[slinkelist] Advise Marshal Failed error message

[Dave Kolb]

<snip>

>I've continued to see both this problem and the problem of the slinke
>server hanging Internet related programs from launching properly. It seems
>to only happen when Win98 has been running for a while and is probably
>running lowish on resources (below 30%). Programs like MIrc, Eudora, Yahoo
>Messenger etc. will sometimes hang on launch, until I close the slinke
>server. Then the programs magically spring into life.
>
>I think Colby has been working on finding a solution, but clearly it's
>still there (and may just be a Win98 related thing).


Limited system resources could cause problems as could one side calling an
object or passing an interface created on a different thread in the case of
single thread apartment (STA) objects which is the likely architecture. If
there are any threads involved then an object created on a thread must be
called from that thread.

COM depends upon both sides (client and server) keeping a message loop
running in order to make a method into the server and fire events back to
the client. COM method calls use hidden windows and COM runs a message loop
while waiting for a method call to an out of process server to return.

I searched MSDN and found no hits on marshaling errors or that particular
message. What app puts the message up? Is there a COM return code associated
with it?

Sounds more like a resource problem though. Maybe there is a resource leak
involved. Boundschecker or Purify can detect these sorts of problems
sometimes. If anyone has those apps they can run a release version and do
not need a debug version for at least some checking.

Does this happen more over time or more when lots of apps are open
simultaneously?

Dave