Tracing in TS4.... slow

[Bojer]

Hey All

I have a small issue about TS4, I can see that running with the tracer in the sequence editor has slowed a lot down since TS3.5.... why...

The slighter is of course set to fastest, but still if I have a loop, then it takes several "years" to go around.

What can I do about it.. this will be an annoying thing....

/Thomas Bojer

[mitulatbati]

Hi

1. Have you tried to disable the unnecessary trace options on the same place where the tracing speed can be set (with the slider).

2. I had the same problem and I found out, when I have a lot of watch expressions, the execution slows down dramatically.

Just two ideas.

regards

[Bojer]

The only option there is set is "trace into setup/cleanup".

But I had some variables on on watch.... and yes as soon as I removed them, then the tracing are running fast again..... yeah......

I can't figure out what has changed since TS3.5........ because it was not that slow when having watch on some variables.

I tried some things.... and as soon as you have 1 watch... then it is slow..... even that the variable is not used in the loop code...

Crap......

/Thomas

[lars]

I brought this to the attention of the TestStand developers a few weeks ago. They are working on it.

[Bojer]

Thanks....

I have converted my production to TS4..... but to honost... I hope I hadn't.... the editor has a nice new design.. no doubt about that... but I have found so many things that was better in TS3.5..

Here a short list.

1. Speed when tracing with variables... slow as h..ll

2. Speed when moving down the steps.. but is laking behind the key presses..

3. Setup/main/cleanup in the same window.. thats nice.. but why can't you select all steps and then "Run selected steps"... that is stupid.

4. You can't use the mouse anymore to select steps.

5. My globals.ini is readonly because my setup is global in the factory (cfg on the network), but now you can't change any value when on watch, or going to the globals window... that was also possible in 3.5

6. Startup time.... noooo.. it is damm slow now... it takes forever to startup.. both OI and editor..

7. If you configure for instance a wait... then description is not always updated anymore.... looks like it miss a "step changed" call :-).. the new value is saved, it's only the window lacking behind.

I have only used TS4 for about a week now..... so I think there will come more to this list...... crap...

/Thomas Bojer

[AllenP]

Thomas,

I'm sorry for the problems you are having with TestStand 4.0.  There were certainly some tradeoffs made when developing the new Sequence Editor, and we hope to address many of these issues in future versions of TestStand.  I do have a few questions regarding a few of the items on your list.

For item 3-

This behavior is unchanged since TestStand 3.5.  Interactive Executions (Run Selected Steps) allow you to run steps in only one step group.  If the step group selected is the Main step group, it will also run all steps in the Setup and Cleanup groups.  It may be nice to select arbitrary steps from different step groups, but this functionality never existed and would require modifying the engine to add this new feature.

For item 7-

I tried to recreate this behavior and was unable to see a lag of more than half a second (roughly).  How much of a lag are you seeing?  Does it eventually update properly?  Does this always happens or only occasionally?  Are there only certain conditions that this happens?

The other issues you mention have been reported to R&D and we are looking at ways to resolve them.

Kind Regards,
Allen P.
NI

[Bojer]

Item 3...

Yes you are correct that the behavior is the same, but how to select the steps is changed, in TS3.5 you could press "ctrl-a" in setup, main, or cleanup, and then run the steps.. but know when the all steps are in the same window then when you press "ctrl-a" then it selects all steps but before you can run them, then you have to deselect so you only have steps of one group... so it is just a thing that is annoying me...  it thought it would have been better that if you press "ctrl-a" then it only select all steps in main.

Item7....

I have only seen thie behavior a couple of times, and it was not a time lag, it was first updating, when you were doing a subseq. change, and I have only seen it on the wait step... and the setting was always saved, so it was only a missing screen refresh.

/Thomas

[AllenP]

Thomas,

I also have been able to check TestStand 3.5, and the behavior for item 5 may be caused due to your old system having the Sequence Editor option of allowing editing of read only files.  If you have this set in 3.5, the default in 4.0 is to not allow editing of read only files.  If you would like to edit read only files, go to Configure >> Sequence Editor Options to change this setting to match your 3.5 configuration.

Kind Regards,

Allen P
NI

[Bojer]

Thanks Allen.

You were right, when I set this option, then everything is back to normal when editing read only files.... I can't remember that I had set that option in 3.1.... were I started.... I still run on the same cfg files... but the setting must have.

Regarding the other issue about missing description update, then I have also seen it on other steps now.... also my own custom steps... it doesn't happen very often...

Then we have a new "problem", we have seen that in the step "sequence call", then the sequence list in current file is empty.... when several sub-sequences is present.... when this happens then we have to restart TS... then we can see the sequences again, I have tried to reproduce it, but can't find out when it happens.

These 2 issues seems to come over time, I use TS alot, so the editor is running all day long...

Kind regards

Thomas