To save some time, here is a list of known Bugs which are not yet addressed in this current update. I also pruned this Bugs List from what it contained in the former Testing Forum. Stuff that's left indicates it still needs to be addressed.

1. 'Can't Convert ...' - the infamous mis-interpretation of Trackmaster's error message when you submit a bad UID/PWD, or credit card expired, or account Inactive, etc. The workaround is still at: http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...7&postcount=17

2. Entries screen contents can be shifted right-wards by various mouse click and left/right-arrow key combos. Solution: if it shifts right-wards, hit the left-arrow key until it hets back to the proper position.

3. The tote section at the right-side of some Analysis screens is a bit garbled: colours faded, fonts improperly bolded. The Rx screen appears to be correct. This appears to happen when Coupled Entries are present, possibly also when FTS are listed.

4. On the Tote Tab, the ML Odds rank 1 is blank and other ML Odds ranks are shifted down by 1. The ML Odds and rank appear correct everywhere else.

(Points #3 and #4 are what delayed me almost 2 working days trying to fix - then I decided to release this and continue working on it ...)

5. Program crashes from time to time, both during race Assemble and during normal use. A big issue, still working on it. Just restart. Assemble 1 card of races at a time, then close, reopen, then another card of races. Or, open multiple instances of RDSS and Assemble 1 card in each. Run multiple instance of RDSS with one track or group of races in each.

6. When connected to tote, when a race becomes Official and moves to the next race, the tote screen or Analysis screen you're looking at changes to reflect the new race (either the same or different track). Simply click on a different Analysis Tab then click back, or re-sort the Analysis screen you're looking at, thus refreshing the contents back to the proper track and race.



Ted

This bug is fixed!

I updated the software and there is a fresh download file available (V2.1.048-a). I expected there would be a few significant bugs - I just didn't know what they would be - LOL!

Download here: http://www.rdss2.com/how-to-obtain, or always via the RDSS Icon upper-right corner of website.

Ted

Panel size
 

I'm also having a bit of a problem with the font size in the various tabs. The one for the primary screen is far too small and apparently not adjustable. I tried increasing the zoom to 140 as an experiment and while it worked for one pane, the one for primary is way too small for my aging eyes to read. This could be a problem as I originally came here because worsening vision made the DRF PPs impossible to deal with a decade ago.

Hopefully the screen cap will post, been a long time since I've tried that.

Hi Clore,

Did you download and install Ted's update to the update? It should fix the sizing issue. It did with my update.

Charles, you should download the update which fixes this bug :) Mentioned in the post immediately preceding yours (and per our email discussion).

Cheers,

Ted

Thanks guys, I haven't gotten to that yet. I was working on today's AQU card, one with an abundance of playable races and was going to wait until it's done. Plus I'm still re-installing all programs that were lost to a fresh install of Windows after the drive was corrupted.

Again, my thanks.

I'm using Ver 2.1.048a. These are minor "bugs" which I've noticed.

After assembling several cards, RDSS will stop working. The last race it was assembling will have all horses grouped as "Non Contender."

To avoid the lock up, I'll restart RDSS after a couple of cards. I'll get the message "rdss2.exe has stopped working" which is unnecessary as I was restarting the program.

Yesterday, March 10, Santa Anita 4th race (Triple Bend Stakes), RDSS kept scratching #4 although #4 wasn't scratched and ran 2nd. I tried to reassembling the race twice with the same result.

Hi Ted,
(Hope this isn't addressed somewhere I missed) ...
The live link to the Tote system seems to open now, automatically.
If I'm preparing or doing something not during race time, I would like to have it off.
Is there a way to turn it off ?
Thanks.

Here's an example:

Never mind ... doh ! :rolleyes:

MVR Mahoning Valley Race Course is missing from the Data Center track list download file.

If you click Display Available Cards to refresh whats available, then uncheck then recheck the box in the All Tracks header, does MVR appear?

Attachment 45849

Ted

YES, that worked Ted. Thank you Al

Automatically when RDSS loads, it fetches MTP for all tracks (carried by TwinSpires world-wide, actually) once a minute.

Every 5 minutes, it fetches Changes & Scratches for any of Today's cards which are opened (i.e. Card Summary is displayed).

It fetches odds for any of these open cards when Race 1 MTP reaches 20 MTP and refreshes each 45 seconds until 1 MTP, then each 15 seconds until pools stop changing.

The tote system is not supposed to reach out over the internet for anything related to Future or Past races - only for Today's races.

Do you observe that it acts differently than above?

That said - I will be adding a switch that effectively disabled automatic tote system activity by RDSS. Only self-initiated Data Centre internet activity: TrackMaster card list refreshes, Chart and PP Downloads, and Registration Update info.

I think I'll set the default to ON (= yes, automatically seek tote system info per the above constraints). You could turn it OFF if you want.

Does that seem appropriate/useful?

Ted

Mick,

1. Yes - RDSS crashes. I'm working on it! Since a while. Does it crash MORE since adding the new tote system? Previously advised best practices are to open an instance of RDSS and Assemble a card. While that's working, open another instance and Assemble another card. Continue with as many separate RDSS instances as your experience tells you won't crash. I and some others who test this specifically have topped out reliably at 5 simultaneous RDSS instances on Windows 10 (i.e. 64 bit OS) with 8 Mb of memory. Your mileage may vary.

2. Testers have told me (and I observe myself that using the Exit/Restart Menu to do any of Exit, Restart, Start Another - works better than it did before, but after a while still crashes. Even if you were just trying to Exit in order to start afresh. Obviously more work to do ...

If RDSS crashes during Assembly of a particular race, showing all horses as Non-Contenders (i.e. no Check-marks on Contender setting = neither Primary or Secondary), try clearing the Analysis screen (click the header checkbox atop the stack of checkboxes) and in the Paceline Selection Dialog, uncheck 'Automatic PSS do not change Contender Status' to force paceline selection (automated or manual) to CHANGE the Contender Status initially to Primary.

OR - you could try re-Assembling that race when you resume from the crash - which should clear all previous settings and start afresh (according to your PSS settings).

The Scratch error from SA Race 4 on Saturday came because the tote system as informed that horse #3 was scratched - which it was - but SA in its wisdom (and late publication of PPs) sometimes OMITS Early scratches entirely - namely the #3. Thus, RDSS incorrectly followed scratch advice that the 3rd horse was scratched and dutifully scratched the 3rd horse on the Entries list which was horse #4 (instead of a horse with Program # = 3, which did not exist). I have only ever seen this with SoCal tracks. I will have to add in a more nuanced check that the Program #s also match .

Thanks for the heads-up on that. And thanks for the other testing!

Ted

FWIW, re crashes - and previously discussed (somewhere, sometime):

I'm pretty confident my solution to most crashes is 3-fold:

1. migrate my software tools (PowerBuilder) to a new 64 bit capable version. This should give more internal memory to address. Right now, RDSS is a 32-bit program which can run on either older 32 bit Windows versions, or newer 64 bit versions (e.g. Windows 10). Next 3 months or so.

2. Implement parallel/background processing (need to do #1 above first). Then regardless of improved 64-bit memory management, RDSS would open possible multiple invisible background sessions with full memory to compile a single race (or card or batch of say 10 races) just as if you manually opened multiple instances of RDSS to do the same thing, only more efficient. You could still open multiple instances of RDSS if you wanted to, to organize your work. But this would be the more seamless approach. It would allow you to Assemble ALL races for all cards you Download and Convert on the Data Centre right at the same time (e.g. overnight or long coffee break).

I know this works because multiple RDSS instances work. The best schedule I can give for the forgoing is sometime this year. I want desperately to be able to do what I describe above. I want RDSS to Assemble all 300+ races for a weekend on an automated schedule (say after 7am ET when ProfitLine is available), then follow some criteria to search for things based on what it can find AFTER having Assembled races (e.g. vulnerable favourites, too much contention, top heavy Early pace, lone Earlies, no Earlies, Rx rank 1 beats Rx rank 2 by a certain percentage, many other criteria, etc).

3. More detailed debugging of existing code as to where internal memory leaks away (a progammer's favourite pastime, second to tearing one's hair out while cursing at the computer screen :eek:).

Hope that gives more perspective on crashing. I admit it is an annoyance and hindrance which makes RDSS less useful - especially when on the verge of placing a wager at 0 MTP. I am sorry about that :(.

Ted

More Nit Picking
 

:D:D:D

Discrepancy with Tote (which I love having again). Just wish I'd had this horse.

It's a known issue in races with coupled entries.

Thanks
 

Hi Ted
On Sunday I worked just three tracks, Aquduct, Santa Anita and Golden Gate
I had no problem with crashing I did all my S.A. races at once before the live racing .
Maybe the problems I had on Saturday were also because I was on Del Mars wi fi
and they had a real big crowd for Big Cap day .

From an email -
Are you saying that even when you CAN get Mutuels to show on the Rx screen (by clicking the Mutuels button after login to TwinSpires) - they never show up in your Excel output? That seems unusual.

Or, are you saying that sometimes you click to get Mutuels and they don't show up on the Rx screen and then they don't show up in your Excel output? That would be normal; no Mutuels on screen = no mutuels output to Excel model files.

In general, I observe and others report that sometimes Mutuels don't show up when you click on the Mutuels button on the Rx screen for a current day race with is reported Official.

I do not observe that when you can see Mutuels on the Rx screen they do not export properly. And since I don't see it and cannot duplicate that - there is nothing to test ...

Are you able to describe a sequence where this repeatedly fails? Something like: 'Worked race 1, race went Official, retrieved Mutuels on Rx screen and they showed up, exported to Excel and Mutuels did not show up. Worked race 2, same thing, same result. Worked race 3 ... etc'

Also - since I am replacing manual retrieval of Mutuels from TwinSpires with automatic Mutuels retrieval AND Excel file export (if you check a box on Config saying you want that) -- let's see in the next update (soon) whether that solves your problem of no Mutuels in Excel exports despite SEEING them in RDSS' Rx screen.

Re - 'tote blacks out some odds on certain horses' - yes, I agree, per my observation in Point #3 of my Post above. Working on it!

Ted

Mick, well that's just goofy! Let's see if another way of fetching Mutuel results fixes this in all cases.

However, if you can remember or have seen it elsewhere - did/do tote prices for the same horse show different on different Analysis screens?

Ted

Opening multiple instances of RDSS works best for me. This morning, I assembled four cards with no crashes and no "Non Contenders" races. I can also tell that the program is responding more quickly. Thank you.

Firstly, I don't know how you do it. You're a one-man shop and you're maintaining thousands and thousands of lines of code. So whenever RDSS locks up, I keep that in mind and any frustration I might feel is short-lived.

Secondly, migrating to 64-bit is a good idea. Some users will have to upgrade their computers but it's time. Chip manufacturers stopped making 32-bit processors a decade ago. If they want to run their old Sartin programs, which I'm sure are 16-bit, there are several ways of doing that, e.g. dual-boot into a 32-bit version of Windows or use VirtualBox and run a 32-bit Windows in a virtual environment.

And thirdly, I have given thought to the cause of the RDSS lockups, some of which I've shared with you in PMs and emails. I have an HP Workstation running 32 GB of RAM. It's a beast and nothing should crash it with that much working memory. While I am not familiar with PowerBuilder, having never programmed with it, my guess is that upon startup, RDSS is asking the OS for a certain amount of memory to work with and then two things are happening: (1) after it's completed a task, e.g. assembling a card, RDSS is not releasing the memory it used and is no longer using (i.e. the infamous memory leak) and (2) it's not requesting more memory. By starting multiple instances of RDSS, more memory is being requested by each instance and the result is no crashes.

Years ago, when I was working on a computer science degree (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth with flip phones), I wrote rather modest programs in an early version of C++ and they would crash everything, including the OS. Remember the Windows "blue screen of death"? The old C++ was the worst when it came to memory leaks.

Well, those are my ruminations before a second cup of coffee, for what they're worth. I appreciate all the thought and effort you put into RDSS.

FWIW, there will always be a 32-bit version of RDSS. I'll just add a separate 64-bit version. And thanks for your other thoughts on memory leaks Some of the RDSS code is over 10 years old now and in hindsight, I'm sure there are some things I could have done more efficiently. Getting to them all gradually, while trying to advance things a bit.

Ted

Problem
 

When I tried to open RDSS today, I got the following message.

Database error code -1

Has anyone else had this problem?

Rmath

Not me. Try: just close and reopen. Are you saying that your RDSS is kaput - never opens anymore under any circumstances? Always same error? If so ...

Is this related to any change you made to the location of your database? Per this long-standing FAQ: http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...59&postcount=8

If not - try uninstalling RDSS2.1 then reinstalling. Something about how RDSS is attempting to access the database it was instructed to is not working, or the database became corrupt (which would be the first time I can ever remember such a thing happening ...).

Ted

(I moved this post from the original thread, as it's not related to that major one-day event related to the old Supertote, from earlier this month .)

Works now
 

Thanks Ted. reinstalling seems to have solved the problem.
Dick

PL problem?
 

Today I downloaded aqu. I ran profitline on the entire card and then assembled the entire card. I could not connect with the toteboard. Had to download file again and go race by race to be able to connect to the toteboard.

Sorry Charlie - I am quite confused as to what you mean :confused:. Are you reporting a problem with ProfitLine, or with Tote?

You could not connect with the tote board, but then you were able to connect to the toteboard race by race. :confused:

What is is you were trying to do, or thought you ought to be able to do, which you could not do?

Could you please try restating this report another way?

For example (just guessing): after the last race is Official (say in the evening), I often retrieve PL and Mutuels for the card, then Assemble ALL races, which process fetches Scratches all races, closing tote odds and Mutuel prices all races, assembles all races and chooses auto-pacelines - so I can review how well Rx did in conjunction with tote odds and ratios relative to payouts.

Were you trying to achieve anything remotely like that? Something different?

Ted

okay, I will try to be more coherent. About 15 minutes to the first post yesterday, I downloaded the AQU card. I used Profit Line first and got the little red dots on all the races. I then assembled all the races. I then opened up the first race and It would not connect to the toteboard. Eventually, I cleared the cache and started over, this time doing PL and Assemble one race at a time and everything worked fine. I hope this clarifies this enough so you can understand what I did and what the problem was.

Thanks Charlie. Is this your experience all the time now using this version? I.e. - now you cannot connect to the current race (or maybe just Race 1) and get live tote the first time you try? You always have to reassemble (or assemble for the first time) 1 race at a time? Or was it just that one time, yesterday?

If you do not Assemble ALL, do you always get a tote connection for a given current race? For example, if you happen to come in to a day of races at Race 3 which is the current race, if you ONLY assemble that race (or, when opening the card it gets assembled automatically for you) - is tote there waiting for you, or do you have to re-assemble it to get tote data? I'm trying to understand if the Assemble All process is a culprit.

I only ask because I experience none of what you report ...

Ted

Hi Ted

this race is going now, llok at the odds screens.

the blbl screen odds are way off with the rx screen correct

Thanks Rich. Confirmation of a previously reported Bug in races with Coupled Entries. The Rx screen and Tote screen are correct - will fix for very next update!

http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...3&postcount=41
http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...2&postcount=57



Ted

Error 61 message
 

My search comes up positive for this error having been addressed already .. but I don't see it. An error 61 message pops up when I do a "My Races" search. If it is here somewhere, could someone point me to it ? Thanks.

Conditions info ???
 

This could be an issue tangentially if one does not read the conditions carefully.

The race is for Cl 5, N1-8M, but the race conditions appears to use current year months and is interpreted as Cl 5, N1-4M.

I saw this earlier in the week at Oaklawn a couple of times.

Attachment 46031

Nice Observation
 

Hi Bill
You are correct the conditions are wrongly shown
The conditions on the heading only show part of eligibility and they got that part wrong.

There are 2 conditions
Part 1 is "4 year olds and up that have not won since Aug 5 "= 8 months
The second "or" condition is for non winners of 4 life.

Horse 1. 4 years old Last win was Jan 27th. He gets in because he only has 3 wins
Horse 2. 4 years old. last win was 13 days ago. He gets in because he only has 3 wins
Horse 3 5 years old Last win is not shown He has 5 wins so the last win had to be before 8/5/17
Horse 4 9 year old. Last win is not shown, He has 12 wins but his line 10 is 3 days before the 8/5/17 cutoff
Horse 5 4 year old. last win was Sept 18th. he gets in because he only has 3 wins
Horse 6 4 year old. His last win was Jan 27th. he gets in because he only has 3 wins

The conditions should have been posted as CL 5 N1-8M or N3L

Locked out of TS via RDSS
 

I got locked out of TS yesterday. I did not see that H in my user name on the RDSS config was capitalized. Should have been lower case. By the time I noticed it was too late. This morning I called TS and got reinstated except I still can not log into TS to get Profit Line via RDSS. I was able to get to TS via my browser, but now locked out via RDSS. Fortunately I have my TS on via my browser. Thanks. Pat

For clarification. When I was reinstated with TS, that was only through my browser and not through RDSS. I never got reinstated via RDSS tho I typed and retyped my user name and password.

Pat, I checked the current RDSS 2.1 and I encounter no problems logging into TwinSpires through the RDSS browser window (or an external browser), so I have only the standard advice: make sure RDSS 2.1 has your correct TS login credentials. It ocurrs to me that it may be possible something archaic in your MS Internet Explorer cache may be interfering with the RDSS browser's access of TS (even if you've never used IE in years, though this is a long shot). To check that, open MS Internet Explorer, go to Options and access the Clear cookies or clear Cache buttons).

I suspect if you gave ME your TS logins, I could access your TS account on my computers (and I'd be happy to try), but I think it has something to do with your computer's internet setup.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the coming update will relieve the need to login to TS for ANYTHING, as well as replace the mechanisms by which RDSS accesses the internet. So, within the month, likely.

Until then, do let me know if you continue to have trouble accessing TS.

Ted

Thanks Bill, I'll look at that that. It is RDSS which parses the freeform Conditions and comes up with the condensed race classification, and that module is a true dog's breakfast (and work of art) to decode myriad types of conditions and date references which a human will understand (if they try) but which can be daunting to a computer program. TrackMaster (nor BRIS, not DRF, as far as I know) don't provide these race codes BEFORE the race.

I'll work on it further, with this particular example!

Ted