PCLapcounter hangup at start race

Hi,
At our racetrack we are using the latest version of PCLapcounter (4.47g).
We have a lot of hangups lately... then the PCLapcounter does not react anymore.
This hangup happens just after the countdown has ended... All startlights are out, but there is no power on the track... the race timer stops at 00:01 and stays there. PCLapcounter does not react anymore and only thing we can do is kill the application.
Is there a way we can collect logging or tracing so you can look into this problem?

Regards,
Danny

http://www.slotmanege.nl (sorry, website is in Dutch only)

It happens randomly or all the time ?

When you have the problem, close PCLC and make a copy of the racectrl.ini and send me the copy so i can check all your settings.
you can send the file at info@pclapcounter.be

Before you have installed version 4.47g you used the version 4.46e?

Edit : did you have a trackcall system, maybe the trackcall system send bad signal

Hi Guy,

It happens not all the time.
But it seems to happen more often the last weeks.
I will try to reproduce the defect, so I can better describe the problem... and in what situation it occures.

OK, next time it happens I will send you a copy of the racectrl.ini

I'm not sure which version we had before the update towards 4.47g ...
We did upgrade it towards 4.47e, but this introduced the bug that "PCLC does not end segments for a time limited race" ... And before that I thought we had a 4.45 version which worked fine.

Additional info:
We use the Phidget 8/8/8 for "lane power" (6 outputs) and lapcounting (6 inputs). For the startinglights we use the parallel port (LPT1).

regards,
Danny

ok, i forget to mention that there are other log files to copy which content many informations of the current race.
In the main directory of PCLC you will see many file beginning with "log" like here:



will be nice for me if can copy also copy these files.

thank for your help

thank you, i have received your log files (in fact i don't need the racectrl.ini file).
The race setting was:

Race Time limited of 03:27:40
6 Segment of 00:33:30
Intersegment of 00:01:20
Automatic lane rotation
Auto restart race after intersegment

I have do some check (i will more check this weekend) but actualy i don't see where is the problem and i can't reproduce it.
Regarding your explanation i was thinking it happend when you start a race but in fact, and regarding your logfile , it happend when you start the second segment and not at the race start.

I have some questions:
1) In the log file (log.rac) i see that the relay clock is at 00:00:01 and the race clock is at 02:20:40 for a long time but at a moment the race clock decrease but not the relay clock, did you have see that on the screen ?
2) Did you already had the problem when you start a race ?
3) You let PCLC restart the race automaticaly after the end of each intersegment and so PCLC start a countdown and when the countdown is finish all PCLC lights goes BLACK...but what about your external lights, all countdown lights is OFF ?
4) After the countdown did the lights window of PCLC is closed or the window is still there after lights goes BLACK ?

If you have more informations to give please don't hesitate to post here, maybe one of them can help me to reproduce the problem

Hi guy,

Thanx for looking into the logging so fast !

Yes, the time for each segment was 00:33:30... it was our practise run.

Quote :

Regarding your explanation i was thinking it happend when you start a race but in fact, and regarding your logfile , it happend when you start the second segment and not at the race start.

Yes you are right. In this case it happend after starting the second segment (in this case the start of first segment was OK).
But we also have encountered this problem at start of race (start of first segment).

Quote :

I have some questions:
1) In the log file (log.rac) i see that the relay clock is at 00:00:01 and the race clock is at 02:20:40 for a long time but at a moment the race clock decrease but not the relay clock, did you have see that on the screen ?

Yes, that is also what we have seen on the zoom-monitor: the relay clock stops at 00:00:01 and stays there. Nothing more is updated ater that: PCLC is not responding on anything.

Quote :

2) Did you already had the problem when you start a race ?

Yes, we also encountered this hangup at start of race (start of first segment).

Quote :

3) You let PCLC restart the race automaticaly after the end of each intersegment and so PCLC start a countdown and when the countdown is finish all PCLC lights goes BLACK...but what about your external lights, all countdown lights is OFF ?

For sure the PCLC lights go to BLACK, I'm sure about that. The external starting-lights (via LPT1) also went to BLACK I thought... but now I'm not completely sure about this... I will check this and let you know.

Quote :

4) After the countdown did the lights window of PCLC is closed or the window is still there after lights goes BLACK ?

Yes, the lights window of PCLC is closed (not visible anymore).

So when automatically (re-)starting the segment:
- Countdown starts: wav of countdown is played, and startinglights all go ON (external and PCLC lights)
- Countdown is finished: startinglights PCLC window is closed, external lights are also BLACK (will check again), time shows : 00:00:01 and stays there.
- Trackpower is not activated.
- all buttons of PCLC are greyed out, mouse icon shows hourglass.

To my opinion it could have something to do when PCLC want's to activate the trackpower via the Phidget8/8/8.
Could it have something to do with the Phidget.msi ?
When updating towards 4.47g we did not (re)install any Phidget.msi.
Should we? What version of Phidget.msi could we use best?

Thanx very much for looking into this ! We really appreciate this !

Yesterday i have simulated your race by using my Phidghet 8/8/8 and also starting lights on LPT1 and i didn't have any problems but i did not try with real cars crossing S/F line (i have a little program which send lap randomly to PCLC).

I think also there is something wrong with Phidget8/8/8,
when you install a new version of PCLC you don't need to re-install phidget.msi but maybe a (re)installation will solve the problem:

Here is the link to the good phidget.msi:
http://www.pclapcounter.be/Phidget21.msi

and the (re)installation procedure:
- be sure that PCLC is not running
- Unplugged Phidget 8/8/8
- uninstall phidget.msi
- Reboot your computer
- Install the good phidget.msi.
- Finish

Edit: just to know what's your PC configuration ? windows XP SP1 or SP2.....
https://pclapcounter.forumotion.com/pc-lap-counter-inquire-vote-f22/what-s-your-pc-configuration-t347.htm

Hi Guy,

We did (re)install the Phidget.msi as you had described in previous post.
This went well. And first impressions looked okay (we did several races).
But yesterday evening disaster struck again... we still have a "hangup".
I've send you the logging to your email adress.
Our PC is running on Windows XP SP2.

What happend is:
- Countdown starts: wav of countdown is played, and startinglights all go ON (external and PCLC lights)
- Countdown is finished: startinglights PCLC window is closed, external lights are also BLACK,
- Trackpower is not activated.
- Raceclock on Zoom window shows 03:29 (or something like that) and stays there.

regards,
Danny

I have checked the log file and see that in fact you use a trackcall system and i think the problem is there.
As you can see here : https://pclapcounter.forumotion.com/pc-lap-counter-race-setting-f2/race-pauses-for-no-reason-t414.htm bad signal from trackcall may cause strange behaviour.
I suggest you disconnect your trackcall system and see if PCLC hangup yet.

Hi Guy,

Thanx for the quick response !
Do you mean we have "checked" the "use trackcall" options in the options somewhere?
And is "unchecking" this option enough? I will check this.

We do not use any trackcall system. What is the purpose of such a trackcall system? what does it do?

Thanx for now,

regards,
Danny

The purpose of trackcall system is to place a button on the track , when you press the button then power go OFF (ie : accident on the track).
Maybe you set something in trackcall tab page in the phidget settings, normaly in your case it should be empty:

I'm 100% certain that all fields in the "trackcall tab" are empty !!
But in the "detection" or in the "general" tab of the PCLC options there is a list of 4 radiobuttons which you can select one for "trackcall"... Perhaps we did check one of those radiobuttons there... In that case I will check if we can unselect that (or choose : none)?

the option that i have see is this one:



As you can see that option is ticked when you use Pitstop detection or trackcall, in your case the option is ticked because you use pitstop detection.
In summary trackcall is finaly not the problem

i suggest you do some races with "power control" set to "none" so if PCLC hangup again then i will know that it's not linked to phidget interface/power control.
Also...if you have again a "hangup" is it pssibile to make a print screen, maybe i will see important information.

Yes, that's the option I ment...
But we do not have any Pitstop-detection... and we do not even use it.
So still it's better to untick it... I guess.

Quote :

i suggest you do some races with "power control" set to "none" so if PCLC hangup again then i will know that it's not linked to phidget interface/power control.

OK, sounds good.
For our trainingsessions we can do that for sure.

Quote :

Also...if you have again a "hangup" is it pssibile to make a print screen, maybe i will see important information.

Yes, no problem... I will make some screenshots of Zoomwindow and PCLC window.

Hi Guy,

Last friday we did have another hangup. I did send you new logging and some screenshots of the PCLC main window and the Zoom window.
Also I included a excel file which contains the logging of Windows EventViewer.

Regards,
Danny

Hi Guy,

Just for your information: It seems that we have found the cause that gives us the hangups in PCLapcounter.
We are using the Phidget8/8/8 via USB connection.
The hang-up in PCLapcounter software is caused by the USB connection that is lost for a very small time (you hear the windows-ding-dong as if you (dis)connect a USB device).
We also noticed that we have this USB failures at the moment of activating the lights (Fluorescent tubes) in the rooms. So it was clear that it had something to do with the fluorescent tubes.
After some more investigation of the fluorescent tubes we noticed that we had the 'normal' ballast used in the tubes.
Now as a test we are using electronic ballasts and this seems to help !
I will keep you posted. Anyway: Thank you very much for all the help!

Regards,
Slotmanege.

thank you for your report, happy that it's seem to work