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[jclarkw]

I have recently installed the latest version of ActiveHome Pro and connected the computer to a new CM15A.  Although sometimes the activity log seems to list all activity, often it appears to hang up or fail to record some new transmissions (either from internal macros or, more often, from external remote and wired controllers).  Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated. -- jclarkw

[the other steve]

Me, too.  All timers, macros and remotes work - it seems to only be the activity log that doesn't work correctly.

Steve

[Brian H]

Is AHP running when the Activity Monitor seems to goof up?
What Operating System is on the computer?
You are running AHP 3.318?

[jclarkw]

>>Is AHP running when the Activity Monitor seems to goof up?<<

Yes.

>>What Operating System is on the computer?<<

XP SP3.

>>You are running AHP 3.318?<<

Yes.

Perhaps I should clarify:  I'm running timers and macros that were downloaded into the CM15A.  The computer is connected only to monitor activity and has no timers or macros open, just the activity log. -- jclarkw

[the other steve]

Exactly the configuration, OS, etc. that I have...

Steve

[Dan Lawrence]

Try an earlier version of AHP: 3.310.   It handles everything 3.318 does as modules  including "Old Style" and Soft-Start so you don't have to make any changes to your .ahx files. Plus it's a stable version of AHP.

[jclarkw]

Try an earlier version of AHP: 3.310.   It handles everything 3.318 does as modules  including "Old Style" and Soft-Start so you don't have to make any changes to your .ahx files. Plus it's a stable version of AHP.

Dan -- Thanks for the suggestion.  A few questions if I may:

1) Have you seen this problem before and found that an earlier software version helped, or is this a trial-and-error process?

2) From their size it appears that these earlier-version downloads are just Internet loaders like that for the current version, not complete software installers.  So Internet access would be required on the installation computer.  Correct?

3) Should the same registration code work as received for the current version?

4) The last version of any particular release is often the most stable.  Why not go back to Version 3.296?  Your post suggested that there might be .AHX file-format differences between releases 3.3 and 3.2, although the revision history doesn't explicitly say so.  If not, are the feature changes significant or just minor losses of capability that might not affect a "typical" user?

Thanks again. -- jclarkw

[Dan Lawrence]

Yes.   I tried 3.318 and it did exactly what you experienced.   What i found out was every version after 3.310 was buggy in some way.  Your registration code will work. I've used the same code since I got AHP .

[jclarkw]

Yes.   I tried 3.318 and it did exactly what you experienced.   What i found out was every version after 3.310 was buggy in some way.

THANKS!  This is a really big help.  I hope you have reported these findings to X10 Tech Support!  I'll report my results and hope that "the other steve" does the same.

 Meanwhile I wonder if you have experienced (and cured?) the other aspect of this problem that I've been observing (with 3.318):

When remote triggers (either RF or wired) are actually reported, many times they appear as bursts of garbage -- a page or more of partial commands and/or commands from bogus house codes that are not being used in the area.  In an effort to cure this problem, I have disabled the RF receiver in the CM15A (using instead a TM751 transceiver to actuate my RF remote), but this has not helped.

Best Regards. -- jclarkw

[Brian H]

Here is the known bug list and issues that have been addressed.
http://forums.x10.com/index.php?topic=22373.0

Revision history.
http://www.x10.com/support/rev_ahp.htm

3.310 works fine for Dan but not everybody. So use your own judgement after trying it.

Not too sure how many programmers are left at X10. So fixes may not be in the cards.

[jclarkw]

3.310 works fine for Dan but not everybody. So use your own judgement after trying it.

Brian H. -- You are right:  3.310 doesn't solve all of my problems with the activity log.  Whether it's better or not remains to be seen...

:Thanks for the bug list.  I didn't know about that. -- jclarkw

[Noam]

... The last version of any particular release is often the most stable.  Why not go back to Version 3.296? ...

That's not quite accurate in this case - it isn't a "generational" thing, but rather a "numeric" thing (as it was explained to me at the time by the AHP programmers).
The AHP version numbers start with "3" (the old ActiveHome was version 1.x, and there was a short-lived beta of a version 2.x for the CM11A that was never released).
The first version of AHP released was 3.142 (perhaps the "142" was a nod to the last released version of the original ActiveHome - 1.42, perhaps not). If you look at the Revision history (which was reverse-engineered several years later, and doesn't include testing versions that were never released to the public), the numbers just increment in sequence from there.
The "jump" from 3.1xx to 3.2xx (actually 3.199 to 3.200) was a minor revision - not a major one. The next number after "199" is "200." The same goes for the transition from 3.2xx to 3.3xx. (3.296 to 3.301 - there were a few revisions in between, but they didn't weren't good enough to get released to the public). I was told that every time they re-compiled the code for testing as a package, they incremented the number.

So, there was no deliberate change in the file structure from one version to the next. There were a number of "big" changes made (specifically to the DLLs and the SDK), that were not backward-compatible with earlier versions - you needed to update both the DLLs and the SDK at the same time). Not all of those were made at "convent" numbers. HOWEVER, since there was added functionality in many of the releases (and especially when they added the SoftStart support), it is entirely possible that an AHX file created (or modified) in a newer version of AHP will not work properly in an older version. The only way to know for sure is to try it.

[jclarkw]

Yes.   I tried 3.318 and it did exactly what you experienced.   What i found out was every version after 3.310 was buggy in some way.  Your registration code will work. I've used the same code since I got AHP .

Dan -- FYI, see the post at http://forums.x10.com/index.php?topic=27920.msg156720#msg156720 for more detail on my logging problem (now with 3.10).  Any comments you might have would be appreciated. -- jclarkw

[Dan Lawrence]

Apparently you have something else in your computer that is interfering with AHP if both 3.318 and 3:310 both have the same problem. 

[the other steve]

A quick update:

I have an almost-definite-maybe-it-is-fixed on my system.

My system was working fine with the inadvertently installed 3.318 - except that the log entries were pretty sporadic - not garbage, just unreliable.  Just the logging was bad.

Last night I uninstalled 3.318 using the XP add/remove programs, and installed 3.310.  I fired it up, played a while and it looked like the logging was working better.  All the timers and macros looked fine.

I restarted my computer and walked away.  Later I looked at the logs and nothing had run since the reboot.  I tried to restart 3.310 and it crashed every time on startup.  Restarting Windows did nothing to help.

I reinstalled 3.318 over 3.310, and everything now seems to work, including logging.  It looks fine after 24 hours, many macros, timers, etc.

(I did some reading here and found that uninstall probably doesn't unless you also delete the xml file, so that might have been my problem with 3.310.)

So a definite "maybe" is where I am.  I'll keep watching, but it has been flawless for 24 hours.

YMMV.

Steve