Colour Touchscreen Crashing

[tonyr]

We have a site with 2x colour touch screens. Every couple of weeks they are crashing and I have to go to site and turn then on and off. It is a different screen each time. This is coming a pain to us and the customer and giving them a bad name.

Typical they are running with main page showing. customer selects an option and it crashes. Typical they come up with the PICED wizard start up, sometimes they can not find a file or bit map file. Turning them off/on fixes the problem but with the switch in the ceiling it is a pain.

We are considering for all future sites making the switch more accessable and making the power to the Ctouch on a breaker to make the turning off/on easier.

It mainly occurs on Monday morning (they have not been in use for a couple of days).

We are also having similar problems on another site. We have shown the customer how to reset the touch screen but not all customers will be keen on doing this.

Are other people having similar experiences?

[Darren]

We have a site with 2x colour touch screens. Every couple of weeks they are crashing and I have to go to site and turn then on and off. It is a different screen each time.
We are not aware of anyone else having these problems. There are lots of units here which have been running for a long time with no problems.

Tech Support have passed on the details of your error message and we are looking into it.
Typical they come up with the PICED wizard start up, sometimes they can not find a file or bit map file.
The PICED wizard should only appear if the project file can't be found. Similarly, the error message about images missing is also only if a file can't be found. Did these particular problems only occur one one C-Touch ?
Turning them off/on fixes the problem but with the switch in the ceiling it is a pain. We are considering for all future sites making the switch more accessable and making the power to the Ctouch on a breaker to make the turning off/on easier.
There is a reset button behind the front panel.

[Ray]

Have you got heaps of jpegs or similar in the colour programme???
I had a crashing probelm and all it was were that the pics were too big, once converted to a smaller size etc the problem was solved.

[Ray]

one other thing with the power supply... What we do now is hide it in the house - go down thru the wall and out through a plate - this way you can get to it and it wont overheat in the roof space which will commonly get to 60 deg +++.

[Nathan]

Ive had a similar problem when a C-Touch is not is use (owner away for the weekend) and crashes with a error file not found or missing. Once you press ok it will bring up the piced software startup page where you are prompted to select project which it cant find. A power down and several minutes later it starts up with the correct file and all is well. Embarrassing when the owner calls on a Sunday and asks why does it do this. On our project there are a couple of JPEG images and a tiled template page and a lot of alpha blending. Any info would be appreiciated of how to fix this problem.

[Darren]

We have recently found that projects which contain very large images (much larger than the screen) will cause the Colour C-Touch to crash occasionally. We recommend using some external software (Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Photo Editor, Photo Shop etc) to re-scale any large images to their correct size before using them.

There is an error warning (number 104) about this when the project is checked.

[Potemkin]

CTC Also crashing!!!
I've only recently installed a CTC and was told it was a pre-release unit (don't know if this might be an issue). I've got 1 jpeg (7.47kB) on the screen and one sound file (wma, 28.3 kB). However, in the project's directory I've got a number of larger jpegs which I used when coming to grips with PICED. Do these larger files get transferred to the CTC as well? If so... why does it crash if they are never loaded?
:confused:

[Darren]

We have found out a little more about this problem. It appears that some software we use (not developed by us) has a memory leak which causes the Colour C-Touch to eventually crash. If you have a small project loaded, C-Touch will run for a lot longer before crashing than if you have a large project loaded. Only files used by the project affect it.

Needless to say, we have been working hard to resolve this issue.

[The Don]

If it's any help, these are the error messages from our last CTC 'crash'.
Bear with me as I can't yet do the screen shots.

Main page - press for Irrigation and immediately the following message:
Run Scheduler:HomeGate.exe - Application Error
The exception unknown software exception (0x0eedfade) occurred in the application at location 0x77e738b2.

[The Don]

Sorry, the rest of that post should have continued

"OK Help

when OK is pressed, the CTC seems to try and reboot but eventually comes up with the message:
"Error 14034
Error reading file" and then 'hangs'.

When the reset button is pushed, everything starts again and we haven't had a problem for at least a week.

[Nathan]

Any news on the fix for the colour C-Touch problem that crashes every two weeks or so. Its been a while and we have some customers that are getting angry??????

[Richo]

Any news on the fix for the colour C-Touch problem that crashes every two weeks or so. Its been a while and we have some customers that are getting angry??????

For latest info on any urgent issues please maintain contact direct with Techinical Support. The forums are not an official support resource.

(BTW this issue is a huge priority, but I'm not up to speed with the latest)

[Darren]

Any news on the fix for the colour C-Touch problem that crashes every two weeks or so.
We are about to receive an update to some software which we hope will fix this problem. It is impossible at this stage to say when this problem will be fixed. Unfortunately, it is largely beyond our control :(

[Sam]

What There is A Problem ( Only One !!).

Sorry Guys But I am about Sick Of them and Wish they were still not Released.

It seams that I am Not alone !!!!


Sorry Again But this has been building for a while ! I am sick of talking with tech support and being told that I am the only one having Problems !!.

The answer they give is to download the latest version and try again.
I have now done this 5 Times now ( Gave up Counting)

The customers are sick of it and the product is getting a bad name.
I am sick of Going back for Free to Download new Software.
Who is going to Pay for OUR Time ?My customers have already said they are not !. I think it has gone on long enough.


I am just trying to tell it like it is.

Does Anyone else Agree ?

Sam.

[marka]

you are not alone.

we have only installed 1 (under protest) and it crashes at least once a week

it gets very frustrating and i am runnng out of stories to tell the customer

please fix it soooooon.

[PSC]

Join the club boys.

Does anyone else have a problem with the design of the facia's?

I beleive that they are of a poor design and are painful to get on & off, especially when the units crash so often.

After receiving your weekly phone call from your unhappy client, you try asking them to remove the facia, press the reset button, cross their fingers & hope that the unit comes back on-line and then ask them to put the facia back on.

Come on guys get your act together, this has been going on far too long!

[Richo]

We understand the pain this problem is causing in the field. We are getting an absolute roasting from the sales and management folk. We are doing everything in our power to resolve the issue and are currently waiting on a supplier to fix a critical fault in their software. We are bringing to bear all the pressure we can on this supplier.

[PSC]

We are doing everything in our power to resolve the issue and are currently waiting on a supplier to fix a critical fault in their software. We are bringing to bear all the pressure we can on this supplier.


Should this have been out sourced in the first place?

Hasn't out sourcing given you grief in the past? M!nder...

[Duncan]

Should this have been out sourced in the first place?

Hasn't out sourcing given you grief in the past? M!nder...


Peter,

Take it up with your local CIS office.. This is a support forum maintained by Engineers and Training and Technical Support staff.

[mikegriff]

<quote>This is a support forum maintained by Engineers and Training and Technical Support staff.<quote>

And much we appreciate it !

and I'm sure a little bit of Huffing and Puffing doesnt go amiss either ;-)
Mike

[ashleigh]

Progress report on the CTC crash problem:

Firstly, the development was not outsourced. The software does make use of a well known operating system, a large amount of CIS developed software, and some 3rd party software components.

As to progress:

There has been a huge amount of effort gone into trying to figure out what the cause is. We have 10 touchscreens running a soak test to try and reproduce this. We have also been running development versions for a very long time without seeing the defect appear.

During the investigation, we have found that the crash occurs more often with some projects when compared to others. The project size seems to be a factor.

Initially the symptoms led us to believe the fault lay in our software. After a couple of weeks of digging through our code, and then through some very obscure parts of the Borland Delphi run-time system, we found that not to be the case.

Further investigation has found a memory leak in a portion of 3rd party software. We have gathered comprehensive evidence, and sent this to the manufacturer. We have been chasing them regularly to find what they are doing. So far the reaction time has been less than impressive.

At the moment we have a "patch" coming for testing tomorrow (thats 3rd Nov), but we don't know if this will be a fix or not.

---------

As a work-around, we have developed an update for PICED that will allow the CTC to be restarted by a control button on the screen, or from a schedule. This will allow the CTC to be regularly restarted, automatically if desired.

This update is currently being tested by the CIS test group. We hope to have it available very soon.

This is a blatant work-around which which is not a long-term solution, but it will relieve some of the pressure that everybody is under.

When this is available we will post to let you know.

[Sam]

Any Updates on the Updates and Fixes ??.

[Darren]

The patch we were provided with didn't work. We are continuing to try to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, we are about to release version 3.3 of PICED and Colour C-Touch software which will have the ability to schedule a re-start of the Colour C-Touch. This will solve the problem, but is definitely a less-than-ideal solution.

[Darren]

We have now released version 3.3 of the software which will allow you to do a scheduled re-start. See http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8290#post8290

We are still working on the proper fix for the problem.

[ashleigh]

A further progress report on the "Crashing Colour Touchscreen":

This has had a gut-busting effort for the lasty month (I'm not counting the time spent before that - which was also substantial).

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

I cannot yet give a definite date when the fix will be available (see below), but PRELIMINARY engineering development is looking good.

The next steps are:

1. Put back the full feature set of the current Operating System build (some has been hacked out for expediency).

2. Put in the latest service packs and patches from the Operating System vendor.

3. Make sure everything works. Update our various control / setup programs to suit if needed.

4. Open up a range of IP ports for the socket / logic developers to use.

5. Put it through the test group so that it can be independently hammered - so when it comes out it will not just be a good release, it will be damn good.

An initial GUESS is that there is probably 2-4 weeks work in the above list. The Christmas silly season is pretty much upon us, this will add another 1-2 weeks. So a ROUGH GUESS is that an update should be out around the end of January.

CIS apologies for the delay - but when it comes out we do want it to be really good.

[mikegriff]

Good News Ashleigh

Will this give us HTML as well ??
thanks
Mike

[ashleigh]

Not immediately :-(

The priority is to have something that is nice and stable.

HTML will be a future update to the version of HomeGate that runs in the CTC.

[Potemkin]

I too was well tired of the CTC crashing. What I did seems to work - remove all images. Not only from your design but also from the project directory (or "folder"). Remove all files (fonts etc) that are NOT being used by the project.
The CTC has now been running for probably 2 months without a crash.
Initially I too tried reducing the size of the images and all that - didn't work.
Now works with a LOT of pages schedules and a lot of logic.
Use it, don't use it...

[ashleigh]

Hi Potemkin

Your solution will help - but it only defers the inevitable crash.

[Potemkin]

Ashleigh, you are absolutely right.
As luck would have it - within a few hours of my post I received word that it had crashed.
Bummer.

[ashleigh]

A further update...

The new version should hopefully go to the test group in about a week.

The updated O/S is looking good, the firewall is working fine, we have modified the network setup utility so you can selectively open some ports (for those who want to use TCP/IP sockets)....

There is still a small HomeGate issue to sort out :mad: and I hope that will be fixed RSN (real soon now). Once that is done it can go to the formal test group who will bash the hell out of it. Then to release.

IN THE MEANTIME...

Use the scheduled restart facility. Its a very brute-force method, but the screens I have used it on only make a very quite "click" when they restart - set it for 2am or something like that - maybe once a week. This is a blatant workaround... :(