FAQ 628: ControlDesk Crashes when (Automatically) Loading a Project/Experiment

Question

How can a deadlock be resolved when ControlDesk crashes while trying to open a corrupted experiment with the “Automatically load the most recently used experiment during startup” option enabled?

Solution

This issue is typically caused by a corrupted experiment, often due to missing files referenced in the project, which causes ControlDesk to crash.
To verify this, it is recommended to check the log file using another dSPACE tool, for example, the Firmware Manager.
Open the Firmware Manager and navigate to:
View → dSPACE Log
Search for the latest ControlDesk log entries to identify the cause of the crash.

The typical error message indicating a corrupt experiment is:

Some files which belong to the variable description 'MyProject.sdf' do not 
exist. See details for missing files. Therefore, the experiment is corrupt, 
which leads to unexpected behaviour. As a result ControlDesk will exit now 
and start the dSPACE Installation Manager.

In the following log entries, you can see exactly which files are missing.

How to repair the project:

As indicated by the error message above, an inconsistent experiment cannot be loaded. Therefore, you should try to repair it by adding the missing files to restore project consistency.

If you are using a version control system such as SVN or Git, try loading a version that includes all required files.
To see all dependencies of a ControlDesk project, refer to the corresponding FAQ (see Related FAQs).

How to break the deadlock (if the project cannot be repaired):

In the dSPACE log file, you can see the paths of the files that could not be found.
Navigate to the project folder and rename, move, or delete it.
With this modification, ControlDesk can be started successfully.
Since ControlDesk cannot open a project that it cannot find, it will no longer crash during startup.

If you want to disable the “Automatically load the most recently used experiment during startup” option, in ControlDesk navigate to:
File → Options → Project
and deselect this option: