[[any thoughts on where to begin helping someone with this problem?]] [DKF]: Oh dear. It is the intention of the [Tcl Core Team] that [Tcl] should be uncrashable. This is not always possible to achieve though. But here are some steps to follow when in this situation. '''1: Don't Panic''' There's never any need to panic about this sort of thing. It just makes life harder for no gain. '''2: See if the Crash is Repeatable''' Unrepeatable crashes are virtually impossible to hunt down, unless you're lucky enough to have a core dump ''and'' the binary file with symbols attached. '''3: See if Tcl is using any Extensions/Binary Packages''' It is very easy to destablilise Tcl by [load]ing broken binary code as an extension or package. If there is code outside of Tcl itself (and [Tk] too) then there's a fairly high chance that the problem isn't Tcl, and should be reported to a different maintainer. '''4: Get a Short Script that Causes the Crash Every Time''' Getting a script that causes your crash every time is tantamount to demonstrating what the problem actually is. It also allows someone with a debugging build to track down exactly what is failing. '''5: Report the Problem on SourceForge''' Go to http://tcl.sourceforge.net/ and click on the appropriate link there to report a bug. If the bug appears to require Tk, report it as a Tk bug, and otherwise report it as a Tcl bug. Please provide plenty of information. Definitely include the patchlevel of Tcl that has the problem, as reported by [[info patchlevel]], and definitely include the script that reproduces the bug (taking care if you're using the file attach mechanism - SF requires that you check the box, give the filename ''and'' give a description.) And it helps if you've got yourself an SF account set up first; like that you will get automatically notified of progress towards resolution of the bug. ---- [JMN] I've had more than one or two crashes of tclsh/wish, but unfortunately it's very rare that I can work out how to produce a 'Short Script that Causes the Crash Every Time'. I tend to use a multithreaded version and a lot of packages - and usually the app involved is something of a large messy beast. This means that if it's a crash that occurs on exit, or happens rarely enough in an unimportant part of an App - I'll ignore it, upgrade to later CVSed versions of TCL as they come - and cross my fingers. I feel guilty that this isn't helpful as far as progressing the stability of TCL. I've noticed however that some other programs.. MS Internet Explorer and Mozilla for example, have some sort of monitoring process that detects a crash and offers to automatically collate some relevant information and post it back for use by developers. Could something like this be developed as a package for TCL? What would be involved? ---- [category tutorial]