Topic: PostMessage to NULL handle ERROR

[Mad-Batter]

A couple of days ago I re-imaged my c: drive to clean things up and start afresh once again.
I don't know if this is related or not, but I just started to receive this error message at startup:

PostMessage to NULL handle, Msg = 3021, wParam = 0, IParam = 0     OK

I am using Ver. 4.2.36.4.

A search for this error message hasn't turned up anything helpful for me at this stage.
Does anyone know what Msg = 3021 is referring to, or what post to NULL handle means?

 Thanks!

[Anne]

It's a message that I've seen in v4.2.x before, Eric. It is something to do with either memory usage or that an earlier version of The Bat! has not shut down cleanly so a part is still running somewhere even after TB! is supposedly closed.

I would suggest that you install CCleaner (the free version is fine: https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download) and run the Registry Checker option in it to see if there are obsolete Registry Keys left behind that are causing a problem on loading TB! CCleaner is always cautious so it will only suggest removing entries which are redundant.

If that doesn't fix things then you may have a duff install of TB!, so uninstall it (leave message base files intact) and reinstall it, and see how that goes.

Let me know if it helps.

[Mad-Batter]

Thanks Anne for your suggestions, they were helpful.

I installed CCleaner to see what it would come up with.

It found an older version of The Bat in addition to the new one.
I had CCleaner remove it (they were mixed in the same folder).

Next I noticed that the TheBat.exe file was now missing so I re-installed v. 4.2

Then I got this message inside the program:

"Older version's index files found.
It looks like an older version of the program is being used after installation of The Bat 4.2
Please make sure this does not happen in the future in order to keep message base working properly."

I went into the folder where my data files were (another drive) and realized that I had put a whole bunch of program files there over time.
Deleted a bunch of them and then re-started The Bat.

I thought I had fixed the problem but the Error message came back shortly after.

I went back to that same folder on the d: drive and deleted all non-data files.
This seems to have fixed the problem. 

[Mad-Batter]

>I thought I had fixed the problem but the Error message came back shortly after.

>I went back to that same folder on the d: drive and deleted all non-data files.
>This seems to have fixed the problem. 

My goodness, I spoke too soon.   
Today the error message is back once again.

It comes up the first time The Bat starts. On re-starts, it doesn't show, strangely enough.

[Anne]

Hmmm that is odd, Eric. Which version of Windows are you using?

[Mad-Batter]

Hmmm that is odd, Eric. Which version of Windows are you using?

WinXP SP3

I should mention that now the error message has started appearing each time the program is launched once again. 
So back to square one.

Let me ask you this Anne.
I just went into two folders:
My c:\program folder\The Bat and my d:\data\The Bat folder

In each folder there was the same file but with different dates and sizes, both with recent entries:
thebat_Exceptions.log

Should there be two of these files?
Inside these files is a log of the problem error message:

ClassName: EPostMessageZeroHandle
Message: PostMessage to NULL handle, Msg = 3021, wParam = 0, lParam = 0
IsOSException: 0
Modules:
 00400000 20100420173938 C:\Program Files\The Bat!\thebat.exe
Stack:
 00405ADC [00400000]

etc.

[Mad-Batter]

I don't know if this is related to the problem or not.

I have been noticing when I shutdown my computer (after The Bat has been closed)
a message comes up saying "The Bat is closing, please wait etc."

Just now I went into Windows Task Manager after I closed The Bat
and looked at Processes.
Sure enough The Bat had a process running: 6,764K.

Could you please try this experiment Anne?
Close The Bat and then check to see if a process is still running (The Bat) after you do that?

Thanks!

[Mad-Batter]

Hi Anne,

I believe I finally solved the problem!

It had to do with the recent re-imaging of my c: drive.

The re-image was a good working state of my c: drive except for one thing.
When I created the image I hadn't reset the keyboard settings to null, when the hotkeys at the
top were pressed.

I have an autohotkey script set up for the hotkeys at the top of my keyboard to launch various apps.

So when I pressed the e-mail key two things were happening: the keyboard driver was launching The Bat but autohotkey was also launching it!

This is why when I closed the program its process was still running and why I was getting the error message on startup.   

[Anne]

Ahhhhhhhh that would explain things Eric!

I did check and I see I only have the thebat_exceptions.log in the data folder where my message bases are, there isn't one in the program folder. Perhaps the second copy is as a result of the launcher issue? 

[Mad-Batter]

Ahhhhhhhh that would explain things Eric!

I did check and I see I only have the thebat_exceptions.log in the data folder where my message bases are, there isn't one in the program folder. Perhaps the second copy is as a result of the launcher issue? 

Thanks for checking. Yes it could be. I deleted the one in the program folder and will see how The Bat reacts.