QFAI Pegging CPU

[tradertom]

I have noticed that if I leave QFAI on the Server Selector screen for more than a few seconds, it consumes 100% of each of my processor cores (four processors pegged at 100% makes for a slooow machine!) The offending program is qf-start.

If I click on the run program button before the servers show more than one or two ping times, it moves on quickly. If I leave the pinging screen up for more than a sec or two, it freezes my PC. It never fully paints the whole server selector screen and a single ping time will fill in every few seconds.

This freezing does not always happen and I have no way of knowing what is different when it does since I always start QCharts using QFAI the same way every time. It also makes no difference which QCharts installation I run. This freezing happens about three of four times but only if I allow the screen to display for more than a second or two. I believe I am using the latest version of the application.

Bob, Larry, any thoughts on this?

Thanks ,
Tom

[Larry Marchman]

Hey Tom,

Until Bob comes around with items to check or an ah-ha to share, here's a potpourri of stuff. Read all of 'em before doing anything. You may wish to do #6 below. It's really a quick thingy to do.

1.
When did this problem first manifest?

2.
I'm not clear on what you mean when you say...
"This freezing happens about three of four times...."
Could ya please expand on that?

3.
Does Setup>QFAI Diagnostics return an OK status?

4.
Your Ping&Select server list has QFeed Servers names of...
cc-01-sc8.quote.com thru cc-11-sc8.quote.com
and
cc01-hwd.quote.com thru cc16-hwd-quote.com

5.
Start DOS Prompt and enter...
ping cc-01-sc8.quote.com -n 25
While it's doing the 25 pings, in your system monitor is PING.EXE chewing up a high %CPU?

6.
If in the mood, you could delete and reinstall QFAI.
To save time on the reinstall, before you delete your QFAI folder, set aside somewhere file "QF-Apps.txt". That's the catalog of your applications in QFAI. Then after Install, and BEFORE you start QFAI, move the QF-Apps.txt into the QFAI folder. This will save the long running SCAN and you having to do the "Friendly Name" thingy that's part of starting a brand new QFAI. After starting QFAI, you will have to check the UNF option if you use that.
QFAI Installer (select Run/Open to run immediately without the need to Save to local disk)

7. If the problem still manifests, as you well know you can use QuickSelect option rather than Ping&Select (qf-start.exe).

LAM

[bobscott]

Tom,

QF-Start was not written by me so I can't address any issues with it if there are any. However, I have a Ping program which I wrote and I find that if I continually ask for a ping report on the 27 servers in the SERVER.txt file my program will "hang" after a few seconds. The problem seems to be that Hayward servers 10 and 11 are timing out. See the following data:

cc09-hwd.esignal.com Status: Success Time: 28 ms
cc10-hwd.esignal.com Status: Req timed out
cc11-hwd.esignal.com Status: Req timed out
cc12-hwd.esignal.com Status: Success Time: 30 ms

cc09-hwd.esignal.com Status: Success Time: 30 ms
cc10-hwd.esignal.com Status: Req timed out
cc11-hwd.esignal.com Status: Req timed out
cc12-hwd.esignal.com Status: Success Time: 31 ms

cc09-hwd.esignal.com Status: Success Time: 30 ms
cc10-hwd.esignal.com Status: Req timed out
cc11-hwd.esignal.com Status: Req timed out
cc12-hwd.esignal.com Status: Success Time: 31 ms

So, this might be something that is a problem with those two Servers.

~Bob

[tradertom]

Hi guys,

Thanks for replying so quickly. I was just curious if anyone had come across this problem. It is not a show stopping problem for me and I really didn't expect any kind of tech support for it... just wondered if there was a known issue. To answer Larry's questions:

q1: was a problem at the end of last year and all through this year, and it happens on two different desktop computers (the second of which was a reloaded fresh with WinXPPro onto a blank HDD in January.) Both computers loaded from the same downloaded file (maybe a clue!) I would say it has been going on since before the Miami farm was decommissioned but I cannot be sure... just a guess.

q2: This problem presents itself three out of four times that I start QCharts. In other words, it is very common. I have worked around it by quickly clicking the "Run QFAI-App.exe" button within seconds of the screen appearing.

q3: yes, diagnostics reports no errors found.

q4: Yes, servers all are up to date. Same servers I use in multiping. (wish my ping times were as good as Bob's!)

q5: DOS Ping doesn't even flicker on the CPU charts. No CPU hit during the DOS ping session.

q6: I will probably reinstall after a good cleanup of the previous version. I really don't need to do server selection as much now that I am using v6 (don't use the Continuum data that much, if at all) and I use MultiPing routinely anyway.

q7: yep probably will do this if reinstall doesn't do the trick.

Bob, Thanks for the note also. I have noticed how the "error" pings will cause a slight pause when it works normally, but this is not the case when it freezes. It is as if the ping numbers are being put up on the screen one at a time with 3-4 seconds between them (even on the same server line: last...3 seconds... average...3 seconds...etc.) Even when they are pinging normally, the app just locks the CPU while the screen painfully paints. Oh well, I have several things to try.

Thanks again,
Tom

[tradertom]

Larry,

I deleted the QFAI directory and reinstalled it from the link you provided (after saving the applications text file as you suggested). It did not help unfortunately. I was wondering if there were registry settings or some files I could delete to do a more complete uninstall?

Until I figure something else out, I will just use QuickSelect and it will be fine.

Thanks again,
Tom

[bobscott]

Tom,

I don't know if Hayward Servers 10 and 11 are any part of the issue but I have edited them out of a special test Server.txt file which you can try if you want. If you would like to try, do the following:

1. Shut down QFAI

2. Using Explorer, find the file "UNF-URL.txt" in your QFAI folder.

3. Open the file with Notepad and edit from:

......qcsoftwarehelp.com/QFAI/

to the following:

......qcsoftwarehelp.com/Scotty/

4. Save the file, Start QFAI and goto the Menu Item Setup>Refresh IP Addresses and you should get a list of servers that does not include Hayward 10 & 11.

See if that changes anything. Just reverse the process to get back to standard.

Oh, you said ....I have worked around it by quickly clicking the "Run QFAI-App.exe" button within seconds of the screen appearing.... Don't you mean "Exit"?


QFAI uses no registry items so that should not be a problem.

~Bob

[tradertom]

Bob,

Thanks for helping. I followed your instructions and still get the 100% CPU utilization when I use the Ping and Select option. I can confirm that the two Hayward servers were not in the list using QuickSelect after I ran your instructions. (I will change it back and reload IP addresses in a sec.)

What I have been doing is to open Ping and Select (double-click on the application while Ping and Select is ticked.) Then, before the server ping list gets really started loading, I hit the "Run QFAI-App.exe" and QCharts opens like normal and Ping and Select disappears. If I wait too long, I am hosed and CPU goes to 100% and I have to open Task Manager to brute-force close the Ping and select list (which is pitifully painting ever so slowly.) It often takes 45 seconds to a minute for even Task Manager to open once this freeze happens. (I am using a Quad Core Intel at 2.4 GHz with 3GB RAM.) So, to avoid all this hassle, I just quickly hit the "Run QFAI-App.exe" button and move into QCharts immediately. (If I hit Exit, it wouldn't open QCharts I presume.)

Thanks,
Tom

[Larry Marchman]

Tom,

Thanks for the feedback.

If you deleted your old QFAI folder completely, then that's a complete uninstall. No registry stuff to worry about to the best of my knowledge.

As a grasping at straws thingy here, ya might try setting qf-start.exe as Win95 or Win98 compatibility mode just for the heck of it. See attached screenshot.

fwiw, I rarely use QFAI Ping&Select. I use QuickSelect since Multiping is my primary pinger.

LAM

[bobscott]

Tom,

While we're on a roll.... If you want to beat this thing a little more, I have uploaded a SERVERS.txt file to ... Scotty that has all of the Hayward servers deleted. Just go through the motions again and see if you see any difference using QF-Start.exe.

~Bob

[tradertom]

Bob,

Still no joy. I can confirm again that the Hayward servers do not appear on the QuickSelect listing (but didn't wait for the Ping and Select list too long... Task Manager is getting a real workout on this one.)

I am OK with using QuickSelect. It is not really an issue since I use MultiPing and can see all the server response times pretty clearly. Also, I am rarely using 5.1 anymore since Mike and Jay fixed v6 to be more responsive during market hours so the Continuum servers are less critical (as far as network speed goes) than before.

Thanks to Larry for reminding me about QuickSelect... I was in a Ping and Select Rut. I think this will work for now.

Thanks for trying to help though!!
Tom

[bobscott]

Tom,

Larry's thought is good but I also thought of something. Although I get good ping times, I can't use any program that keeps pinging like Multi-Ping, Ping Plotter or even QF-Start. The reason is that before they went to prison my ISP (used to be Adelphia before Time Warner took over) put in a Denial Of Service (DOS) program which limits pings to about once per second. For instance, if I let QF-Start run, I get the following but this does not result in a "hang up" for me.

~Bob

[bobscott]

Tom,

Don't forget to get "Scotty" out of the picture and go back to "QFAI" in the "UNF-URL.txt" file.

~Bob

[tradertom]

Bob,

I know what you mean about the DoS attack filters they use but I have MultiPing set to ping every 10 seconds which is plenty for my needs. I have it configured with 4 floating graphs set for 6 hours across the bottom on two of my monitors so I can see at a glance how those 4 servers have been doing. MultiPing starts with this workspace when I start my computer and I have been running it like this for several years now and so far no problems with my ISP (who should be in prison!)

I don't think MultiPing really interferes with my other network traffic to any significant extent. In fact, while we were experimenting about with QFAI, I closed MultiPing to avoid any interference with QFAI's pinging.

Oh and yes, I reverted back to the QFAI server list and reloaded IPs in QFAI. Thanks again for all your help on this!

Thanks,
Tom

[bobscott]

Tom,

If your ISP has a DoS filter then maybe that is part of the problem since I think QF-Start just keeps on pinging on a fairly often basis. Anyhow, Quick Select is the answer and that is what I use since Ping & Select is of no use to me.

~Bob

[tradertom]

Well, I finally tried running it in Windows 98/Windows ME compatibility mode as Larry mentioned below and I have been pleasantly surprised to see that it works now! I have run it a dozen times now and have not had one freeze.

Put that one in the troubleshooting book in case it happens to someone else down the road.

Many thanks for your help this afternoon Bob and Larry... Your dedication to QCharts users is tremendous and very much appreciated!

Best Regards,
Tom