ScannerCast: .NET Exception every morning at 3am. Any ideas?

[PeterGV]

@charlesdotcc ... Sending silence would be awesome, but it's rather complicated technically, due to the variety of encoding rates (plus stereo/mono) available. I suppose that with ScannerCast RR Edition, there are only two configurations (16Kbps mono and 32Kbps stereo) so I could embed a buffer of silence in the program.

Thanks for volunteering to test changes. I'll post something here when I have a test version ready. Don't get TOO anxious, though... we're probably a few weeks away from that point.

Hmmmm...

OK, I'm going to get working on this. Also, note that per this thread I was finally approved by GRE for access to the specs that allow me to retrieve tag info for their newer scanners. So, it's looking to be a summer of ScannerCast progress.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[charlesdotcc]

Oh ok, great, I'm sure the GRE tags will be an appreciated addition. Yup, just let me know when you've something you'd like me to try, now or later.

 

[charlesdotcc]

As a workaround in the mean time, does anybody know of any software that can watch a program and restart it if it gets an unhandled exception like this?

I played with this a little a few weeks ago and I found a program that would supposedly restart crashed programs, but it didn't catch the exception as a crash. I guess it might have to be something specifically written with support for .NET. Does anybody know of such a program?

-Charles

 

[PeterGV]

You shouldn't need anything .Net specific. Watching the application isn't about trying to detect/catch the exception... you just need to detect when the application stops running.

I have no idea if it works, but a quick check with Google shows this to be a promising little utility. The only thing I know about this utility or this like is what it says on the web page, so... use at your own risk.

Another alternative might be simply running ScannerCast from a command file that loops... again, that's something I haven't tried either.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[kb0nly]

I had all the above problems... Do yourself a favor, dump scannercast and get RadioFeed.

ProScan

Its free, doesnt have the skipping and resetting problem, and it does tags great also. Mine has been running non stop for about two months now without a SINGLE hickup due to the software, i had a few internet outages due to some repairs and stuff being done in town, it connected right back up as soon as the internet came back without any interaction from me, scannercast used to hang and die when the modem lease reset happened every morning on my cable modem. No more problems with RadioFeed!

 

[Bote]

I run both on the same machine because RadioFeed talks to my BC780. I will note that RadioFeed typically consumes 3 to 5 times the CPU percentage that ScannerCast does.

RadioFeed occupies about 12MB RAM and 72MB swap, while ScannerCast consumes about 56MB RAM and 72MB swap. I'm guessing both are built on .Net framework since that's the easiest, most popular way to develop these applications. They each have their strengths.

 

[blantonl]

I'm running an 8 feed appliance out of Washington DC and we run 8 instances of ScannerCast just fine. It is all running on a Mac Mini running Windows XP.

Every once in a while I do see these issues with a soundcard not resetting properly at the early morning reset with ScannerCast. I just simply reboot the PC from logmein and all is good.

However, in developing larger feed appliances I've found that it comes down to the ability of a USB hub to support multiple devices at the same time. I cannot remember the exact details, but we chose hubs that support a certain USB standard/protocol that allowed the soundcards to work better in high USB load environments. You will find that running 16 soundcards requires a hub that supports a special type of USB support.

BTW, we use the cheap USB thumb-drive size soundcards for the Washington DC appliance. So far, they have been working well for the past few years the feed appliance has been deployed.

 

[wv_mountaineer]

I had all the above problems... Do yourself a favor, dump scannercast and get RadioFeed.

ProScan

I am not knocking scannercast it is a great program, however I also had some issues with it trying to running a stereo feed (2 scanners at the same time). I switched over to RadioFeed and haven't had a problem at all. I have not even rebooted the computer that is running it for..... Well it's been about 4 months. I don't have the computer doing any updates of any programs at all. No windows updates and no anti-virus updates. Nothing at all. But the computer is dedicated to nothing else, just my live feed!

 

[ProScan]

I run both on the same machine because RadioFeed talks to my BC780. I will note that RadioFeed typically consumes 3 to 5 times the CPU percentage that ScannerCast does.

That's because you are running a scanner at 19.2 Kbps. The standard Microsoft .net serial control behaves that way. Run a scanner at 115.2 Kbps and see the difference.

 

[PeterGV]

You know... to each their own. Isn't it great to have a choice?

The in-memory footprint of ScanneCast is very different between the RR Edition and the Standard Edition (with the RR Edition being significantly smaller). When I wrote ScannerCast, I made the conscious descision to locate most of the audio acquisition and processing in DLLs, so that that code could be shared among multiple instnaces of ScannerCast. So, if you're supporting multiple scanners, the the audio processing code is only resident once and is shared by both instances.

But, you know, whatever. People should use whichever program they find most convenient at the moment. Switch back and forth as different solutions go through various phases of development. I'm good with that.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[PeterGV]

@Everyone:

If you're having the 3AM reset problem, and you'd like to try A TEST VERSION of ScannerCast for me, you can download this zip file which contains just a copy of ScannerCast.exe from my web site.

First... DO NOT DELETE the version of ScannerCast you're using now. Rename the copy of ScannerCast.exe that you're running now -- for example rename c:\ScannerCast\ScannerCast.exe to c:\ScannerCast\ScannerCast.Exe_old.

Then download the test version from the link above.

Unzip ScannerCast.exe from the archive, and put it in the directory from which you normally run ScannerCast (c:\ScannerCast is typical)... and run it.

This is a TEST version of the RR Version of ScannerCast, which does the following:

a) Has a new timeout during the audio reset

b) Performs the audio reset procedure ONCE EVERY MINUTE FOR TESTING PURPOSES.

c) Put an entry in the log file each time the audio is recycled, just like the regular version.

If you're having the 3AM reset problem (you get an exception between 3AM and 4AM every few days), I'd appreciate knowing if running this version of ScannerCast works for you.

You'll only need to run it a few minutes before you know if it works or not... Please let me know EITHER WAY. When you go back to your old version of ScannerCast, rename the test version to something like C:\ScannerCast\ScannerCast.exe_test -- If it's NOT working, I can give you a parameter in the .ini file to change to see if we can GET it working.

Post back here, or send me email, and let me know if this works for you.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[charlesdotcc]

I installed this test version and I don't remember exactly what time I started it unfortuneately, but it faulted after about 30 minutes.

-Charles

 

[PeterGV]

Thanks Charles!

It faulted in the usual way? With the same exception??

That's actually GOOD news. If ScannerCast normally dies on you every few days at 3AM or so, if it ran for 30 minutes (more or less) without dying, that means you went through 30 reset cycles before it died.

The next thing to try:

Stop whichever version of ScannerCast that you have running. Note: You MUST stop ScannerCast before this step. Then, edit ScannerCast.ini... you should find a line in the file -- probably the very last line -- that reads as follows:

TestAudioRecyclePause=100

Change the 100 to something larger... perhaps 150.

Save the changed version of ScannerCast.ini and verify that your change was successfully saved (type out the file or view it again in notepad or whatever).

THEN start the test version of ScannerCast again.

See how long it runs!

If that dies, you can try increasing the value to something higher yet again (200, for example).

If nothing works, well... that'll be interesting in itself.

Thanks for your efforts in helping make ScannerCast the best utility it can be. I definitely appreciate it.

Peter
K1PGV

 

[Medic37766]

Just to let you know, I have not had any problems with Scanner Cast for the past few weeks. I have not changed anything, the problem seemed to fix itself.