Performance during anchor watch alarm

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Operating system and version?

Hope this helps

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Kolchac

So what is "far superior" for the Opencpn?

I dont need to fire up a phone and wait for satellite acquisition
I dont need to download and try multiple apps until one works
I dont need to try and make things work on a small pinch and squeeze screen vs mouse driven 23 inch monitor
I dont need to remember how yet another app does things
I cant use an anchor app for navigation

Reading this post, I found you, guys, have a lot of problems.

No, we have 1 problem

As I said in a previous post I also have the same version of opencpn on a linux laptop and that works fine.

[AedanC]

I’m away from the PC that exhibited the problem at the moment but one thing did occur to me. When I got the problem the dashboard plugin was running, did anyone else have that running?

When I return in a few days I’ll fire it up again and see if I can learn anything more.

Aedan

[transmitterdan]

I tested on Windows with dashboard running. I could not duplicate the issue.

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I tested on Windows with dashboard running. I could not duplicate the issue.

Ok, let’s work from the opposite direction.

What are the details of your working system?

[Hakan]

For me the anchor watch on several dated Win10, WinXP, RPi3, RPi4 is working wo issues. It can be set up, initiated and deactivated by "deactivate anchor watch". With or without Dashboard or any other stuff. On all devices I'm using a sound file like default two bells or another similar sized sound file. I've not tried any long playing sound file if that can be a difference?

I know for half a year or more there was a anchor watch crash problem on Android devices but on present version it's since long time corrected.

[AedanC]

I’ve been traveling for a while but I’m back now at home with the boat computer that demonstrates this problem. I can reproduce it as follows:

1 Start OpenCpn
2 Press the boat in the bottom left to pan to the current boat position.
3 Create a WP about 80m away from the boat.
4 Set the WP as a 50m radius anchor watch.

The anchor watch alarm should now activate. When I right click on the anchor watch WP it takes a long time to respond, if I click the Zoom In/Out buttons in the bottom right nothing happens. All other OpenCpn operations either don’t work or are very slow. Other programmes work at normal speed.

Windows 10/64 Home 1809.
Touch support (Tablet mode) enabled.
Intel Atom x5-Z8350 @1.44MHz
OpenCpn 5.0.0+9065270

No NMEA data coming in, ie no GPS data.

At the failure time there is no visible CPU, Network, Memory or Disk activity in the system monitor.

Is there something else I can do to help isolate this issue?

Aedan

[bdbcat]

Aedan....


As a test, please try turning ON the Options->UserInterface->PlayShipsBells.
Wait for :00 or :30 minutes, and see if the system performance degrades while the bell is chiming.


If you get poor performance during the chime, we can get a hint that the problem is in the sound file system execution on your machine.


Thanks
Dave

[AedanC]

Hi Dave,

Originally Posted by bdbcat

As a test, please try turning ON the Options->UserInterface->PlayShipsBells.
Wait for :00 or :30 minutes, and see if the system performance degrades while the bell is chiming.

If you get poor performance during the chime, we can get a hint that the problem is in the sound file system execution on your machine.

I've tried this at a few :00 and :30 times now and I can't detect any performance degradation during the chime.


I've also managed to reproduce it on a second, much more powerful, laptop. This second one is not a touch sensitive device. It's Windows 10 Pro, up to date. OpenCpn 5.0.0+9065270.



I tried disabling all plugins, no change.


I moved from oeSenc charts to CM93, no change.


Anything else you would like me to try?



Aedan

[Moo]

Also confirmed on my boat over a 2 week cruise recently.

Hardware is Windows 10 (up to date) on an Intel i7 processor i.e. a fairly swift machine.

Anchor watch or AIS alarm sounds. Very difficult to get mouse over it and turn it off. Same as the other situations where there doesn't seem to be a memory or cpu loading issue. Can reproduce it from start up (did this accidentally) by starting the pc with an anchor alarm created which activates before the GPS input is recognised.

Cheers
Chris

[H29.5Upgrade]

...sorry if this is in the wrong spot..
July 4, 2020 we anchored out to watch the fireworks. I sen the anchor alarm and forgot to cancel it before we came in. OpenCPN became so slow that I could not cancel the alarm. I was able to mute (turn down the volume of) the bells. There was so much lag time, that, even going very slow, it was difficult to navigate back to the marina. I brought the computer home with me and started it up this morning. When I un-muted the speakers, OpenCPN, the alarm was ringing. OpenCPN was completely lagging, however, my other programs were not lagging. The lag was so bad that: the "Show Toolbar" button didn't have time to show the entire toolbar before the toolbar disappeared again. It did show the first toolbar choice (Options) - I went into options and changed the "Enable Toolbar Auto-hide " to 12 seconds. That gave enough time to display enough of the toolbar to bring up "Route and Mark Manager" then I deleted the waypoint. The alarm bells stopped and the lag went completely away.
OpenCPN 5.0.0+9065270
Windows 10 Pro, ver 1909, Toughbook CF-33, I5 with 8 gig ram.
thank you, John

[H29.5Upgrade]

I had the same problem on July 4, 2020. I forgot to cancel the anchor watch, when the alarm went off,the OpenCPN application became unstable.

[Ken-ross780]

Hi
I'm a newbie so I will try to keep it short and sweet.
While using Anchor Watch, can I turn off the display untill an alarm is triggered and then as part of the alarm have the display fire up?
Hopefully while I'm at anchor I will do some sleeping. So while I'm sleeping I would like to save some power (electricity) hence, have Open Chart running with the bread crumbs trail being created but the display turned off. I'm asleep so I will not be able to see the screen. But if an alarm is triggered by the alarm watch or the watchdog I would like to have the display powered on so that as I wake up I can see what the problem is. This would only be relevant to the Anchor Watch. I can not see another situation that this would apply to.
Thanks in anticipation.
Hope I got the correct thread.
Thanks
Ken
Ross 780

[fgd3]

How about just letting the operating system turn off the display for you when there's no activity. A touch of the mouse will bring it back to life when you need it.

[Hakan]

Ken.
My experience is that different laptops do handle the energy adaptions different whatever Win10 tries to set up. On one device the "Do nothing" while the lid is closed is not effectuated on O is pausing, so no Anchor alarm. I can't see how OCPN can control this in any matter when Win10 fails.

So this is not a solution to your question but another suggestion:
What I do at nights is to start OCPN on my Android device and activate an Anchor alarm WP and shut the laptop down. The mobile takes considerable less power compared to a PC, with or without an active screen.