LEDBlinky Makes my CP go crazy and freeze!?

[aldub516]

**edit**- Ive copied this email i sent to arzoo.. It greatly details my issue as well as includes a video

Video of problem:
 
Back in december i had a problem with my control panel crashing.
that fiasco can be seen here http://www.gameex.in...n-gameex/page-2
 
The following is the email i sent to arzoo, i just copied it since it explains my problem properly. His only advice was to update my ipac firmware, which is already up to date, and a few other small tricks. But thus far, i dont seem to have a solution for this problem.
 
I will try to explain my situation as best as i can
 
My Control panel is set up as follows
2 players-6 buttons on each side plus joysticks
Misc admin and play buttons at the top
trackball
spinner
They are all hooked up through a single ultimarc ultimate IO interface.
 
My problem started in december. Out of no where, while running my gameex front end, i started to experience various problems with my control panel. While scrolling through games, wether with joysticks or spinner/trackball, my menu and panel would eventually either completely freeze, or get stuck in a command, for example, if i kept hitting down joystick or held it down, eventually down would get stuck and just go to the end of the list and id lose complete control. Even with my keyboard i cannot do anything, gameex loses all control from my panel. When i unplugged my panel, id gain control of gameex again and all the lag and crazyness would just clear up. It happened at various intervals with various controls. Sometimes just a quick scroll with the spinner would freeze, or sometimes i can scroll for a minute or 2. After endless trouble shooting, i just uninstalled gameex and reinstalled a new version, which fixed the mystery problem. Fast forward, i realized that i never knew about the gameex plugin manager, and thus no matter what i did to led blinky, i never disabled it in the plugin manager. Thats why it corrected itself upon re- install. So i now know for sure, that this problem happens only when my ledblinky plugin is enabled in gameex. It worked fine for a few weeks now, and out of no where, the other day it started freezing again. Ive deleted and re copied the files, and no matter what, it crashes gameex. When disabled, my gameex and everything works completely fine! I wanted to know what could possibly be causing this? In some instances when the problems begin, my control panel disconnects itself from my pc. Ill hear the disconnect sound and it will show that there was a usb problem in my desktop tray, sometimes not. In any situation though, i have to disconnect the usb plug, which then clears up the issues. So even if its showing as disconnected, its not until i physically remove the usb that everything corrects itself. Could there be some sort of conflict with my led settings that is confusing ledblinky to hell?
 
Example of steps:
start gameex
led blinky begins with set animations
begin scrolling list for xx amount of time with xx control
menu freezes, leds all freeze, all control lost with CP or keyboard
unplug cp
re gain control, use keyboard to exit out of gameex
 
please let me know if theres anything i can do. This is the last step i really need to conquer in my quest. Id hate to not be able to use it after becoming a member, it works great when it works for me!
thanks in advance

[headkaze]

Is LEDBlinky the only plugin enabled for GameEx?

Please post your GameEx and LEDBlinky logs after the issue occurs.

[aldub516]

Hey headkaze! Probably the guy i want to be talking to, as i'm a few seconds away from ditching ledblinky and trying yours. First off, i sent a very detailed email to arzoo, along with logs and video of my issue, so please take note, im going to fully edit the very first post, and paste my email to him, as its a much more detailed write up.. So if you can, please review that, as well as the video i posted that shows my problem. With that being said, here is my gameex log and blinky log.. note, it may or may not help because for instance, gameex goes crazy when the problem starts, but after unplugging my ipac, everything clears up, and i can escape using my keyboard and esc key, there for gameex starts and closes cleanly, i dont know if the glitch would show up in the log.. Ledblinky on the other hand, after the problem starts, i have to unplug my ipac usb, which controls the leds, there fore i dont know if that would be able to give me a correct log. Anyways man, i would love to get this working, otherwise im going to try your plugin, which ill admit im puzzled by. Please review the logs as well as the first post up top for a much better detail of what im going through.

The whole system crashed on atari football, which shows up in the ledblinky log..
If you need me to upload the whole debug.log folder i can do that.

[Imagamejunky]

Hi.
Did you ever get a resolution to this problem?
I am having almost the same exact problem as you.  Very frustrating.
LedBlinky freezes up while playing games and this causes the ipac to freeze up.  The led lights stay lit up and frozen.  I lose all control of any buttons or joysticks that are connected to my ipac ultimate i/o.  I do however still have use of ultrastik360's because they are connected via usb and NOT to the ipac.  I have been using hyperspin/hyperlaunch and have not seen these freezing issues while scrolling any menus.  So far this freezing only happens while playing games. In fact I have also only had this happen while playing mame games.  I watched your video and I am also having the same issue where after unplugging the ipac's usb and then plugging it back in I regain control of my buttons but the led's are only lit very dimly. Uninstalling, reinstalling, deleting drivers, updating drivers,....  you name it, I've tried it.
I have the latest ipac ultimate firmware from Andy (1.23).
I'm convinced that this problem is caused by LedBlinky because if I completely disable it then I don't have any issues with the ipac freezing.

This is driving me nuts.

Does anyone have a solution?

Thanks in advance
Junky

[Imagamejunky]

Tonight LedBlinky and the Ipac froze during Nestopia.

Here is the log.

[arzoo]

I'm convinced that this problem is caused by LedBlinky because if I completely disable it then I don't have any issues with the ipac freezing.

It could be LEDBlinky, or the interface library (dll) between LEDBlinky and the Ultimate I/O, or the hardware/firmware, or any combination of the three. I sent you an email with instruction on how to test with LEDBlinky so that it sends commands to the U I/O even if the hardware is not connected. That may help determine if this is software or hardware related. Let me know how the test goes with the U I/O disconnected.

[aldub516]

So ive found a "resolution" for now, but dont feel 100% in the clear..

My resolution came when i went to the ledblinky site and went to re-download the program to reinstall. While doing this i noticed there is now a new version of led blinky, which u can download an upgrade zip file and just copy it over the old ledblinky files. AS OF RIGHT NOW, since the upgrade, i am having no problems whatsoever. Its been 3 days of testing and i experienced no problems. I just feel nervous because its worked before flawlessly for a while, then one day just breaks down. Arzoo, your suggestion to me was a little confusing. I couldnt understand how i could test it while unplugging the ipac, since the ipac runs the leds. When i would unplug my ipac, i wouldnt be able to use my panel, nor would the leds even run. so by unplugging the ipac, your pretty much killing the whole board, therefore i couldnt see how i would be able to even try to replicate the problem with no ipac running.

Anyways, as i said, as of right now, running new LEDBLINKY 6.2, my problem has been fixed. Permanent or not remains to be seen. Im going to try and keep a close eye on any changes i make, or settings i make, incase it crashes again maybe i can narrow it down to a internal setting thats fixing itself upon clean installs. I read up on the ledblinky thread up top and noticed 6.2 came out on jan 20th? and in the fixes it states arzoo updated the dll for better function with ultimarc controllers.. Im hoping thats it

imagamejunky, please let me know if you were already running 6.2. If you were i guess i can expect my problem to return. If not, hope it fixes it for you too!

edit: please leave this unresolved for a few days, as id like to continue the conversation on it, as it is a some what serious problem to run into after plunking down money for an ultimate i/o and a panel full of led buttons. I also expect this problem may not be fully resolved anyway

[headkaze]

Updating your software would have been the first thing to try. It could very well have been a bug that only shows itself after a certain time or circumstance. That includes the PacDrive.dll I wrote which had a memory leak in earlier versions which has since been updated in LEDBlinky.

[arzoo]

Sorry about the confusion with my suggestion to test without the U I/O connected - for that test you would have to use your keyboard to control the system. None of the LEDs would light up but LEDBlinky would be sending all the commands to the interface dll. If the problem persists then we know it's not the hardware. If it does not persist, then we can assume it's hardware/firmware related (or at least the hardware is part of the problem).

As headkaze mentioned, he updated the interface dll (pacdrive32.dll) to resolve a memory leak and that new version of the dll was included with the 6.2 update to LEDBlinky.

aldub516 - I'm confident that the updated interface library has solved your problem.

Imagamejunky - You've stated that your problem only occurs when running an emulator (not while the HS is active) and that you're using the latest software and firmware versions. So we still need to figure out what's going on. I'll send you an email with further debug suggestions.

[aldub516]

Headkaze, naturally updated all software was my first move. I've been having this problem since December, and have re-downloaded the blinky software numerous times from the site.. It appears that the update came on January 20th, which is fairly new. I didn't expect for a new version to pop up in the midst of me spending weeks downloading new software folders and trying to fix the problem. Infact arzoo didn't even notice the old version in my log.. The update basically came in between the times I visited the site hoping to rectify it with a clean install. Life just got better.