Question

[fury]

I like the concept of the program, but I use E Horse for betting, and for some reason, ATR keeps freezing up and crashing. Is it possibly that I need a better video card?

[pizzaman]

Not enough informatioin. Please contact ATR technical support at garypitz@hotmail.com and we'll see if we can figure it out.

[fury]

I'm running windows resource monitor. On a few occasions when ATR is running, the monitor warns me that only 10% of resources are left. When I close ATR, it frees up about 30% of them. The only thing I can figure is that the program has some kind of resource leak.

What I've noticed while using it is that the program is fine as long as no streaming video is being played. Every time a new (Windows Media Player) streaming media (e.g. a new track) is opened, Windows loses some resources. This is true whether or not ATR is cycling. Once ATR is closed, about 30% of system resources are restored. Not being a programmer, I don't know why this is happening, but perhaps it will help the programmer find the problem.

[Mark White]

Without ever seeing or running the program, I would say that it's a VB (Visual Basic) call problem. If the program is on a timer updating tracks, any steady download, such as streaming media, can cause a delay in the program getting its information. The same problem could occur if the source is lagged and doesn't send the requested information (such as Racing Channel's tote frequently does). What happens is that the program locks up internally and repeatedly calls for the information. Not getting it, the program gets caught in a loop and repeated grabs system resources without letting any of them go. It can also lead to a conflict with other running programs. Either one can lock the system up. In addition, the program can be requesting a socket repeatedly and not releasing those if it doesn't get a reply.

The solution in layman's terms is to put a short timeout on the updating, say 10 seconds. If the program doesn't have its update by then, it moves on. Also, the coder should be sure that the program releases whatever it asks for if it isn't successful. He also might want to check to see if there are any miscoded infinite loops in the routine.