MenuBar entries are randomly garbled

The MenuBar text entries are sporadically garbled when we use our applet.
That is, in the context of running the applet, one can bring up what we
would call a "New Object Browser".

The MenuBar for this type of window might show:

     File Action Info Create Query Window Options
     View Help

The problem is stochastic, in the sense that there is roughly a 5%
chance that a window will come up with garbled MenuBar items. At first
glance, when the MenuBar items come up garbled, it appears they are just
random characters. More careful examination reveals these are text
values from menu choices in a sub menu, that is, there is the pulldown
menu off of the menubar, then both menuItems and menu's on that pull
down. The content of the menu off of the menubar's menu is the source
of the garbled text. Say a MenuBar entry of "File" has a menu entry "load"
and "finish". "finish" is a menu that has "save" and "save as" as
its emtries. the contents (save) of the "finish" menu will either replace "File"
if it is the same number of characters (as it is) or appear to be "AND"ed
with "File" if its is larger as "save as" is.

The problem does not appear to be cumulative. That is, the odds do not
appear to increase for getting garbled menus after creating some number
of New Object Browsers. Moreover, if one has created a New Object
Browser that displays garbled menus, creating a New Object Browser from
this one is no more likely to create one with garbled menus than if one
had started from a good one.

When a menu item is garbled, clicking on it has always revealed
sub-menu items with correct properties.


The problem arises both on Windows 95 and Windows 98. We have never
seen it on NT. The problem arises under various 1.2.2 JRE versions as
well as 1.3. We have seen the problem on machines with 64 MB of memory,
and on machines with 256 MB.

Turning off the JIT seems to reduce the chance of garbled menus.


richard.baxter@east 2000-11-28

I have sent newer examples to Stanley Ho and have explained the reason for the
large examples that have been supplied. I am awaiting feedback on those examples
and will strip them down further if needed. Please note also that Merwyn Welcome from developer support is also working on this problem and is in contact
with the ISV.