Editing too many ctables freezes windows

[Henry Crawford]

Running SPSS 14 and 15 on Windows XP.

I have a few macros that can spit out a long list of tables (usually 200+)
with the ctables command.  I then run a Sax BASIC script that "cleans" the
tables somewhat, essentially rotating through each and every one and
formatting and deleting certain lines.

However, when the number of tables edited in the .spo file reaches and
exceeds very roughly 130 or so, the script starts to stagger to a very
slow pace, the output window no longer updates much, the <bell> starts to
ring on each table edit(!), and tables that are edited (and the script
does usually manage to finish at a crawl no matter how many pages) from
that point on are only partly visible in the output unless I double-click
on them.

THEN, on top of that, no OTHER window in ANY Windows application
(including SPSS) will respond to a mouse click, and no menu choice will
respond to a mouse hover or click (can't even save the .spo), UNTIL at
least ONE window of ANY application is CLOSED with F4 or a click (yes,
this is the one click that works) on the red x in the upper right corner.
This instantly returns Windows to responsive status.

SO ... what's going on here?  When I split the files up and clean the
tables 100 at a time, I STILL have to close SPSS and then re-open it to
prevent the ~130 table threshold from being tripped and finding myself in
bell-ringing, tortoise-paced, windows-freezing hell again.

-Hank

[la volta statistics]

Hi Hank
I had a similar problems. Llook up item 055627, subject: 'SPSS runs out of
memory using Python code for changing titles in tables'   in the archives.

I at least got a error message saying that that there is insufficient memory
to perform the task
(pywintypes.com_error: (-2147352567, 'Ausnahmefehler aufgetreten.', (0,
'SPSS 15.0 for Windows', 'Insufficient memory to perform operation.', None,
0, -2147024882), None)

I was then told by Jon Peck:
"Despite what the message (which comes from Windows) says, you are actually
not running out of memory.  You are running out of another, more obscure
Windows resource, probably handles or something else in the Windows GDI.
This is caused by having a very large number of activations.
There are some small things that would make the script run a little better,
but they won't solve the resource exhaustion problem.  A better way to do
this task is to embed the titling in Python code that does not require the
automation calls.  Put your Ctables commands in a loop with spss.Submit, and
put the desired title into the syntax."

Unfortunatly, I couldn't solve the problem in a satisfying way. I use
Windows 2000 and SPSS 15.

Christian

*******************************
la volta statistics
Christian Schmidhauser, Dr.phil.II
Weinbergstrasse 108
Ch-8006 Zürich
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
email: mailto:[hidden email]
internet: http://www.lavolta.ch/


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]]Im Auftrag von
Henry Crawford
Gesendet: Dienstag, 25. September 2007 21:16
An: [hidden email]
Betreff: Editing too many ctables freezes windows


Running SPSS 14 and 15 on Windows XP.

I have a few macros that can spit out a long list of tables (usually 200+)
with the ctables command.  I then run a Sax BASIC script that "cleans" the
tables somewhat, essentially rotating through each and every one and
formatting and deleting certain lines.

However, when the number of tables edited in the .spo file reaches and
exceeds very roughly 130 or so, the script starts to stagger to a very
slow pace, the output window no longer updates much, the <bell> starts to
ring on each table edit(!), and tables that are edited (and the script
does usually manage to finish at a crawl no matter how many pages) from
that point on are only partly visible in the output unless I double-click
on them.

THEN, on top of that, no OTHER window in ANY Windows application
(including SPSS) will respond to a mouse click, and no menu choice will
respond to a mouse hover or click (can't even save the .spo), UNTIL at
least ONE window of ANY application is CLOSED with F4 or a click (yes,
this is the one click that works) on the red x in the upper right corner.
This instantly returns Windows to responsive status.

SO ... what's going on here?  When I split the files up and clean the
tables 100 at a time, I STILL have to close SPSS and then re-open it to
prevent the ~130 table threshold from being tripped and finding myself in
bell-ringing, tortoise-paced, windows-freezing hell again.

-Hank