Where to start troubleshooting

[Rob Lewis]

Thanks very much, James! 

Until I can get to the other stuff, here are the last few lines in the log window (with XTension frozen), thinking there might be a clue for you: 

(timestamps omitted; the below lines spanned a 3-second interval)

Scheduled Event: Update Thermocouple (LaunchPad)
Executing global script: Update Wi-Fi Thermocouple (LaunchPad)
begin applescript component refresh (LaunchPad)
being prep in open script window (LaunchPad)
Applescript reconnected (LaunchPad)
javascript reconnected (LaunchPad)
scripting component rollover complete. (LaunchPad) 

LaunchPad is an interface that uses a TI LaunchPad board (similar to Arduino) to read barometric, temperature, and humidity sensors and send them to XTension via USB. It has worked fine for a long time. 
I don't know why the "Update Wi-Fi Thermocouple" script has anything to do with the LaunchPad interface as they are unrelated. In any case, the Wi-Fi Thermocouple is an unfinished project that will read a thermocouple and report its value over Wi-Fi to XTension. For now, XTension's attempted read always fails (no response from the device). 

Suggest anything? 

More soon. 

> On Aug 6, 2017, at 05:50 , James Sentman <james at sentman.com> wrote:
> 
> These are the most frustrating type of problems, sorry for the difficulty. It’s almost certainly to do with a script that is either corrupt or some apple event that is being sent to a separate program that is hanging up. 
> 
> There are a couple of things you can do to get some more information and help us to figure it out:
> 
> 
> First please startup XTension while holding down the option key. (this can be difficult if you can only connect over VNC, it doesn’t seem to always send the control keys you’re holding down, if thats a problem for you let me know first and I can send you a build with some other options for doing this) From the window that comes up select “log detailed startup information” and let it continue loading. Have a look through the voluminous log data for any errors that are logged. If a script has been chewed up by the system it will very likely cause an error during load. You can also forward that log output to me off the list and I will look through it. There is a LOT of info in there and it can be difficult to spot things that are a problem.  Don’t keep running the system that way as it will continue to log lots of extra stuff continually that is probably not going to be helpful. So once you’ve collected that data you can quit and restart normally again.
> 
> 
> Then we want to turn off the log caching. If you’re logging as an RTF file it can bog down as the log files get large so I had to finally switch to not flushing each log write to the disk as we go each time, so if you get a crash the log may not show the real last thing that it tried to do. You can turn this off however with this script in the command line:
> 
> 
> set log caching to false
> 
> Now when next it hangs the log will contain a line item to indicate the last unit that was controlled or the last command received or the last script that ran and we can further narrow down whats causing it.  That command is not saved, so if you restart for any other reason you’ll need to issue that command again, or put it into the Startup script. Don’t forget to undo it if you make it automatic though once we finish fixing the problem.
> 
> Lastly when it next happens open the Activity monitor and highlight XTension and click the get info button, the little “i” icon in the toolbar. In the resulting window there is an option to do a “sample” of the app. Save off that long listing that comes from that and email that to me as well. That will tell me more about what loop or wait it’s stuck in too. I can make sure it really is waiting on an external apple event or running a script or something like that. I can’t tell which script from that, but between the realtime log output and the sample it will be much easier to narrow it down.
> 
> One of the other reasons I am excited about alternative scripting languages is that once in a blue moon the system can choke on an applescript that has run perfectly for the last 5 years. I have no idea why this happens and have built in tons of post script saving logic to make sure I’m getting valid data back but even so one squeaks by me every so often and causes random problems later. Of course I’m not completely sure what is causing your specific problem, but it sounds like the same thing. If we can capture the above we can get it solved for you.
> 
> I’ll be almost completely out of touch the rest of today and tomorrow as I’m traveling, but then I’ll be back home and back to work and will watch for more emails from you with some more data. You can go ahead and send me the debug startup info and I’ll be able to have a look at least at that this evening before I crash after an 8+ hour drive :)
> 
> 
> 
>> On Aug 5, 2017, at 1:25 PM, Rob Lewis <rob at whidbey.com <mailto:rob at whidbey.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> After being basically trouble-free for a long time, XTension has recently taken to freezing after running for a while. I get the "not responding" message and have to force-quit it. 
>> 
>> I haven't paid much attention to my system in a while (as I said, it's been trouble-free), so I'm not sure when this started—it seems like maybe a couple or three builds ago. 
>> 
>> What's the best way to start looking for the cause of this? Is there liable to be anything in crash logs? 
> 
> Thanks,
>  James
> 
> 
> James Sentman                       http://www.PlanetaryGear.org <http://www.planetarygear.org/>		http://MacHomeAutomation.com <http://machomeautomation.com/>
> 
> 
> 
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