IrriCAD Stability

[Harvie]

Hi Team.

My IrriCAD 9.26 has moments when it crashes for no good reason.
This occurs when being used either on a network or by single user. (Training use).
Notably individual work stations will crash at different times when part of the same network. Some stations not at all. Primarily it occurs after 4-5 hours of continuous use.
I have also found that it occurs on either XP or Vista.

Also there are times when I have to select an icon 3 or more times before the command is invoked.

Thanks
JH

[jovivier]

Hi John,

A new version of IRRICAD is being released this month which uses a newer version of the program that looks for the dongle, so this should be more stable. Having to select an icon more than once is also linked to not finding the dongle.

[Dan Crosby]

Hello John,

To extend Jo's reply with some technicalities...

It does sound like most of your issues are dongle related. There are a few things you can check:

• Dongle Driver - make sure that the network 'server' machine and the client machines have the latest dongle drivers.



• Network - needless to say, the client machines need to be able to 'see' the server machine on the network. This seems unlikely to be the issue since Irricad starts, but may be worth checking.



• NSP_HOST - the client machines should have an Environment Variable called NSP_HOST which points to the name or IP address of the server machine. If this is currently set to the server name, using the server IP address may improve the situation. You can check the current value of NSP_HOST on a client machine by typing "SET NSP_HOST" at a command prompt. You can change the value by typing "SET NSP_HOST=<machine name / IP Address>" e.g., SET NSP_HOST=123.456.789.255

It would be handy if you could record and send to use (or post here) any error messages shown when Irricad crashes - unless it is simply reporting that the cannot find the dongle, it which case the advice above applies.

Regards,

Dan

[Harvie]

Hi folks.

I'm having similar stability issues with 9.56 as previously stated with 9.26, single user operation. Examples include:

The program reacted to "user defined" lateral direction whilst using "Block" tool for sprinkler design. the system crashed 5 times leaving no error message, and when I restarted IrriCAD all me backgroung settings were deleted.

When using the flush sub-main option within "Tape Block Entity" I was not allowed to use the same valve at either end, (same for the other participants in the workshop). The program again crashed without error message.

When manually locating control valves, and then deleting them, the program still acknowledges that they are in the original position even though they are invisible and unable to be selected. There are no error messages as the program thinks they are still in place. Although connectivity highlights the position as unconnected.

Although the same control valve was used across the whole design, one valve symbol disappeared, but remained connected.

When selecting the "big buttons" option in View/Toolbars, nothing changed.

Is the instability a compatibility issue with Visual CAD? Could it be improved with AutoCAD?

Thanks.

[Dan Crosby]

Hi John,

That's a worrying list of crashes, especially with no error messages. A couple of things I can address immediately: a fix was put in to v10 to prevent the loss of the default settings, and 'large' buttons were only implemented in v10, so in v9.56 you are correct, that option does nothing.

I'm not aware of any other reported stability issues with v9.56, though Jo might have a better idea on that. I couldn't replicate any of your crashes at first blush, so I was wondering if you had any 'bad' designs you could forward to us to look at? Or a step-by-step guide to reproducing the crashes, if they are reproducible? That would be a great help.

Thanks,

Dan

[Harvie]

Hi Dan.
Thanks for the response.
I'll work with V10 over a wide range of designs and endeavour to send you any plans that give me grief, along with details.
Cheers JH

[jovivier]

Always keep up to date with the latest patch or version. If your email address is kept up to date with us, you will receive an email when a patch or new version is available for downloading.

Read the Readme.txt found in the IRRICAD Pro\Help folder for any known problems.

If IRRICAD does crash, look for the blue underlined click here in the first message. Click this and copy the details from the 2nd message and email them to us, with a detailed description of what you were doing at the time of the crash. If your design crashes again in the same place(doing the same tasks), send us the design also. Therefore we have a much better chance of seeing where and why it crashed and fixing it to avoid similar problems in the future.

[Dan Crosby]

In addition to Jo's advice, we have also found and fixed an input queueing issue which may have been the cause of some stability issues (it depended on a combination of actions and timing, but was the cause of at least one crash).

Dan