Track safety software crashes intermittently

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Track safety software crashes intermittently

Postby Richkim » Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:40 am

I am running the Track Safety PC software to control 15 TSL's. When the program has been running for most of the day, the program crashes with a Windows error message. I can restart the program and it will eventually crash again in only a few hours. It seems like each time I restart the program, the crash will occur in a shorter timeframe. When I reboot the PC, the program is stable for the rest of the day. I did not see this problem when I was running 8 lights. Is there a limit to the number of lights the program can handle?
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Re: Track safety software crashes intermittently

Postby raceamerica » Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:12 am

As Windows OS advanced to Win7, then Win8, then Win10, additional security and virus checking have been added. Timing software tends to repeatedly send and receive data unlike normal PC applications like word processors or spreadsheets that manage data. The nature of a virus is to send/receive data from your PC and the added security of the latest Windows platforms is much more sensitive to virus activity.

The TrackSafety software is continuously polling the TSLs for status and confirming each TSL is online and displaying the correct flag. This continuous polling occurs behind the scenes even when no TSLs are changed. This is done to ensure the right flag is being displayed and report a TSL failure immediately to the tower. The more TSLs online, the more communications occur.

Windows is monitoring communications to the comm ports of the PC and sooner or later will incorrectly determine the TSL communications as a virus. Windows begins to reduce the amount of memory allocated to the TrackSafety program until the program can no longer operate and crashes with an unknown Windows error. The larger the number of TSLs online, the larger the amount of data comm, the sooner windows begins the memory allocation process, and the sooner the failure. Once Windows detects the program, it remembers and the time to take action gets shorter and shorter. A reboot causes Windows to start all over collecting data.

This issue was reported first by the customers with large installations of TSLs and was resolved with revision B.5 of the TrackSafety software. Usually the failure occurred in about 8 hours of continuous control of the TSLs and appeared to be when Windows collected enough data and took action to stop the program. Installations with fewer TSL online did not see the failure in 8 hours. In fact, half the number of TSLs online took twice as long to fail, once again Windows collected the same amount of data comm but it would take twice as long.

Revision B.5 addressed the new Windows security actions by changing the way data comm was handled by the PC. Windows no longer detects the high amount of data comm as a potential virus.
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Re: Track safety software crashes intermittently

Postby Richkim » Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:23 am

Okay, that explains why the failure never occurred before we added more lights and before we upgraded to Windows 10. The revision on our PC is B.4 and I see the current revision on the your website is B.5.3 so I will download and update our PC tonight. I also noticed the revision listing on this forum for the Track Safety software has a revision C.0 and hardwired hand controllers were added to the TSL options. We do not use hand controllers so we will not need that revision but where would I get a copy of that revision?
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Re: Track safety software crashes intermittently

Postby raceamerica » Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:26 am

Revision C.0 of the TrackSafety software is made available to customers who order a TSL with a Hardwired Hand Controllers or add Hardwired Hand Controllers to their existing TSLs. Unless you have HCs connected to your TSLs, Revision C.0 is the same as Revision B.5.3.
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Re: Track safety software crashes intermittently

Postby Richkim » Mon Sep 17, 2018 12:27 pm

A little feedback on the updated software:

Ran the lights over the weekend for 12 continuous hours without a crash. We ran both Saturday and then again Sunday for the first time without incident since increasing the number of lights on track. I think the crash issue was resolved in the new revision.
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