is causing these BSODs without a single serious attempt to track down the issue accurately is almost ridiculous. Here is what I found on Google within 10 secs:
http://windowsreport.com/kernel-security-check-failure-windows
The “Kernel Security Check failure” in Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 can appear for different kinds of reasons like memory issues, virus infections of the Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 but the most common is that the drivers you were using for the previous versions of Windows are not compatible with the new Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 thus giving you the “Kernel Security Check failure".
As usual, I would first run some CPU/RAM stress tools to find out if your machine is generally unstable. If not, then I would install WinDbg (Debugging Tools for Windows) to analyze those crash dumps accurately. Everything else is just pure guessing i.e. wasted time and effort.
With the info I have for now it is the main suspect. I know my diagnosis is not complete and there could be many other causes, but I think stop using it is a reasonable preventative measure in my case.
Yes, I know those are the main causes. I updated my computer to Windows 10 a month after the final version was launched and I have not made any driver or hardware changes since then. I did not have any additional device connected during the crashes. My computer is generally stable even at BOINC CPU+GPU 100% load mining and at playing heavy load games. I would run those stress tests and try WinDbg, but I think the dump files are corrupt because Windows couldnt complete the dump file creation and Bluescreenview did not found any data.
Thanks for the suggestions no matter the criticism.
Thinking, suspecting, guessing... you can do better than that.
Launch LinX and run it for at least 30 mins, using at least half RAM available and all cores. Then you'll know if it's stable:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/g0evl5p5a4puw4u/LinX+v0.7.0E+%282017.1.014%29.7z
I dont think so, I have been running BOINC for a decade and the Gridcoin client on Windows for many versions and I have never had a BSOD problem. I even game on my PC while the client is running, and I have the SolarCoin wallet open, as well as sometimes Handbrake transcoding hi-def content.
I think its something with your machine.
UPDATE: I had another BSOD with only Firefox open. I will post another article when I complete my investigations.
Been running the wallet on my Windows PC for months, never had a crash.