ProScan: Proscan Warning

[ProScan]

The auto delete got enabled by itself because i always had all the files from when i first began using it.

We're talking about the 'Recording Auto Delete' option. correct? The default is 30 days. If you changed it to Off then it should stay at Off. Nothing in the code would change it to another value. I would monitor that. I've heard of other options changing by itself. One example is the 'Resume Scan/Search' option. When I implemented that, I had maybe 8 to 10 complaints in a year saying it got changed by itself. I added a 'Are You Sure' prompt and all the complaints went down to about 2 to 3 in about 5 years.

i don't remember looking at the recorder button but it stopped recording in the middle of the night while i was sleeping and i found out it had just done a update

I'm still unclear on this. I'm not sure if this an audio problem only or a control problem only or both. You probably have the 'Check For Newest Version' Off. so we'll never know. ProScan doesn't update by itself. A prompt will pop-up advising of an update. It takes user intervention to do the actual updating. Maybe the prompt is causing the recorder not to record. I wait for someone to send me a Bug Report on that so I can devote time to it to see what's going on.

 

[RMason]

At least i know i can get calls from broadcastify now. I wish the archives would only have the call audio and not all the dead space in between.

You can use Audacity to remove the dead space. To trim silence, highlight the recorded track, select "Effects" on the Toolbar and select "Truncate Silence".

Audacity ® | Free Audio editor, recorder, music making and more!

Audacity is the world's most popular audio editing and recording app. Edit, mix, and enhance your audio tracks with the power of Audacity. Download now!

www.audacityteam.org

 

[a727469]

I brought it up because i thought others should be aware that my settings appear to have got changed without me changing them. I would have never changed it to auto delete after only 30 days. I have lots of space on the drive it is installed on. Is there a reason you think it should be hidden from the public. I also found out that the radioreference archives are not perfect. There are different time periods that have the exact same file and file name when you click to download them. Maybe i shouldn't report that

I certainly do not disagree with the fact you have a problem with Proscan or your computer. My question was why it was not initially handled directly and then if not satisfied, bring it here for input rather than using a title of “Proscan warning” And, no, I do not think it should be “hidden from the public” but. I try to handle issues in logical order..I see you said you put in a bug report, but if you did not get an answer, you could contact the Proscan owner with a private message in these forums.

Sorry for the somewhat off topic, but having run a small business myself, I would want an issue brought to my attention before my customer took it to social media.
Back to the topic, I have many years of desktop computer engineering background, I have had a few cases of strange data and file changes or deletions where I said at the time were impossible but later found that I had either missed or moved something. I do not ever recall a program deleting something without my missing a setting or doing something unrelated to the program. I am not saying it does not happen but it would be rare. If I were near you, I would be happy to take a look.
I wish you luck finding an answer since I do know how frustrating it can be.😵‍💫

 

[JNE]

That doesn't make sense.


The last update was 7/24/24, Over 3 months ago. You're bringing it up just now?

I have many many thousands of users using ProScan and an average of 90 people using the fully functional demo/trial and I never heard of this kind of problem before, I think you're trolling. Why didn't you submit a Bug Report and receive the 750.00 USD Bug Finder Rewards?

Interesting, do we have full access on tearing apart the application?

 

[seagravebuff60]

It's astonishing to see how many people don't know how to operate a computer correctly or back up their files.

I have been running up to eight instances of ProScan on my main computer 24/7/365 for about 6-8 years and have accumulated a healthy amount of audio files over the years backed up on my NAS and offsite backups. I also have a script to copy the files automatically, which runs simultaneously. I never had a problem with ProScan "changing a setting by itself," specifically when recording audio. The only time it stopped recording audio was when I manualy told Proscan to stop recording audio. Something sounds fishy here.

When transferring to a bigger-capacity NAS a few years ago, I accidentally reformatted one of my NAS drives. It wiped three years' worth of audio, but I was able to recover about 95% of the data. But that is neither here nor there.

I can't stress enough the importance of good backups; they have saved me many times.

 

[a727469]

Interesting, do we have full access on tearing apart the application?

Just curious, but what does that mean to tear apart the app and how does that apply to the problem?

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Just curious, but what does that mean to tear apart the app and how does that apply to the problem?

A product teardown is a process that examines an app's design, features, and functionality. This includes reviewing the user interface, user experience, underlying code, and overall architecture.

 

[a727469]

Thanks!,
I was familiar with a product teardown which has much broader meaning. This is one definition:

1. What is the company’s mission?
2. What is the product/feature & its key offerings?
3. Who is the customer/user (User Persona)?
4. What is the problem the product is solving?
5. What is the “Aha” moment for the user?
6. What are the three important key metrics
7. What is the onboarding experience like (The Good/ The Bad)?
8. What improvement would you suggest and why?

but he used a different choice of words by tearing apart the app(may I assume reverse engineering) and especially how this would apply to the Op’s issue. I realize I am nitpicking, but I hate to see a excellent app be maligned without reason.
And since there were many suggestions as to possible solutions, and we have not heard from the OP since Wednesday, I will consider the issue closed.

 

[ProScan]

I went to look for a police call from August and man was i not happy to see almost all of my past calls gone. The program changed itself to self delete after 30 days so i lost at least a year of calls which i never wanted to lose. I am very upset one of the updates must have changed it to self delete because it was critical in a case where i wanted to save all calls that i could. It is not the first time Proscan has let me down. I wish i had a better option. I tried windows file recovery and it didn't recover the folders i needed.

Probably a mute issue by now, but looking at the option 'Recordings Auto Delete'. I changed the default from 30 days to Off. While I was at it, I changed the History 'Grid Auto Delete' & FTO 'Grid Auto Delete' default to Off.
I don't know what happened in this case. The option doesn't change by itself unless using the defaults such as when the ProScan.cfg file (config) is not found or the ProScan.cfg file is corrupted. The ProScan.cfg file was found in this case since you said in a later post that the scanner type was already set to SDS200

 

[weyforthr]

Someone/Anyone: I lost my files...

Me: Where is your latest known good backup?

Always Them: What backup?

Me: Well, more than likely, you're screwed...

 

[Pongagt]

Did you know there is a little box on each recording line that saves the file beyond the program set auto-delete?

I had no clue but then i guess i would have to click on each line and most of the time i don't listen to the scanner. If someone tells me the police were at the building i live in i look up the call for them so i can tell them what it was for. Unfortunately someone told me about a call that was too long ago and it was directed at me. It was self deleted by the time he told me about it.

 

[Pongagt]

Someone/Anyone: I lost my files...

Me: Where is your latest known good backup?

Always Them: What backup?

Me: Well, more than likely, you're screwed...

If the setting did not get changed and if Proscan wasn't programmed to write over previous files i would not have lost the files. I do back up my operating systems drives on my many computers from time to time but don't expect a program to delete files when it was set not to delete them. I have some of the best NVME drives in my computers and i know solid state drives can die anytime without warning. I guess i will have to get software to back up the proscan directory daily in case this happens again.

 

[Pongagt]

We're talking about the 'Recording Auto Delete' option. correct? The default is 30 days. If you changed it to Off then it should stay at Off. Nothing in the code would change it to another value. I would monitor that. I've heard of other options changing by itself. One example is the 'Resume Scan/Search' option. When I implemented that, I had maybe 8 to 10 complaints in a year saying it got changed by itself. I added a 'Are You Sure' prompt and all the complaints went down to about 2 to 3 in about 5 years.


I'm still unclear on this. I'm not sure if this an audio problem only or a control problem only or both. You probably have the 'Check For Newest Version' Off. so we'll never know. ProScan doesn't update by itself. A prompt will pop-up advising of an update. It takes user intervention to do the actual updating. Maybe the prompt is causing the recorder not to record. I wait for someone to send me a Bug Report on that so I can devote time to it to see what's going on.

Thank You very much for the response. I know you are right about the prompt for the update so i found that very strange myself. I think the prompt was on the screen the following day but it seems like just a fluke so if it happens again i will send you anything you want. I had all the files in the directory since i installed proscan and all of a sudden most were gone. I tried multiple recovery programs but that didn't even come close to finding files from August because even files after that were overwritten. I have tons of space on my 1Tb boot drive so i don't know why anything had to be over written in the first place. I don't know if proscan has anything to do with that.

 

[Hit_Factor]

... I don't know if proscan has anything to do with that.

Not likely, the OS handles the writing to disk. It's not really overwriting, the sectors on the disk were available so they were used. I think of overwriting as a task with a purpose from a security point of view.

The trim function of the drive may also lessen chances of recovery.

You might be able to change the title of the thread, it's misleading. Perhaps "Warning: use backup software"

 

[weyforthr]

I guess i will have to get software to back up the proscan directory daily in case this happens again.

Good for you, lesson learned, and make sure your backup is "known good" and in a safe and secure location, if it is important to you.

 

[seagravebuff60]

I guess i will have to get software to back up the proscan directory daily in case this happens again.

I have the entire ProScan directory backed up every 3 Hours. Audio files are instantly backed up.

 

[Pongagt]

Not likely, the OS handles the writing to disk. It's not really overwriting, the sectors on the disk were available so they were used. I think of overwriting as a task with a purpose from a security point of view.

The trim function of the drive may also lessen chances of recovery.

You might be able to change the title of the thread, it's misleading. Perhaps "Warning: use backup software"

Oh but my drive did not fail and i only lost files because something changed my settings and it surely wasn't me. My laptop is running just fine and i have a back up but it was from before i needed the files from. When i ran Recuva it showed files that it said were overwritten. Maybe i should disable my TRIM which unfortunately is enabled.

 

[Pongagt]

I have the entire ProScan directory backed up every 3 Hours. Audio files are instantly backed up.

That is awesome. What software do you use. I'm going to set that up. I wish you had Amherst PD.

 

[Ubbe]

You can use a batch file to perform a backup. My demo copy of ProScan have stopped working many moons ago but this file I made seems to work as it should. The folder where ProScan are installed might be different on your computer so you probably need to edit that as well where the backup folder should be. The @Echo are just a beep sound and cannot be copied from here and might create an error if not deleted but I have the file on google drive.

ProScan_Backup.bat

drive.google.com

@Echo OFF
@Echo Backup of only new recorded files from ProScan to a new location each hour
@Echo You can abort operation at any time by Ctrl+C
timeout /T 10 >nul
REM
:1
REM Set all accessible files to attribute A and leave those that are in use
@Echo
ATTRIB +A "C:\Program Files (x86)\ProScan\Recordings\*.*" /S /D
REM Copy only files that are set with attribute A and at a later date than in the backup folder
XCOPY "C:\Program Files (x86)\ProScan\Recordings\*.*" D:\ProScan_Backup\*.* /A /D /S /Y
@Echo
@Echo **** Done copying files ****
REM wait for one hour, 360 seconds and then copy any new files created
timeout /T 360 /NOBREAK
goto 1


/Ubbe

 

[slicerwizard]

Oh but my drive did not fail and i only lost files because something changed my settings and it surely wasn't me. My laptop is running just fine and i have a back up but it was from before i needed the files from. When i ran Recuva it showed files that it said were overwritten. Maybe i should disable my TRIM which unfortunately is enabled.

For someone who claims to be proficient with computers, you seem to be anything but.

a) Your laptop can go from "running just fine" to FUBAR at any time. It happens. Your laptop is not magically immune to reality. Back up important data frequently. If you don't and you lose it, it's YOUR fault. End of story. Same goes for whatever's on your phone - photos, communications, yadda yadda.

b) Deleted files get overwritten. It's how computers have always worked. Blaming any particular program for that overwriting is ridiculous. Programs don't decide what parts of a drive they're going to write to - that's the OS's job.