This is on Windows 7 x64 Professional with always connected cable modem.
WWL frequently (but not always) has trouble when the system is pulled out Sleep Mode. There are times during this period that dl.exe locks up and other times that ww.exe starts using high levels (50%+) of the CPU time and has to be manually shutdown and restarted. I “think” this is centered around WWL not properly recognizing that Internet access is not fully active for a short period as the system pulls out of Sleep mode. I would really appreciate this being investigated and fixed,if possible. :???:
I’ve tried turning off the cable modem and then “Retrieve Weather”; however, dl.exe and ww.exe seem to respond/recover to/from this okay.
Note that I am also replacing my PSU with a higher wattage PSU (Silencer 500) within the next week just in case this is a PSU issue on my Dell XPS 410.
Windows has never handled sleep mode well, especially on desktops, the hardware isn’t designed for it. It was designed to help save battery life on laptops and since desktops don’t have batteries there is nothing to be gained using it. If you disable it WWL should run fine.
But I utilize sleep mode to conserve power usage and utility costs on my home electric bill. Would really like to keep it active and have WWL recover like other programs do. WWL runs great except under the described condition.
If you’re truly concerned about saving electricity turn the pc off at night and unplug the modem/router. I doubt you’re saving $0.25/mo using sleep mode. Turning the pc off at night will probably save you a few dollars.
nuMe is right siliconman01. Sleep mode was not designed for desktop machines, the mainboard controllers are different and the results are unpredictable.
If you want to save electricity turn of the machine and monitor. You don’t need to turn off the router.
The point is – it did not use to occur, so it is not an inherent problem for PC’s. I have software that captures webcam images from around the globe that I leave running at night. I want my computer running during the night. (it even works in sleep mode).
wreck, 7.0.39 is very old. Are you able to consistently reproduce this problem using the latest version of Weather Watcher Live? I can look into this if you can give me some more information on how to reproduce it. Otherwise, it’s going to be hard to attempt to implement a fix.
BTW, as far as I know, software does not run while your computer is in sleep mode.
7.039 was the latest “old version” listed here to download. Send me a link to the prior version and I will test it. The latest version consistently freezes after the computer has been in sleep mode for an extended time. The WWL “options” ask whether you want to run in “sleep mode” – I’ve played with those options with no luck. The only other thing I think may be having an effect is my browser. I use IE based “Maxthon 2”. I’ve noticed that sometimes my graphics on a webpage won’t load after an extended period in sleep mode as well. (Could be the browser causing the problem in WWL too!)
wreck, I mispoke about the version number above. That’s an okay version to fall back to for testing purposes. I didn’t change anything major between the versions, so I’m not sure that caused this issue to surface.
I’d like to try to reproduce this issue. For testing purposes, how long is an “extended time”?
Where exactly did the Weather Watcher Live Options ask if you’d like Weather Watcher Live to run while in sleep mode?
I’m at work - I’ll report back this evening. As for “extended time” – it varies. For example, I think I went to bed around 12:30 pm and the last “downloaded” and “observed” time was about 2:30 am. Other times, it has stopped about 5 am. During the day, it sometimes stops only after an hour or so.
Okay – When I got home v 7.039 had frozen as well. It shows in the tool tip, but you cannot open or close the program. This time it only worked for about 20 minutes after I left for work. Like I mentioned earlier, maybe it is not a WWL problem - but some other program I have running (ie. my “Advance System Care” or my browser). I have had all of these programs for a long time, but maybe some software updates have caused this!
As for the WWL options: General Tab > Weather Auto Update > “Do Not Retrieve Weather if Screen Saver is Running”
I just experienced ww.exe started consuming 50-53% CPU continuously even though my system has been running for some 5 hours. I waited ~ 5 minutes to see if WWL would complete whatever it was doing. Right click on the temp icon in the Notification Tray would not work. I had to use the Task Manager to kill it. dl.exe was not in memory at the time.
This is with V7.0.47 on Win 7 x64 Professional. WWL had been running normally and I was not doing anything out of the ordinary on the system. In fact, at the time this occurred I was just sitting here watching the LightScribe screen burning a DVD label and thinking about the SOTU speech (it’s been a long evening :lol: )
wreck, the screen saver setting is not related to sleep mode. As I mentioned above, no programs should be running while your computer is in sleep mode – Weather Watcher Live included.
siliconman01, regarding your latest finding above, do you recall if there were any DL.EXE processes running at that time? If so, were they also consuming a lot of CPU?
siliconman01 & wreck, as a test, in the “Advanced” → “Internet” section of the Weather Watcher Live Options window, try enabling the “Only attempt to download data…” setting. I’m wondering if your computers do not have an Internet connection when they awake from sleep mode, and if Weather Watcher Live is trying to update during that short period of no connectivity.
At the time ww.exe was consuming high CPU cycles, dl.exe was not in memory at all. That is the first thing I check when such an event occurs. I have had dl.exe “stuck” in memory at the time of high ww.exe cpu usage and killing dl.exe does not result in ww.exe recovering. Both processes have to be manually killed. I’ve often wondered if it is being caused by a magnet’s address not responding. I have 3 magnets on the desktop (set to refresh 5, 5, 30 minutes) However, I have not been able to confirm this supposition.
Since this problem is a recent problem – I’m tending to think it is not my computer’s quirk - but, some setting or software conflict that I have added lately. I just went through my “Auto Defrag” settings and found that I had BOTH “auto defrag” and “scheduled defrag” both checked. I’m going to play with these settings or disable the program completely. I will report back!
