Notepad++ crashes at exit

Antoon Kagenaar

My notepad++ always crashes at exit with the message:
“Notepad++ : a free (GNU) source code editor has stopped working”
I also tried the latest version, but still it crashes at exit.
Please assist.

patrickdrd

same here, reported a while ago, still no fix

PeterJones

@Antoon-Kagenaar , you gave us no details other than the error message. If you want help, you’ll have to help us help you.

@patrickdrd, are you talking about this issue, where you never bothered to respond to requests for more information? (If you never respond to requests for more information, people will assume you either fixed it yourself, or you don’t care, and will thus stop trying to help you.) Did you ever report it on the notepad++ issues page? I cannot find any that appeared to be by you.

Both: It’s hard to confirm (let alone fix) a bug when virtually zero details are given, and only vague assertions are made.

There are plenty of users on this forum who use recent versions of Notepad++ daily. If there were a consistent bug, there would have been many reports continuing, with threads of detailed ways to reproduce the problem.

Both: Please go to the ? > Debug Info..., click on copy debug info to clipboard, paste it into an empty Notepad++ tab, Ctrl+A to select all, TAB to indent, Ctrl+C to copy, and then paste it into your reply to this post. This will give some solid details about what version you’re using.

Please also give the exact steps necessary to reproduce the problem. Pertinent details to include:

how many files are open
where are those files located: are they on a HDD/SDD, or a network drive accessed through windows UNC path, like \\server\path\file, or on a mapped network drive, like z:\
- @Meta-Chuh was right 6 months ago: frequently, flakey network connections are the cause of issues)
do you have to do anything to trigger the bug
- ie, @Antoon-Kagenaar mentions “at exit”, which implied actively closing the Notepad++ application
- is “just waiting” enough: @patrickdrd’s post from 6 months ago just says it’s been left open for several hours.
- Are my interpretations correct as to what’s triggering it for each of you
have you tried running the same circumstances with all plugins disabled (either rename the plugins sub-directory relative to your notepad++.exe, or close all instances of notepad++ and run using notepad++.exe -noPlugin
are you running as Administrator (with elevated privileges, or your shortcut properties shortcut > advanced... shows ☑ run as administrator checked)
do your session backups get stored locally, or in a dropbox folder or similar (Settings > Preferences > Backup > backup path and Settings > Preferences > Cloud)?
do you have background backup software like CrashPlan, which might be locking the file for a brief period, and that happens to be when Notepad++ is trying to write or close or refresh the file from disk

In brief: the more details you give, the better help you’ll receive.

PeterJones

sorry, I misread: I see now that @patrickdrd also hit the close button to trigger the crash.
That doesn’t change any of the other requests for information in my post.

patrickdrd

@PeterJones yes I know, neither did I reply, nor did I give more information, but I’m a programmer/developer myself too and I spent time debugging my own programs, so not in a mood to debug others too, anyway, I’ll try

the files that I leave open aren’t many 2-4 most of the time, but I “forget” to close it, maybe because I need those files as a reference
those 2-4 files are local, not on network, neither on mapped drives
I don’t use any backup software, neither are they refreshed in the background

PeterJones

@patrickdrd,

It’s not so much “debugging [someone else’s programs] too”. Whenever I have a problem with a piece of hardware or software that I’m using, my first assumption is PEBCAK, until such time as I have proof (or at least strong evidence) that the problem lies elsewhere; before asking someone else to fix it, I want to make sure that it’s not something that I should fix myself.

This forum is not primarily composed of the developers of Notepad++. Mostly, we are fellow users (that’s me), who are trying to help each other out. But without details, we cannot help.

If you say “this breaks when I hit close”, but the developer (or the helpdesk, or the fellow user who volunteers time to answer questions in these forums) has hit close hundreds or thousands of times without a problem, there’s very little that can be done to help, unless the situation is described in enough detail that he can repeat the exact circumstances and confirm the bug. Personally, I often leave multiple files open for days or weeks at a time, and have no problem when I close Notepad++.

If we (either as developers or a fellow users) cannot replicate the problem, then the person who reported the problem needs to be able to respond to questions, run local experiments, and provide reasonable feedback, otherwise there is no way to fix it. If you don’t have time or inclination or mood to respond, that’s fine, you’re allowed; but then don’t expect someone who cannot reproduce the problem to be able to magically fix a problem they cannot experience.

There’s still a lot you haven’t answered from my questions above, especially including the Debug Info. The Debug Info is important, because it not only gives the exact build information (NPP version, 32 vs 64 bit, admin mode vs standard user, installed vs portable, and OS)… it also lists plugins – and after eliminating network file as my first guess, a plugin issue would be my next most-likely culprit. That’s also why I suggested disabling plugins and trying again.

Honestly, I was expecting it to be network issues. If it’s not that, I’m hoping it’s a plugin – but I cannot determine if it’s a plugin until you’ve listed what plugins you have installed (Debug Info), and can answer whether or not disabling plugins resolves the problem. If it’s not plugins, I’m hoping that the answer to one of the many other questions I’ve asked (or will ask) will give me (or some other forum member) an idea of what it might be, or what to try next.

Other questions that might be relevant: Is there anything unique about the files that you have open when it crashes – does it happen with any 2-4 files, or just when you have specific files open? Do you have file monitoring enabled (the little eyeball icon, or Settings > Preferences > Misc > File Status Auto-Detection)? Do you have a virus scanner or firewall running?

Note, even if @patrickdrd decides to not answer the questions or pursue helping us help him, I’m hoping @Antoon-Kagenaar will answer the questions that have been posed, so that we can try to help him as well (since this is, after all, the thread he started).

patrickdrd

ok, thanks, let’s go then:

I’m using file change detection monitoring but these files aren’t changed
the files are different each time, not the same each time,
there’s an antivirus only, no firewall

maybe it’s a plugin

here is my debug info:
Notepad++ v7.5.6 (32-bit)
Build time : Mar 19 2018 - 00:26:59
Path : D:\Utilities\PortableApps\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : ON
Local Conf mode : ON
OS : Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Plugins : AutoSave.dll BracketsCheck.dll combine.dll ComparePlugin.dll DSpellCheck.dll LocationNavigate.dll nppcrypt.dll NppTextFX.dll PluginManager.dll

the operating system should be windows 7, because it happens at work mostly

patrickdrd

here’s a screen of the crash: https://imgur.com/jnSCbxB

PeterJones

Hmm, I see it’s Admin mode; you might want to try running without elevated privileges (I mentioned earlier where in the NPP shortcut that’s found).

Also, I would highly recommend trying to run without plugins for a while, and see if it still happens. (You could add -noPlugin to the Target field of the shortcut)

Also, I see “PortableApps” in the path to your executable. Did you get your copy from portableapps.com, or did you download the zip package from https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/ ? I would recommend using the official zipfile.

patrickdrd

I’m not sure it’s launched in admin mode when it crashes, my guess is it doesn’t, the shortcut in desktop is set to launch in admin mode but mostly I open a txt file by double-clicking it (instead of launching npp+ and selection open file)

also, I get the zip file from official npp+ site each time,
I don’t think it’s available from portableapps.com

where has @Antoon Kagenaar gone by the way? :O

Jean-michel

I have the same problem, but I think that I definitively solved this issue today. It’s for me a problem with the Zoom Disabler 1.2 plugin. When I remove this plugin, there is no crash on exit anymore. I use Notepad++ 32 bits on Windows 10 64 bits.

Julien MASURE

Same for me, deleting Zoom Disabler is the solution, thanks to @Jean-michel

dinkumoil

The LocationNavigate plugin is also well known to cause Notepad++ to crash at exit.

chcg

Created https://github.com/StanDog/npp-zoomdisabler/issues/3 for the issue with zoom disabler.

chcg

For LocationNavigate from (https://sourceforge.net/p/locationnav/tickets/) Maybe there could be created an issue.

StanDog

I have some trouble reproducing this problem. On Windows 7 and 10 I have no problem with the 64-bit version. Could someone, who is affected, please try to remove all plugins except the Zoom Disabler plugin and test, if this problem still appears? Just to be sure, that Zoom Disabler is really the troublemaker and not a combination with an other plugin.

Ronald Fischer

@PeterJones : I have the same problem, and it is reproducible. Can send you a screenshot.

Debug Info:

Notepad++ v7.5.9 (64-bit)
Build time : Oct 14 2018 - 15:19:55
Path : C:\p\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : ON
OS : Windows 10 (64-bit)
Plugins : AnalysePlugin.dll DSpellCheck.dll mimeTools.dll NppConverter.dll binhex.dll HexEditor.dll MenuIcons.dll NppExport.dll NppSnippets.dll PluginManager.dll SelectQuotedText.dll XBrackets.dll _CustomizeToolbar.dll

It doesn’t seem to depend on the files which I have open. Even if I empty a fresh, empty N++ with no files, and immediately exit (i.e. File/Exit), I get the error message.

PeterJones

@Ronald-Fischer said:

I have the same problem, and it is reproducible. Can send you a screenshot.

You can upload screenshots to a service like imgur.com, then embed them with the syntax ![](http://i.imgur.com/QTHZysa.png) (noting that for imgur, make sure you grab the “direct link”, which has i.imgur.com as the host, and ends in the image extension .png/.gif or similar), which will render as:

Looking at your debug info (thanks for including that):

You have a whole lot of plugins. It may be that one of them is causing your problem. Though you don’t have ZoomDisabler or LocationNavigate, which are the plugins that many of the above users were claiming as the culprit, I see you have HexEditor (and some others I don’t recognize). I believe that older versions of HexEditor have made Notepad++ unstable. To determine if it’s a plugin, follow my advice from last year, and “close all instances of notepad++ and run using notepad++.exe -noPlugin”. If the problem still occurs with no plugins, then it’s something else (so skip the rest of this paragraph). If the problem goes away, then you can exit Notepad++, move all the .dll and subfolders from C:\p\Notepad++\plugins\* into a “disabled” subfolder C:\p\Notepad++\plugins\disabled\*. Restart Notepad++ and make sure it’s still not crashing on exit. Then move one .dll or subfolder at a time back into C:\p\Notepad++\plugins\*, until it starts crashing again. The one you added just before the crash is the likely culprit – which you can further confirm by re-removing it, and/or making that one the only active plugin.

Also, it may have been that the problem has been fixed in a later Notepad++ version. To test that, download the zip package from the most recent Notepad++ (currently v7.7), and unzip it onto your desktop, or into a different folder in your c:\p hierarchy. Make sure you’ve closed all of your 7.5.9 instances, then run from the v7.7 and see if it crashes on you. If not, start adding plugins using the new Plugins > Plugins Admin interface (you no longer need the PluginManager in v7.6.x or v7.7). If that continues working for you, great, it might be time to start using v7.7 instead of staying on v7.5.9. If you have problems finding/installing any of your plugins in v7.7, let us know which ones, and we can instruct you on how to properly copy them over from the v7.5.9 to the v7.7.

Alan Kilborn

@PeterJones said:

LocationNavigate

Just putting my $0.02 in that I have used LocationNavigate since Notepad++ time began (at least when its time began for me) and I have never had any kind of problem with it. In fact, it might just be the plugin that keeps me in 32-bit land. [Well, for now the fact that Pythonscript won’t work with N++ 7.7 is also a contributor to that].