Hung compile, orphan processes with Arduino 11,12

Howdy folks,

the Arduino IDE is flawless on my work comp, but takes a big dump on my personal Laptop. XP Pro SP3 updated daily on both, but the work mo-sheen is Intel and the LT is AMD64.

My LT is stripped down for field service, so there is way less installed than on most mosheens. The symptoms I will describe are constant before and after:
(1) de-installing most of the programs that spawn a process at startup, like my zipfile manager.
(2) disabling networking, wireless, and Norton AV.
(3) running the registry cleaner, then "repairing" and re-updating the OS.
(4) updating java. Yep, I spent ALL day on this.

Arduino 0011 was originally resident, and seemed to work fine, then I unzipped 0012 and all hell broke loose. Neither 0011 or 0012 would compile. BTW, they co-exist without problems on my work comp! On the LT, both have subsequently been deleted, and only a fresh copy of 0012 copied back (I had an unzipped copy on my thumb). Restarts between every operation. Did I mention I spent ALL DAY on this?

So the symptoms... hopefully this will ring a bell for someone!

(1)Infinitely hung compilation (lower left sez "compiling...") of any sketch, even examples/digital IO/blink. Window goes dead, won't minimize or refresh image after another window overlays. Task manager reports app Arduino 001x "running" but no action, even for a half hour while I took lunch.
(2) Shutting down app from TM brings an OS error window "non-responsive program javaw.exe" send error report? etc. I say "send". Keep those folks busy, I say.
(3) Restarting the OS brings another pair of OS messages about two more unresponsive console apps, the path for which don't fit on the header (thanks MS) but definitely belong to Arduino.
(4) Trying to delete the Arduino IDE folder between (2) and (3) rats out one of the offending processes, as the OS reports "can't delete as.exe, read only or in use..." bla bla bla. Careful examination of the active processes (using the TM) during several experiments (each after a fresh re-start and a single attempted compile of blink!) reveals that the base number of processes goes up by an average of 3 from before compiling (and hang) and after, and that sometimes the three are 2 copies of as.exe of different sizes plus a copy of Avr-g++.exe, and sometimes a SINGLE copy of as, and TWO copies of Avr-g++ ( of the same size). Great. So, I assume Avr-g++ is the other mystery console app from (3).

Well. Any suggestions, before I nuke my HD and start over from scratch? BTW, no other copies of Avr-g++ on my LT... no AVR Studio installed, or anything... but exhaustive search of the HD shows like 12 copies of javaw.exe and 5 of as.exe, belonging to various players.

Enough data? I HAVE MORE. Pro engineer at his wit's end!

Cheers, and thanks for reading this far, folks...
-r

I wonder if the hang is inside the avr-gcc toolchain or in the way it is being called from Java (Arduino)?

What if you try compiling something from the command line using avr-gcc?

Good question!

I was trying everything I could think of outside of the IDE Black Box, but of course binary search works best... look at the system from middle and test each end, it's a classic, for a reason. Your IDE really IS a black box to me, I'm an electronics guy more than a programmer, especially these days, but hey! Good to know how your tools are put together... Time to get under the hood, I guess.

Since I haven't compiled from a command line in 15 yrs, and never from the gcc command line, I'll have to do some research before I can try. I'll go figure it out, and reply again when I've given it a whack...

Cheers,
-r

Just try running avr-gcc from the command line. It's in the hardware/tools/avr/bin sub-directory of the Arduino application directory (I think). Even if you don't give it a real .c file, it will be interesting to see if it even runs. Then, if that works, you can try mimicking the Arduino compilation process. Just set build.verbose to true in your Arduino preferences file to see what command lines it is using.