VFP9 timer weirdness and 24/7 apps

I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute, and
all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple of
days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have to
restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu
consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I can see.
I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and destination to
the local hard drive to make sure there were no network issues causing
problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone else ever run into
this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's time consuming because
it takes a few days to get it to stop.

FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.

swdev2
Thu Apr 12 02:37:32 CDT 2007

Are you limiting your memory usage via code in VFP ?
Some SYS call, iirc.
The Timer can be a resource hog, but I replaced most of my timer code
with the SLEEP api call, or I use a scheduling program
called Automate from NetWork Automation (formerly Unisyn Technologies)

see http://www.networkautomation.com/ - there's a 30 day free trial.

Before da rest of you flame me about using the scheduler in the OS -
This program handles recurring jobs, file drop activation,
and a whole lot more.

Regards [Bill]

--
===================
William Sanders / EFG VFP / mySql / MS-SQL
www.efgroup.net/vfpwebhosting
www.terrafox.net www.viasqlserver.net

"Zootal" <Don't send me any freaking spam at zootal dot com remove the don't
send me any freaking spam> wrote in message
news:uoig5MMfHHA.596@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute,
and
> all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple
of
> days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have
to
> restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu
> consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I can
see.
> I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and destination to
> the local hard drive to make sure there were no network issues causing
> problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone else ever run
into
> this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's time consuming
because
> it takes a few days to get it to stop.
>
> FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
> regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.
>
>

Zootal
Thu Apr 12 02:43:36 CDT 2007

Taskmgr does not show very much memory being used, nor is there a trend of
increasing memory. I tend to think it's not a memory issue. Timers can eat
up cpu if you are not careful, but I've not found them to use memory.

I once had a VFP 24/7 app with a memory leak - after about a week it would
exhaust all physical memory and the swap, and crash. I used Serverdoc
(www.serverdoc.com) to restart it at 3am every day. Worked great. I can
always use that here if I have to. I've used VFP for 24/7 apps for years,
and this is the first time I've seen a timer just up and stop after a while.
It's possible there was some other error that I didn't see...need to play
with this more.

"swdev2" <wsanders@dotnetconversions.bob.com> wrote in message
news:%23A%23ArxMfHHA.284@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Are you limiting your memory usage via code in VFP ?
> Some SYS call, iirc.
> The Timer can be a resource hog, but I replaced most of my timer code
> with the SLEEP api call, or I use a scheduling program
> called Automate from NetWork Automation (formerly Unisyn Technologies)
>
> see http://www.networkautomation.com/ - there's a 30 day free trial.
>
> Before da rest of you flame me about using the scheduler in the OS -
> This program handles recurring jobs, file drop activation,
> and a whole lot more.
>
> Regards [Bill]
>
> --
> ===================
> William Sanders / EFG VFP / mySql / MS-SQL
> www.efgroup.net/vfpwebhosting
> www.terrafox.net www.viasqlserver.net
>
> "Zootal" <Don't send me any freaking spam at zootal dot com remove the
> don't
> send me any freaking spam> wrote in message
> news:uoig5MMfHHA.596@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute,
> and
>> all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple
> of
>> days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have
> to
>> restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu
>> consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I can
> see.
>> I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and destination to
>> the local hard drive to make sure there were no network issues causing
>> problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone else ever run
> into
>> this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's time consuming
> because
>> it takes a few days to get it to stop.
>>
>> FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
>> regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.
>>
>>
>
>

Olaf
Thu Apr 12 08:25:25 CDT 2007

You still could use the task scheduler to run your app
every minute. Instead of a timer.

If your app hangs, taks scheduler runs another process
anyway.

You might kill your process after a certain timeout, also
via task scheduler.

Bye, Olaf.

richardclarke
Thu Apr 12 09:46:01 CDT 2007

I have apps running in v9 using timers running at 250ms and as yet i haven't
experienced any problems with them stopping running. Like you i have used
timers in v7 and v8 and had no problems there either.


--
Richard Clarke


"Zootal" wrote:

> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute, and
> all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple of
> days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have to
> restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu
> consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I can see.
> I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and destination to
> the local hard drive to make sure there were no network issues causing
> problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone else ever run into
> this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's time consuming because
> it takes a few days to get it to stop.
>
> FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
> regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.
>
>
>

Zootal
Thu Apr 12 15:16:16 CDT 2007

How long to they run? 24/7? Days/weeks at a time?

"Richard Clarke" <richardclarke@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:35FDF74B-665B-4303-9AB9-A12ECF55B200@microsoft.com...
>I have apps running in v9 using timers running at 250ms and as yet i
>haven't
> experienced any problems with them stopping running. Like you i have used
> timers in v7 and v8 and had no problems there either.
>
>
> --
> Richard Clarke
>
>
> "Zootal" wrote:
>
>> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute,
>> and
>> all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple
>> of
>> days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have
>> to
>> restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu
>> consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I can
>> see.
>> I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and destination to
>> the local hard drive to make sure there were no network issues causing
>> problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone else ever run
>> into
>> this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's time consuming
>> because
>> it takes a few days to get it to stop.
>>
>> FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
>> regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.
>>
>>
>>

Mike
Thu Apr 12 19:04:15 CDT 2007

I have several applications written in VFP8 that uses the timer for updating
tables that run 24/7 and I haven't had any problems. I have 1 Dell Optiplex
desktop computer that is running 3 of these applications 24/7. The
application and tables are all on the network server.

"Zootal" <Don't send me any freaking spam at zootal dot com remove the don't
send me any freaking spam> wrote in message
news:uoig5MMfHHA.596@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute,
> and all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a
> couple of days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running,
> and I have to restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive
> cpu consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I
> can see. I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and
> destination to the local hard drive to make sure there were no network
> issues causing problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone
> else ever run into this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's
> time consuming because it takes a few days to get it to stop.
>
> FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
> regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.
>

Man-wai
Thu Apr 12 22:19:43 CDT 2007

Zootal wrote:
> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute, and
> all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple of
> days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have to
> restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu

Mind to attach the source codes here (since it's a simple app)?

--
iTech Consulting Services Limited
Expert of ePOS solutions
Website: http://www.itech.com.hk (IE only)
Tel: (852)2325 3883 Fax: (852)2325 8288

George
Fri Apr 13 17:44:05 CDT 2007

On Apr 11, 10:25 pm, "Zootal" <Don't send me any freaking spam at
zootal dot com remove the don't send me any freaking spam> wrote:
> I have a *very* simple app that runs 24/7. A timer fires once a minute, and
> all it does is copy files from point A to point B. Repeat. After a couple of
> days of running, it appears that the timer just stops running, and I have to
> restart the app to get it going again. There is no excessive cpu
> consumption, no excessive memory or handles or any resources that I can see.
> I ran it on a local hard drive and pointed it's source and destination to
> the local hard drive to make sure there were no network issues causing
> problems. No joy. After a few days, it just stops. Anyone else ever run into
> this? I'm working on making it duplicateble, but it's time consuming because
> it takes a few days to get it to stop.
>
> FWIW, I've run apps in VFP7 that ran 24/7 and had timers that fired
> regularly, and it ran and ran and ran with no issues.

I have several vfp9 apps that run like this. Since the timing isn't
really critical, I just use either a WAIT WINDOW msg TIMEOUT or
INKEY(nsec).