Does anyone else have a problem with their SmartSDR trying to have too many slices?

Roy Laufer

Hello,

I have noticed that sometimes my SmartSDR becomes somewhat unresponsive (something like tweaking the AGC setting no longer works).  I quit SmartSDR and restart it only to watch as SmartSDR opens up my previously open 4 slices, but then it opens a 5th and then a 6th, and then an 7th, and then an 8th, and then a 9th! Unfortunately, this does not mean that to have a mutant 6700 with 9 slices.  When SmartSDR attempts to grab a 9th slice the program crashes and shuts down.  Starting it up usually produces the same problem, so that I took to just parking my cursor at the 5th slice's close button and repeatedly closing any more than 4 slices.  I lost count with how many slices SmartSDR tried to open up, but often it would be too fast for me and before I had a chance I had 8 slices on screen and it was summoning a 9th before it once again crashed!

If I repeatedly close slices until it crashes, it eventually rights itself.  If I shut the 6700 down and restart it, it rights itself, but there has to be a better solution.

Is anyone else aware of this little quirk?

Thanks!

Roy, AC2GS

DH2ID

Hi Roy, my 6500 sometimes starts with a lot of slices, but as I recall one of my profiles every time I start anew, it doesn't matter. Sometimes I reset my 6500 by holding the power button down for more than 5 seconds and reload my profiles. This seems to help. Vy 73, Alex DH2ID

Tim - W4TME

We have done some work on this in SmartSDR v1.4 so persistence doesn't get confused and try to recreate more slices than were initially defined.  So I think this issue is probably fixed unless there were some edge cases we missed in testing.

WA2SQQ

I've noted some inconsistent behavior at start-up, where sometimes it opens w/o any slices open. Since we know that there are bugs, I'm not over concerned and the instability is not preventing me from using the radio. Been hearing a lot of feedback from Orlando Hamfest that 1.4 may not be so close to a release. Hope this was more of an pessimist's opinion than an accurate observation.

Bill W2PKY

The part about the unresponsive window and buttons not working are familiar to me when I tried to use the Surface Pro 2 and 3 computers. Occasionally, the integrated GPU on the I5 4300 would loose track of the radio window. Holding the left mouse button on the top of the radio window and moving it around would restore the panadapter scan [in slow motion]  but not the buttons. The scan was slow because the GPU was not servicing that window. Are you using a separate video card? What is your computer hardware profile? Since moving to an I7 computer with separate vedio card the freezing widow has not happened.

The extra slices may be a separate issue.

Hope this helps.

 

Ken - NM9P

Great!  The worst offender for me in this issue, and many others, has always been 12 meters.  Why?  I don't know.  

I have saved the profile with only one slice on 12 meters, but whenever I switch to 12 meters from any other band, it opens three slices.  

I recently saved my "DXing" profile with a two-slice split.  Now then I close one of them, leave 20 meters, and return to 20 using the band buttons, it tries to open three slices.  Strange behavior that I didn't experience until a week or two ago.  I didn't report it because 1.4 was already in final stages of development and I figured I would wait 'till the 1.4 came out and see if it was fixed.  Sounds like it will be.  Thanks.

Roy Laufer

My desktop is reasonably sturdy.  It's  an ASUS Gryphon Z87 motherboard, with an i7-4771 CPU and an AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series video card.  Either it is a problem with SmartSDR or an unfortunate interaction between SmartSDR and either Windows 7 or some program running on my machine.  Microsoft makes it almost impossible to do any decent bug tracking on Windows (IMHO).

Roy, AC2GS

Bill W2PKY

Hi Roy-

Okay, your machine sounds powerful enough.

 I'm running  Win 7 Pro here with no issues.

Does this happen after transmitting?

Bill

Alan - KA4B

I can't help wondering if we switched to the Apple operating system (Yosemite) if many of the problems caused by Windows would go away.

Roy Laufer

I am using Windows 7 Pro for my OS too.  I doubt it is an RF induced problem.  I have used it solely to receive and walked away from it at night, only to find it partially locked up the next morning.

I think its SmartSDR and Windows 7 not getting along all the time, but **** if I know who is "the guilty party" <HI HI>!

Roy

Roy Laufer

In a perfect world we would all migrate to the most powerful, stable, user friendly OS around, but this ain't no perfect world, or else most of us would be using never written versions of BeOS or AmigaDOS.  We have relatively few OS's to choose from and usually, unless you are heavily in a graphic centric business, most software is invariably written for some form of Windows OS.

Like the saying goes "ya gotta dance with the girl ya brought", and chums, we've all brought our cousins <HI HI>!

Roy

N7AIG

I often dream of this too... but Apple and Microsoft are both going in the direction of maximum revenue streams and that doesn't include us. I often fantasize about having one of my old VME crates in charge again.

One of the best things about the Flex radios is that it uses an OS that we can all hack. And one of the worst things about the Flex radios is Windows.

73 de Dave, N7AIG

Bill W2PKY

Hi Roy-

Check your task scheduler to see if there are any CPU or Disk hogs scheduled over night. Sounds like SmartSDR is not getting service at some point. I had "Connection Lost" many times on the Surface, was due to tasks fired off by the O/S taking up CPU cycles.

Hope this helps;

Bill

Jay Nation

Just set aside some funds now, When someone acheives perfection you might want to switch to it. I doubt many Hams will, They seem sort of set in their ways. Till then try to adopt as many of the better ideas as you can. Best is pure fiction, it doesn't exist beyond a few nanoseconds. Better might last a bit longer. Worst is temporary too. I've always been inclined to just go with good until it starts to feel bad. If it feels good, do it!

Jay - NO5J

Paul

I have an older precision desktop (6+years old), I actualy ordered a new system yesterday. If I open too many slices my my system sometimes gets overwhelmed.

Bill W2PKY

The waterfall data can be overwhelming so I slow mine down to a crawl; Panadapter update about 1/2 way and up the averaging to 25% helps keep the Ethernet traffic down. open the Task Manager and go to Performance; Watch the Ethernet usage and vary the display controls.

Walt - KZ1F

Alan, what do you mean by 'we'?
Stu did an iPad version, I am doing a Linux and Android version. If you are a single vendor person (FRS) you are pretty much stuck with Windows. There is something to be said for buying SSDR from FRS, they support the software. Stu likely would fix bugs but isn't obligated to, ditto with me.

Walt - KZ1F

Bill, why do you say the Connection Lost is due to other tasks running in the OS? There are always other tasks running in the OS. Windows supports multiple processes running concurrently. It has for 20 years now? I ran fine for almost an entire year with no crash related problems. Just in the last few days I've had 3 Connection Lost issues with SSDR. The Panadapter band display, waterfall, and metering are all UDP based which means lost packets are expected and acceptable so, worst case, you'll lose some precision in the graphic displays. Even TCP for commands and control has very tried and true algorithms for backoff when there is congestion and slowness.

Alan - KA4B

Walt, I was trying to say was that I am curious if Flex were to use the Apple operating system whether would be fewer problems.  I believe that using Windows complicates things.  If someone were to create an Apple interface to the Flex 6500 I would definitely be in the market.  I do not like Windows and I do not like running Parallels

James Whiteway

I think in time you won't have to run Parallels to use your radio with iOS. I'm betting there are people developing apps that will run natively in iOS that will work with the 6000 Series. But, at the same time, using an Apple OS won't guarantee you won't have issues. The internal software/firmware of the 6000 Series is running on a modded Linux OS, which might make it seem that iOS would be a better fit. But, I doubt that would be the case. Plus, there are much more Windows based systems out there than IOS. So, Flex is playing to the bigger market. But, with the api's open to outside developers, other platforms can be supported.
The next version of Visual Studio will support Windows, iOS, and Android. So, conceivably, a developer could target a huge device base while developing in a single environment. Even Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition has that ability with add-on's.
    There are even free development software that targets C# in Linux. So, the ability is there. It depends entirely on developers and if they see a market for their products.  Once Flex Radio gets the major kinks out of the software on the radio, then the client side software like SmartSDR, (and others) will become much better and more stable. After all, SmartSDR is just an external interface to the radio. And that interface can be on almost any platform with the right tools. Limiting the software to just iOS or Windows would not be a good thing. I think Flex did the right thing in making the Flexlib api's available to outside developers. And in time, IF there is a market for software for other platforms, it will show up.
just my .02
james
WD5GWY