Ahk_h freezes when trying to launch a new Thread on w10 Home 1903 Topic is solved

[kyuuuri]

Hello, that's the hard part. You and I won't be able to reproduce the exact same issue but I have around 15 users having this problem right now. When calling ahkThread() all of them get stuck on this line:
obj:={(""):lib:=MemoryLoadLibrary(dll=""?&ahkdll:dll="FC2328B39C194A4788051A3B01B1E7D5"?&ahkmini:dll),base:base}
Is there any flag or any thing I can change on ahk's source code to "debug" MemoryLoadLibrary function?
I know Microsoft has been messing a lot with LoadLibrary and LoadResource functions on the last updates. I found a bug which I reported and a Microsoft's engineer confirmed but still they didn't fix it. Maybe it's something related to that.

[kyuuuri]

It was caused by a sound enhancement software called: Nahimic https://www.nahimic.com/
@HotKeyIt spent hours on this so we should all thank him for this!.

Apparently this software is preinstalled on dell machines with msi motherboards and one of its components (Alienware Sound Center) messes with ahk's .exe.

We spent a lot of time trying to uninstall it but it's harder than removing a malware. The only workaround that worked was disabling Nahimic's service and stopping it.

[guest3456]

It was caused by a sound enhancement software called: Nahimic https://www.nahimic.com/
@HotKeyIt spent hours on this so we should all thank him for this!.

Apparently this software is preinstalled on dell machines with msi motherboards and one of its components (Alienware Sound Center) messes with ahk's .exe.

We spent a lot of time trying to uninstall it but it's harder than removing a malware. The only workaround that worked was disabling Nahimic's service and stopping it.

"messes with ahk's exe"? but you were trying to create a new thread with the dll... what does the exe have to do with it?

maybe this was part of the problem from this other thread too:
https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=64377

[swagfag]

doesnt really explain what the problem was. what about this software was causing ahk_h to fail?
also, what are these LoadLibrary bugs ure talking about?

[HotKeyIt]

"messes with ahk's exe"? but you were trying to create a new thread with the dll... what does the exe have to do with it?

maybe this was part of the problem from this other thread too:
https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=64377

It seems that this nahimic software with some dell specific features injected some dlls into AutoHotkey process and was calling ahkfunction, most likely with incorrect parameters, which caused an access violation.
It may be well the same Problem in another thread.

also, what are these LoadLibrary bugs ure talking about?

This one was related to compiled exe using AutoHotkeySC.bin as base file and A_AhkDir. AutoHotkeySC.bin returns for A_AhkPath and A_AhkDir installed path of AutoHotkey and not the one for the process!

[kyuuuri]

doesnt really explain what the problem was. what about this software was causing ahk_h to fail?
also, what are these LoadLibrary bugs ure talking about?

It was caused by a sound enhancement software called: Nahimic https://www.nahimic.com/
@HotKeyIt spent hours on this so we should all thank him for this!.

Apparently this software is preinstalled on dell machines with msi motherboards and one of its components (Alienware Sound Center) messes with ahk's .exe.

We spent a lot of time trying to uninstall it but it's harder than removing a malware. The only workaround that worked was disabling Nahimic's service and stopping it.

"messes with ahk's exe"? but you were trying to create a new thread with the dll... what does the exe have to do with it?

maybe this was part of the problem from this other thread too:
https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=64377

Hello, sorry I didn't want to say something wrong so I gave a brief explanation and let HotKeyIt give you the real explanation.

This "Nahimic" software injected some dlls into AutoHotkey process, the name was "Alienware Sound Center" which, if I'm not wrong, is part of it.
It's almost impossible to remove this software, everytime you do it gets reinstalled. We disabled automatic driver installation from windows, removed the driver, uninstalled Nahimic, reinstalled a new driver without it, deleted every registry key and file about Nahimic, and more but it got reinstalled after every reboot. So the only workaround was to stop the service and then disable it, after that you can remove a folder called "A-Volute" (or something like that) located in C:\ProgramData.

About the problem with the code HotKeyIt provided (the one that loads AutoHotkey.dll and doesn't use ahkThread) it was a mistake on the path. The users didn't have ahk installed and as HotKeyIt said the path returned was blank because of it. (only when compiled with AutoHotkeySC.bin).

This "Nahimic" thing comes preinstalled on pre assembled dell machines or dell laptops and on a lot of "gamer" computers with MSI components.

From what my users report they had problems with A LOT of programs because of it, not only AHK_H. They couldn't use an alternative to my software that was directly written in C++, neither another alternative written in C#. They had also processes being duplicated like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox that after disabling the service didn't show up anymore.

If you want my opinion, users that get a computer/laptop with pre-installed windows should ALWAYS reformat and reinstall windows, then install all the drivers they want.

@edit: if you do some google research you will find that A LOT of ppl complain about this Nahimic / Alienware Sound Center thing doing weird stuff like duplicating processes, draining a lot of CPU, crashing other apps, crashing games, etc.

[guest3456]

crazy stuff, sounds super annoying to debug as well