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[Rockhoppers]

Hi Guys and thanks in advance for any help you can give me....

I am just getting started with this new CM15 Automation thing and have had some issues running the SDK on Vista Ultimate with VB2005 Express.... Am i trying to flog a dead horse here.... can it work with these component parts ?

I get an error message in VB05E saying the components have failed to register correctly ? 

Also, I am not a great believer in installing OEM software unless it is really needed, (just clogs up the system) and as i am planning to write a Home Automation program from the ground up, would i be right in thinking that i only need to install the SDK to talk to the CM15 unit and not the whole Active Home Pro package.

Many thanks

Andrew

[Tuicemen]

The problem may be VB 2005 express and Vista not the SDK!
I use VB 2005 express XP and the SDK without any problems as do others!
Try running VB2005express in XP compatibility mode!
Once you have the program created it should run normaly. Many have reported programs made with it work in Vista!
BVC, X10WavPlayer, AlertDialer just to name a few!

You only need to install the SDK not AHP. The SDK comes with the needed Redistributable components!
You will need to install these first so VB 2005 express can compile and run your program!

[Rockhoppers]

Many thanks, finally got it all to run under vista !

But a bit unstable at times !

Andrew

[rossopoulosg]

Hi folks,

I've been reading through this forum and found we all have a lot of issues with the X10 SDK...

I'm using a European CM15, together with AHSDK to regulate my house heating system.
Basically I only send "on" and "off" commands to X10 devices(AP12 and TM13) , using a self developped X10 php class.
About 100 commands per hour.
It's all running on a laptop (low power) with Vista Home Premium.

1st issue:
Windows Vista Application log is filling with application crash messages like:

Application défaillante ahcmd.exe, version 3.0.0.183, horodatage 0x424213d5, module défaillant unknown, version 0.0.0.0, horodatage 0x00000000, code d’exception 0xc0000005, décalage d’erreur 0x0f00000f, ID du processus 0xea0, heure de début de l’application 0x01c89a10ee284de3.

It does not happen at every execution, but roughly every 5 commands.
Is anyone experiencing the same behaviour ? and found a solution ?

2nd issue:
Sometimes (a few times per day) ahcmd crashes more severly and causes Windows to catch the exception
and popup an alert message, which hangs the ahcmd process...
I have worked aroung this one by launching the ahcmd in a separate process so that my php does not
wait for the end of ahcmd. At the next switch command I check if the ahcmd is still up and terminate it.
It seems to be working all right, although the Windows alert window remains open, which is ok for me
as the system runs unattended and reboots daily at midnight.
Alternatively I will also terminate the window alert process.

3rd issue:
Sometimes (also a few times / day) x10nets service seems to stop responding.
ahcmd still runs but the command does not reach the target X10 device.
The command is not transmitted to the device from ActiveHome Pro either.
In that case, it is sufficient to restart the x10nets service (net stop x10nets; net start x10nets).

Finally, can anyone comment on the versions ?
Active Home Pro : 3.224 (Jan 2008) << european version including smart macros (for those how find them smart...)
ahcmd.exe : 3.0.0.183 (March 2005)
x10nets.exe : 1.0.0.1 (Nov 2001)
x10nets.dll : 3.0.0.218 (Dec 2007)
x10ufx2.sys : 6.0.0.210 (Nov 2006) << device driver...

I'm afraid this is a mix of european and us versions, (europeans tell me there is no SDK for the european version of the CM15)
but it almost allows me to do what I want, so I keep on trying 

By the way, after I installed active home pro and the sdk,
Windows Update suggested a new device driver for the CM15, apparently released from ATI Technology...
I tried it (release mentionned above) but had the same issues.

Thanks for commenting or sharing your experience

Georges

[EL34]

Not sure if this will help or not but I just installed VB express last week.
The current version is VB 2008 express.

Maybe there are some vista fixes in the most recent version that weren't in 2005 express?

Don't know, I am running XP, just throwing out info.

[Tuicemen]

rossopoulosg
As EL34  pointed out

Matbe there are some vista fixes in the most recent version that weren't in 2005 express?

I have ran both 2005 and 2008 and  2008 is geered more towards Vista And I'm sure that is the version Rockhoppers is using!
I don't use vista my self so I haven't seen the issues you mentioned!
I'm not sure why your using AHCMD.EXE?  If your using VB express 2005 you should be using the "Interop.ActiveHomeScriptLib.dll" found in the "samples\vbapp\VBActiveHome\bin" sub folder of the SDK folder
The AHCMD.EXE isn't stable enough to be used in an application!

[Dan Lawrence]

I use AHCMD.EXE in a System (XP) or DOS prompt to send powerline signals to turn X10 modules on or off or on to a dim level.  That's really what its meant for.

[Tuicemen]

I use AHCMD.EXE in a System (XP) or DOS prompt to send powerline signals to turn X10 modules on or off or on to a dim level. That's really what its meant for.

YES!
For small jobs like that it is fine Dan, but when you try to build a application using it It will lock up (doesn't like repetitive commands I think  )!
rossopoulosg isn't the only one to have noticed this!
It may even lock up if You are using it in DOS mode for long periods (I haven't tried that)

In any case it is a bug that X10 needs to look at!

[EL34]

Before I started using Visual Basic and the .dll , I used perl and ahcmd.exe to turn things on and off.
I got error boxes all the time using the .exe file and program execution was a crap shoot as to whether it would run, or fail and spew out an error.

So far, no errors or problems using VB and the .dll