“My_project.exe has stopped working” error message

[ny2nj2mia]

Hello, I have written a program which takes in genome sequences and locates what are called Open Reading Frames (ORFs) in molecular genetics. The following is an example of what I am talking about:

If a portion of a genome has been sequenced (e.g. 5'-ATCTAAAATGGGTGCC-3'), ORFs can be located by examining each of the three possible reading frames on each strand. In this sequence two out of three possible reading frames are entirely open, meaning that they do not contain a stop codon:
1. ...A TCT AAA ATG GGT GCC...
2. ...AT CTA AAA TGG GTG CC...
3. ...ATC TAA AAT GGG TGC C...
Possible stop codons in DNA are "TGA", "TAA" and "TAG". Thus, the last reading frame in this example contains a stop codon (TAA), unlike the first two.

My program is long but it’s mainly a single block of code repeated six times. I have tested my program using dummy genome sequences with known ORFs. For example, the following is a dummy sequence:

Locus_1_Transcript_1/1_Confidence_1.000_Length_1000 (this is just the name of the sequence)
gbbbbbbbabTGGbTADbAAATTbAATbTAkTAD

and the following are the results after running my program:

Locus_1_Transcript_1/1_Confidence_1.000_Length_1000
5'-DATkATbTAAbTTAA-3' Length: 15

The point is my program works exactly as I intend it to when I input a dummy file. However, when I input an actual genome sequence (which has the same format and everything as my dummy files) I get the error message:

My_project.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

The only difference between my dummy files and the actual files is that the actual files are VERY large (very large sequences and a great number of them).

My question is why could this be happening?

I have noticed something which could be a clue. When I take an actual genome sequence, and cut the file short so that there is only one sequence of about the same size as the example above, AND I run my program, the output sequence sometimes contains strange characters such as:

Ý°´¿««”

My computer has also been acting up lately, and many programs (such as internet explorer) will give me similar error messages. This could also be a factor.

[Disch]

You might be allocating too much memory to handle. Are you trying to load the entire file and process it all in one go? Or are you breaking it up into blocks?

It's difficult to say what the problem is without seeing any code.