Rainmeter silently crashes randomly every single day after hours of running fine (dll error in Event Viewer)

[jsmorley]

Any skin or plugin that floods the log with errors at a very rapid pace can make Rainmeter get unstable.

[balala]

Maybe because it's happening every second it eventually causes some memory issue or something but no clue. For all I know it will keep crashing regardless bc that's not the cause, then I will be back at square one, which will suck lol. Not sure what else to check after that.

Not sure I follow you. Did or didn't fix the transparent image the issue?

[just4747]

Not sure I follow you. Did or didn't fix the transparent image the issue?

I don't know yet. I stopped this potentially unrelated png error message issue from the log by creating the folder and adding the png file, but I have no idea if that was the fix to the crashing issue. The crashing happens sporadically and unexpectedly, so I won't know right away - sometimes I use the PC for hours without it crashing, so hard to say yet if that was the fix.

[balala]

I don't know yet. I stopped this potentially unrelated png error message issue from the log by creating the folder and adding the png file, but I have no idea if that was the fix to the crashing issue. The crashing happens sporadically and unexpectedly, so I won't know right away - sometimes I use the PC for hours without it crashing, so hard to say yet if that was the fix.

Alright, in this case keep trying and come back with the result.

[SilverAzide]

Alright, in this case keep trying and come back with the result.

As I already stated, supplying the missing file is the solution that corrects the ModernGadgets issue. No need to keep trying; this is ancient history from 2021 at this point. As JSMorley indicated, the skin was flooding the log with errors, which eventually (after 1 or more days) causes stability problems.

[balala]

As I already stated, supplying the missing file is the solution that corrects the ModernGadgets issue. No need to keep trying; this is ancient history from 2021 at this point. As JSMorley indicated, the skin was flooding the log with errors, which eventually (after 1 or more days) causes stability problems.

Alright. Not arguing.

[Yincognito]

It might be obvious by now, but for future readers, in such frequent flooding the log with errors, keeping the log window open will significantly increase the CPU usage of Rainmeter and shorten the time to the incoming crash, because of having to actually display such errors in the said window.

This is made worse if the part leading to the error is ran at a very low Update rate, so increasing the skin's Update (or the UpdateDivider of relevant measures / meters) is typically another way to alleviate these unwanted effects (besides the solution presented in this particular case, that is).

[SilverAzide]

Another issue is dumping that much data into the log file. I do not believe the logging in Rainmeter uses a rolling appender or uses any technique to clear itself periodically. If you are dumping dozens of lines of errors into the log every second (like in this instance), the log is going to grow to sizes so large that Rainmeter will not be able to keep up. My suspicion is that once the file gets to be hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes in size, Rainmeter will not be able to open the log, write the error, and close it in less than the one second update interval, and when that happens it will crash.

[just4747]

Out of curiosity, any idea why this dll is mentioned in the Windows log error when the crash happens? What does that dll have to do with the missing png and the flooded log and further, the closing of Rainmeter?

[Yincognito]

Another issue is dumping that much data into the log file. I do not believe the logging in Rainmeter uses a rolling appender or uses any technique to clear itself periodically. If you are dumping dozens of lines of errors into the log every second (like in this instance), the log is going to grow to sizes so large that Rainmeter will not be able to keep up. My suspicion is that once the file gets to be hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes in size, Rainmeter will not be able to open the log, write the error, and close it in less than the one second update interval, and when that happens it will crash.

This is most likely true, but only if Log To File is checked in the Manage Rainmeter > Settings tab (not sure if the OP has that setting checked):
https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/user-interface/manage/#Logging
If that is not checked, Rainmeter will not write to a log file in the first place, and keep the log in memory. In such a case, apart from Rainmeter possibly using more RAM for longer logs, there shouldn't be any issue regarding physically writing the log to the "disk" drive.

Other than that, I think clearing the log file periodically is compensated by the fact that one can delete the log file at any time from the same tab.