LabVIEW Crash DAbort in image.cpp or drawmgr.cpp

Issue Details

• My LabVIEW program has been crashing with errors in image.cpp or drawmgr.cpp, this happens during edit-time, run-time and startup.
• I am running a stand-alone LabVIEW executable through a cRIO-9034 and it has been crashing with an error in drawmgr.cpp.
• My LabVIEW application crashes inconsistently with error DAbort 0x9B027400 in drawmgr.cpp, I have noticed in Windows Taks Manager that the number of GDI Objects used by LabVIEW approaches 10,000.

Solution

Each Windows process, including LabVIEW.exe is limited by Windows to 10,000 GDI objects. Requests for more GDI objects cause LabVIEW to crash with an DAbort in image.cpp or drawmgr.cpp error message. To solve this error follow the next suggestions

• Try reducing the total amount of GDI objects used by LabVIEW to avoid hitting the Windows Process Limit. The following are some ways to reduce this number:
  • Try reducing the amount of front panel objects.
  • If your GDI objects increase over time when running a VI, check for recursive elements within your VI that could be repeatedly rendering objects on the front panel. You can track your GDI object usage in the Windows Task Manager (see Additional Information section).
  • Remove unnecessary libraries from your <LabVIEW>\user.lib directory. LabVIEW uses a GDI object for each palette image, so large numbers of palette VIs will contribute to this crash.
  • Change the palette loading setting to load palettes only when needed, for this:
    1. In any LabVIEW window go to the top tool bar and navigate to Tools»Options... 
    2. This should open the options window. Navigate to Controls/Functions Palette.
    3. At the top there should be options for loading, select Load palettes when needed to try mitigate crashing.

• Change the limit of GDI object handles. A method for increasing the number of GDI objects in Windows (after 2000) is described in MSDN:GDI Objects (Windows).
• If you are using a LabVIEW version older than LabVIEW 2020 consider upgrading LabVIEW to at least version 2020, some changes were made in that version to reduce the GDI objects usage LabVIEW uses.
• If you are continuously opening and closing a database in your VI, increase the amount of time before connecting to the database by collecting more data to send.
• Install the latest video driver from the manufacturer. This will generally fix the memory leaks that lead to GDI overflow.
• Rebooting your cRIO (or other hardware used) may provide a temporary solution but please follow the steps detailed above to prevent the issue from arising again.

Additional Information

GDI (Graphics Device Interface) objects are a fixed Windows resource responsible for representing graphical objects. Each GDI object is private to a process, meaning only the process that created the GDI object can use the object handle. You can use the use Windows Task Manager to monitor the GDI usage for the LabVIEW application. For Windows 10, GDI values are not shown by default. You need to go to Details tab and then Right click on the Name Colum and Select Columns, finally mark the GDI Objects checkbox.