Centrafuse RC5 Bugs

**midiwall** · 01-07-2007, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by veetid

It's a Beta, so yes you have to uninstall and reinstall often, sorry for the inconvenience...

By your own words, it's a Release Candidate. That's beyond beta, and stuff like not being able to handle adding fields to a config file should have been dealt with a LONG time ago.

I've complained "softly" about this, and yeah, this time I let some attitude show. I've said it MANY times before - get your core solid, and the rest will be easy. Your core is pretty flaky. That's shown each time that you take two steps forward and one step back. (ref: nav issues, updater, UI elements)

I fixed all the XM stuff you reported and wanted so bad, no mention of liking those updates?

I saw that you reported them fixed, all my XM gear is in my truck which is down for major work. "Thank you" for working on it, but (like I said above) I can't comment on it 'cause I can't test it.

I bought 4 VFD's and they all worked, 2 were out of a DVine HTPC case and one out of Silverstone case, another I wired myself...

Where are you buying your VFD's? I need one that you have to put special code around the different type you have... I did literally test 4 completely different ones...

We've talked about this, and it's been mentioned by other people as well that there are different ways to wire the interface.

I don't need special code, it's the same straight parallel interface. It has to be about strobe timing. Are you actually toggling the latch or just throwing data out the port on a time delay?

I (and other folks) have also offered to send you my/our display as wired, with the knowledge that it works with a freely downloadable app. Want it?

I will look into the large MP3 issue, I never played any that large, sure it can be fixed...

Thanks. But again, for the 3rd time, you're ditching the question about what you're "loading". I can't come up with any real reason that you can't start playback of ANY MP3 sub-second. EVERYONE else does - WMP, Winamp, Quicktime, {insert audio player here}, {insert personal media player here}, etc.

Whats with the attitude? I fixed many things you reported and as quickly as possible... If you don't want to use Centrafuse there are other options...

I respect what you're doing, and (as I've said before), I think that CF is the best app out there. But I really think that you're making bad choices in terms of priorities. We've talked offline, and I understand the issues that you had to go through to do ANY work on XM - I appreciate that you did anything, but again, I won't comment until I can test it.

The updater issue is just silly. I have yet to hear any argument from you that explains why this doesn't work. Anything that you've mentioned is a smoke screen. "I added a service", "I added tags to the config file(s)". You don't seem to understand that there are people here that reinstalling their system FROM SCRATCH takes real time. And 1-2 HOURS of real time is a REAL issue for a lot of people.

Again, this updater thing should be part of your core - the core that should have been stable a LONG time ago.

This may irk you, but I'm not going anywhere. I LIKE what you're doing with this app, but I _will_ be tough on you. From what I've seen here, I'm only one of TWO people that are really on your case to get this thing right.

I've been writing software for a paycheck for 25 years. I actually enjoy the people that have pounded on my arse to get things right.

Of course, "Your mileage may vary".

**ivanmx6** · 01-07-2007, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by justintime

A FAIR WARNING TO ALL: APpears that uninstalling RC 4.4 with the installer msi, will wipe out everything in your install folder. SO if you had any custom skins, plugins, etc, they are all gone.

Backup before uninstalling, like I did!

Cheers for that.
It also stopped my UK, France and Deutschland maps working until I copied them back. It must have deleted something in those folders too.

David,
A couple of NAV bugs for you:
1. If I click directly on the map to add a location as a favourite there's no keyboard input available to name the favourite.
2. Also, after saving that favourite if you click on the "i" button, the Information screen pops up and is impossible to get rid of unless you exit and restart CF.

Big thanks for re-enabling the "navigate to a point on the map" feature though.

And the Media Library view is much better. (No funny squares here.)

**justintime** · 01-07-2007, 11:26 AM

ivanmx6:

When you upgraded to RC5, are you seeing the same issues with squares in titles that I see? How about the Genres with 'commas' in them? See my posts above...

**justintime** · 01-07-2007, 11:40 AM

Probably deserves its own thread, but I had a constructuve comment regarding the config file issue and the autoupdater etc, and the original thread is now locked

I used to program for Apple Macintosh MacOS systems a few years back (before I switched to PC, and ditched programming altogether for some other more lucrative business). When I stored the app's user 'Preferences' (the 'settings'), I stored them in a flat file in text format. It had very little structure, I did not use XML, and INI files as we know them on the PC where non-existent. I encountered the same issue you have where upgrades would require added/removed/altered settings on the saved preferences file.

My updaters/patches managed that seamlessly to the user: It would scan through the preference file, determine what needed to be changed, and did it all behind the scenes, preserving my user's settings.

Now with CF, you are golden. Your settings are in a well structured format (XML), so you are already one step ahead in terms of having the ability to easily scan through the file, alter your user's settings, and adapt them to be compatible with new upgraded versions.

Now I know this is not totally trivial, and it will require effort on your part to code this, sometimes on a case-by-case basis for each upgrade. You might be thinking this is time better spent in other areas of CF, new features etc... but keep in mind that this will come back and bite you in the cheeks (where the sun don't shine!). You see, even after your final release, you will find that you need to add a setting here or there, and you really cannot expect your users to loose all their settings just to upgrade to a new point version/revision of CF. Those users will have paid, and thery are no longer in Beta mode, so they will be very upset.

In summary: CF is a fantastic app. Don't let this irritating upgrade issue take away from it. Thanks.

**coucouillu** · 01-07-2007, 01:35 PM

I think WE need Zorro here.
If you have wrong parameters for Phone control in Centrafuse and get the message on Centrafuse startup "Opening the communication port failed..." (look at the joined picture) PhoCo will write several times per second the following message in error.log file in Centrafuse directory :

Code:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
07/01/2007 17:43:11
Une connexion existante a dû être fermée par l'hôte distant
   at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Receive(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags)
   at PhoneControl.PhoCoInterface.ReceiverThread()
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It writes about 1,5Mo/minute !!!!

After a few day with my com port failed message I have my error.log file which is 230Mo big!!!!

I know that disabling the phone in settings solve the problem but I think PhoneControl should be fixed for this case.

**zorro** · 01-07-2007, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by coucouillu

I think WE need Zorro here.
If you have wrong parameters for Phone control in Centrafuse and get the message on Centrafuse startup "Opening the communication port failed..." (look at the joined picture) PhoCo will write several times per second the following message in error.log file in Centrafuse directory :

Code:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
07/01/2007 17:43:11
Une connexion existante a dû être fermée par l'hôte distant
   at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Receive(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags)
   at PhoneControl.PhoCoInterface.ReceiverThread()
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It writes about 1,5Mo/minute !!!!

After a few day with my com port failed message I have my error.log file which is 230Mo big!!!!

I know that disabling the phone in settings solve the problem but I think PhoneControl should be fixed for this case.

I'm sorry, this has to be done by David. PhoCo isn't writing anything into the CF error.log.

However, there is a PhoCo Bug in this release that will not show the contacts from the phonebooks. To get rif of it, download these two files:
PhoneCtlInterface.zip -> goes into the CF folder
PhoneCtlWizard.zip -> goes into the CF\PhoneControl.NET folder

After that rerun the Wizard to correct the settings in the configuration file and everything's good.

**coucouillu** · 01-07-2007, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by zorro

I'm sorry, this has to be done by David. PhoCo isn't writing anything into the CF error.log.

However, there is a PhoCo Bug in this release that will not show the contacts from the phonebooks. To get rif of it, download these two files:
PhoneCtlInterface.zip -> goes into the CF folder
PhoneCtlWizard.zip -> goes into the CF\PhoneControl.NET folder

After that rerun the Wizard to correct the settings in the configuration file and everything's good.

Thank you for the joined files.

**ivanmx6** · 01-07-2007, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by justintime

ivanmx6:

When you upgraded to RC5, are you seeing the same issues with squares in titles that I see? How about the Genres with 'commas' in them? See my posts above...

Not seeing either of those here problems Justin, sorry.

**Alfredbra** · 01-07-2007, 07:32 PM

Cant send SMS. I have an o2 mini xda (windows mobile 2003 SE) phone. I can recieve SMS messages, calls, dial, view inbox and everything BUT send an sms message. I have downloaded phonecontrol.net and have tryed using that software but the problem still occurs.... Dunno if its a bug i should be posting here or on the phoncontrol.net site. Or perhaps i have something not quite right? I have tryed setting up the phone as just a windows mobile 2003 handset but i still get the same issue.

Using widcomm stack. Headset working fine everything but sms.

Thanx

**midiwall** · 01-07-2007, 11:46 PM

Originally Posted by Alfredbra

Cant send SMS....

Did it work in a previous release or is this your first foray into CentraFuse?

Check for an "error.log" file in the CF install directory. If it's a problem with CF there may be some info there.