Problems with Truecrypt

[charlesf]

Anyone else having any problems with TrueCrypt volumes when using Process Lasso?

Regards,
Charles

[Jeremy Collake]

I personally use a TrueCrypt volume here on my primary development machine (Vista x32) and have had no problems. I don't know what problem may be investigating, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that its probably not Process Lasso's fault.. If your investigation discovers this to not be true, please let me know.

I can't imagine a scenario where there is interference. In the past, users have thought Process Lasso may have caused this or that problem, only to discover that it wasn't the culprit. Process Lasso really makes every effort to interfere with other applications as little as possible. There just isn't much that can go wrong (famous last words, lol)...

[charlesf]

I personally use a TrueCrypt volume here on my primary development machine (Vista x32) and have had no problems. I don't know what problem may be investigating, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that its probably not Process Lasso's fault.. If your investigation discovers this to not be true, please let me know.

I can't imagine a scenario where there is interference. In the past, users have thought Process Lasso may have caused this or that problem, only to discover that it wasn't the culprit. Process Lasso really makes every effort to interfere with other applications as little as possible. There just isn't much that can go wrong (famous last words, lol)...

My TrueCrypt volumes are configured as removable media and reside on external USB drives (Seagate FreeAgent). Soon after I installed Process Lasso for the first time (v3.05 Beta), Windows started reporting problems with the disk cache for these volumes. Problems disappeared when I shut down Process Lasso.

I just tried this again. Same problem (and solution).

I suppose I could test this by excluding TrueCrypt related process from Process Lasso; or I could install the new version I just downloaded from MajorGeeks.

Regards
Charles

Regards,
Charles

[Jeremy Collake]

Hmm.. interesting. I am still skeptical Process Lasso has anything to do with the troubles. I hope you discover that the problem happens even without Process Lasso installed ;o.

My reasoning is that Process Lasso really doesn't make any big changes to the operating system or processes. In fact, in its default state, the only change it EVER makes is to occasionally lower the priority of some background processes when they are excessively active. Lowering a process's priority a little should never affect functionality. In a *worst* case scenario it could slow the process down if some other process was very active and took precedence (for instance, some foreground application you're using). Furthermore, ALL system services are excluded from restraint, so Process Lasso in its default state never touches them.

Further, it doesn't do anything funky with the system virtual memory. It doesn't do any trimming/paging out, cache clearing, or anything else .. nor does it have any kernel mode component that could accidentally corrupt the memory of another process. So, it really can't mess anything up.

On the flip side.. the only scenario I can imagine where there would be interference is if somehow TrueCrypt and/or explorer is very sensitive to priority changes (very unlikely) when performing some sort of operations on these removable disks.  Also, maybe having it installed pushed you over some threshold in RAM use, so that now you see a problem you didn't before.. but that would then be true of installing any new application, and certainly not a fault of Process Lasso.

In your case, I'm curious if Process Lasso is ever taking action on TrueCrypt, or if you have made any other configuration changes to Process Lasso with relation to the TrueCrypt process(es). Is Process Lasso taking any actions during the period in which you see the troubles? If you made some configuration changes, you should definitely try reverting to the default config.. and please let me know what changes you had made.

Thanks for your feedback.

[charlesf]

Jeremy,

Thanks for your response.

On the flip side.. the only scenario I can imagine where there would be interference is if somehow TrueCrypt and/or explorer is very sensitive to priority changes (very unlikely) when performing some sort of operations on these removable disks.  Also, maybe having it installed pushed you over some threshold in RAM use, so that now you see a problem you didn't before.. but that would then be true of installing any new application, and certainly not a fault of Process Lasso.

I don't think RAM is the issue here.

In your case, I'm curious if Process Lasso is ever taking action on TrueCrypt, or if you have made any other configuration changes to Process Lasso with relation to the TrueCrypt process(es). Is Process Lasso taking any actions during the period in which you see the troubles? If you made some configuration changes, you should definitely try reverting to the default config.. and please let me know what changes you had made.

I'll continue my tests with the new 3.06 release.

Incidentally, is there any chance that PL and other monitoring tools such as Sysinternal's Process Explorer, System Explorer or Daphne would NOT play well together? I have been running both Daphne and System Explorer for some time (uneventfully).

[charlesf]

Jeremy,

I uninstalled Daphne and installed v3.06.3. Soon after, when I was renaming some files on a TrueCrypt volume using Total Commander, I got an XP blue screen. I think the previous problems also happened when I was working with files on a TrueCypt volume using Total Commander. 

Now I'm thinking that the problem relates to Process LAsso and Total Commander (and perhaps TrueCypt). What are your thoughts?

I've excluded Total Commander from PL to see what happens.

Regards,
Charles

[Jeremy Collake]

Now I'm thinking that the problem relates to Process LAsso and Total Commander (and perhaps TrueCypt). What are your thoughts?

I still am stretching my imagination envisioning a scenario where Process Lasso would interfere with the proper operation of any program. If you believe it is causing problems, I think you should uninstall Process Lasso for a decent period of time to verify that the problem doesn't occur without Process Lasso installed. That's the only thing I know to suggest in this case.

[charlesf]

I still am stretching my imagination envisioning a scenario where Process Lasso would interfere with the proper operation of any program. If you believe it is causing problems, I think you should uninstall Process Lasso for a decent period of time to verify that the problem doesn't occur without Process Lasso installed. That's the only thing I know to suggest in this case.

With Total Commander excluded in PL I've had no problems so far. One thing I should add is that my TrueCrypt volumes are on Seagate FreeAgentPro external drives which  go into sleep mode when they haven't been "used" for a while.

Before I exlcuded TC from PL, the problems seemed to occur when a Total Commander operation was waiting for the drives to wake up.

Regards,
Charles