Overwriting previous address contents... oh no - not again!

[Darrel Taylor]

1) Does the problem only affect the 18F's? Can you compile a program for a 16F?

2) Do you have Office 365 installed on your computer?
Office 365 is known to cause this problem with the Microchip MPASM assembler.

[PerlNoerd]

Via Google Translate:
Very interesting, Darrel: Blink.pbp works for 16F88! It's only 18F that are affected by the problem.
Okay, here's a longer program (DisplayRouter.pbp) I have written that I Regularly inspect uploaded to my PIC18F45K22. It has now run for several months. Now it will not compile anymore ...
What is interresting is that I do not get exactly the same error message every time I compile it ...!




No, I do not have Office 365
But I have Office 2007 Home & Student + Access 2007 and Outlook 2010

The problem arose for me when I included this module: http://support.melabs.com/threads/79...ze-Version-3.0 and tested it in my own code.
Do not know if it may have been something going on ...

I also tried with MPLAB 8.9 8.88 8.92 and so on. Same problem.

It's like being hit by fate ...

- Jacob

[Darrel Taylor]

Very interesting, Darrel: Blink.pbp works for 16F88! It's only 18F that are affected by the problem.

Then here's what you will find ...

If you open the .LST file (after compiling for an 18F), and scroll down to the end of the code (just before the symbol table), you should see that the errors happen at the assembly language END statement.
This is AFTER all of PBP's code.
It will look something like this ...

Error[118]  : Overwriting previous address contents (0000)
Error[118]  : Overwriting previous address contents (0001)
Message[303]: Program word too large.  Truncated to core size. (002E1888)
Error[154]  : Each object file section must be contiguous (section .config_000000_3LINE.O)
Error[118]  : Overwriting previous address contents (0000)
Error[118]  : Overwriting previous address contents (0001)
                      00223         END

If you search the Microchip forums for ""Each object file section must be contiguous" you'll see that many people have had the problem.
I don't think anyone has ever isolated what actually causes it, but it appears that some programs install a new common file in the OS that breaks MPASM.

Office 365 seems to be one program that causes it, but there may be others.
It doesn't matter what you have in your code, and it was just coincidental that you used the CODE_SIZE module when you noticed the problem.

I'm sorry, but the only fix seems to be re-installing the OS, and being careful what you install, or checking MPASM after you install anything.
Please keep in mind that this is not a problem with PBP.

[mackrackit]

Hi Darrel,

Does the problem also show up with MPASMX ?

[PerlNoerd]

Hi Darrel

You are right about the .LST file. It looks approximately like this.

It is a sad problem. I certainly do not have the energy to re-install Windows 8 with all programs and settings. But I love PicBasic Pro and the little 8-bit PIC microcontrollers so I will not give up this time ...

Here is my solution to the problem, for those who may be interested:
I installed a Windows 7 x64 SP1 in VMware Player. It runs with Host-only network (a private network shared with the host). It does not download any updates to Windows. I install only PBP3, Microcode Studio Plus 5, MPLABX 2.0 and PICKit2 burning software.
And above all: I keep a working copy of the system I can use if the problem shows up there.

Now it runs fine there.

- Jacob

[Darrel Taylor]

Dave

Yes, the problem affects MPASMX too, which as I understand it is the same program as MPASMWIN but development continues with that version. MPASMWIN is now static.

Jacob

That's a great solution!
I will have to suggest that in the future. Thanks.