[AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

[Jason Bell]

AG Colleagues

I have come across a couple of Access issues that I am hoping someone could assist me with.


* If I change Venues a couple of times, I will get a vic.exe error. See Attached screen shot:

[cid:***@01CE8207.1E32C9F0]

Every time I switch Virtual Venues, I would get another error message like above. If I directly enter the Venue and close the Venue Client when done, I don't see these messages. Has anyone come across it before? If I was to guess, I would think that the "vic" closes too fast and starts another "vic" before the original vic close properly. I have also found, if this error keeps coming up and I switch to 3 or more different venues, the machine would "blue screen".



* Another issue I have is if I use the AG software on windows 7 by multiple users, in which one of the users has "admin privileges". If you save a "Navigation Venue" by the "admin user", then use the Venue Client by a "general user", the Venue Client crashes and doesn't load. The error message is something like "unexpected end of file", or something along that line. Now - this issue was a little difficult to diagnose and it wasn't until I was running in debug mode that I determined what the issue was. So my questions are as follows:

o On windows, where do the "Navigation Venues" get stored?

o I assume if I can change the file permission for the Venues, I should be able to fix the issue.


As a work around, if I log back in as the "admin user", delete the saved venue, the issue is then resolved.

Anyway, interested to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Many regards,
Jason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bell, B.I.T. (Honours)

Video Collaboration Champion
eResearch Analyst
Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Senior Research Technologies Officer
Information Technology Directorate
CQ University Australia
http://www.cqu.edu.au/

E-mail : ***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>
***@qcif.edu.au<mailto:***@qcif.edu.au>
Work : [phone]
Mobile : 0409 630897
Postal : Building 19, Room 1.55
Central Queensland University
Bruce Highway
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 4702
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience is a virtue.

But if I wanted Patience,
I would have become a Doctor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[John I Quebedeaux Jr]

What's the capture card(s) involved?

-----
John Q @ LSU via iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 6:42 PM, "Jason Bell" <***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>> wrote:

AG Colleagues

I have come across a couple of Access issues that I am hoping someone could assist me with.


· If I change Venues a couple of times, I will get a vic.exe error. See Attached screen shot:

<image001.png>

Every time I switch Virtual Venues, I would get another error message like above. If I directly enter the Venue and close the Venue Client when done, I don’t see these messages. Has anyone come across it before? If I was to guess, I would think that the “vic” closes too fast and starts another “vic” before the original vic close properly. I have also found, if this error keeps coming up and I switch to 3 or more different venues, the machine would “blue screen”.



· Another issue I have is if I use the AG software on windows 7 by multiple users, in which one of the users has “admin privileges”. If you save a “Navigation Venue” by the “admin user”, then use the Venue Client by a “general user”, the Venue Client crashes and doesn’t load. The error message is something like “unexpected end of file”, or something along that line. Now – this issue was a little difficult to diagnose and it wasn’t until I was running in debug mode that I determined what the issue was. So my questions are as follows:

o On windows, where do the “Navigation Venues” get stored?

o I assume if I can change the file permission for the Venues, I should be able to fix the issue.


As a work around, if I log back in as the “admin user”, delete the saved venue, the issue is then resolved.

Anyway, interested to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Many regards,
Jason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bell, B.I.T. (Honours)

Video Collaboration Champion
eResearch Analyst
Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Senior Research Technologies Officer
Information Technology Directorate
CQ University Australia
http://www.cqu.edu.au/

E-mail : ***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>
***@qcif.edu.au<mailto:***@qcif.edu.au>
Work : [phone]
Mobile : 0409 630897
Postal : Building 19, Room 1.55
Central Queensland University
Bruce Highway
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 4702
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience is a virtue.

But if I wanted Patience,
I would have become a Doctor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Jason Bell]

The Capture card is a "Black Magic - Decklink SDI".

From: John I Quebedeaux Jr [mailto:***@lsu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 9:45 AM
To: Jason Bell
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

What's the capture card(s) involved?

-----
John Q @ LSU via iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 6:42 PM, "Jason Bell" <***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>> wrote:
AG Colleagues

I have come across a couple of Access issues that I am hoping someone could assist me with.


* If I change Venues a couple of times, I will get a vic.exe error. See Attached screen shot:

<image001.png>

Every time I switch Virtual Venues, I would get another error message like above. If I directly enter the Venue and close the Venue Client when done, I don't see these messages. Has anyone come across it before? If I was to guess, I would think that the "vic" closes too fast and starts another "vic" before the original vic close properly. I have also found, if this error keeps coming up and I switch to 3 or more different venues, the machine would "blue screen".



* Another issue I have is if I use the AG software on windows 7 by multiple users, in which one of the users has "admin privileges". If you save a "Navigation Venue" by the "admin user", then use the Venue Client by a "general user", the Venue Client crashes and doesn't load. The error message is something like "unexpected end of file", or something along that line. Now - this issue was a little difficult to diagnose and it wasn't until I was running in debug mode that I determined what the issue was. So my questions are as follows:

o On windows, where do the "Navigation Venues" get stored?

o I assume if I can change the file permission for the Venues, I should be able to fix the issue.


As a work around, if I log back in as the "admin user", delete the saved venue, the issue is then resolved.

Anyway, interested to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Many regards,
Jason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bell, B.I.T. (Honours)

Video Collaboration Champion
eResearch Analyst
Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Senior Research Technologies Officer
Information Technology Directorate
CQ University Australia
http://www.cqu.edu.au/

E-mail : ***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>
***@qcif.edu.au<mailto:***@qcif.edu.au>
Work : [phone]
Mobile : 0409 630897
Postal : Building 19, Room 1.55
Central Queensland University
Bruce Highway
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 4702
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience is a virtue.

But if I wanted Patience,
I would have become a Doctor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Griebel, Keith]

We are very familiar with the vic.exe and bluescreen issue here and troubleshot this a couple years ago. The issue we found and Doug K confirmed (back when we still did the Town Hall meetings) is that the current (bundled 3.2) Windows release of vic.exe doesn't release the Blackmagic cards very cleanly. This can cause the process to crash and/or the bluescreen, which if memory serves is complaining about the .sys driver for the Blackmagic capture cards. We use 3 of the Decklink SDI's in our capture machine, but I believe it also affects the Intensity cards and probably any Blackmagic card is my guess. As you might imagine, since the vic.exe processes close and re-open, this happens every time you navigate venues... The workaround that solves it all for us is to go into the vic menu and manually Release each Blackmagic capture card before changing venues or even closing the venue client (which is where we would also see the same symptoms you describe).

Please let me know if this helps your application also!

Doug would have more details (not sure if he still monitors these lists), but I believe he mentioned there is an updated Vic for certain Linux platforms that addresses those issues, but he didn't have any idea when a new Windows one would be developed. Another item we discussed at some Town Hall meetings is how the current Windows vic.exe version also doesn't do a very good job of multi-threading across multiple cores, so if there is a lot of HD video feeds present in a venue and you are displaying them in large sizes, it starts to choke because it is maxing out the individual cpu core processing limits... We have another workaround for this but only helps some, which is to run multiple instances of the consumer vic (we usually run 3 or so).

Hope that helps!
Keith

Keith Griebel
Communications Technician / SDSU DDN Site Coordinator
Classroom Technology Services
South Dakota State University
Pugsley Center 205A, Box 2218A
Brookings, SD 57007

Phone: [phone]
Email: ***@sdstate.edu<mailto:***@sdstate.edu>

[CTS Signature]

From: Jason Bell [mailto:***@cqu.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 6:46 PM
To: John I Quebedeaux Jr
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

The Capture card is a "Black Magic - Decklink SDI".

From: John I Quebedeaux Jr [mailto:***@lsu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 9:45 AM
To: Jason Bell
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

What's the capture card(s) involved?

-----
John Q @ LSU via iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 6:42 PM, "Jason Bell" <***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>> wrote:
AG Colleagues

I have come across a couple of Access issues that I am hoping someone could assist me with.


* If I change Venues a couple of times, I will get a vic.exe error. See Attached screen shot:

<image001.png>

Every time I switch Virtual Venues, I would get another error message like above. If I directly enter the Venue and close the Venue Client when done, I don't see these messages. Has anyone come across it before? If I was to guess, I would think that the "vic" closes too fast and starts another "vic" before the original vic close properly. I have also found, if this error keeps coming up and I switch to 3 or more different venues, the machine would "blue screen".



* Another issue I have is if I use the AG software on windows 7 by multiple users, in which one of the users has "admin privileges". If you save a "Navigation Venue" by the "admin user", then use the Venue Client by a "general user", the Venue Client crashes and doesn't load. The error message is something like "unexpected end of file", or something along that line. Now - this issue was a little difficult to diagnose and it wasn't until I was running in debug mode that I determined what the issue was. So my questions are as follows:

o On windows, where do the "Navigation Venues" get stored?

o I assume if I can change the file permission for the Venues, I should be able to fix the issue.


As a work around, if I log back in as the "admin user", delete the saved venue, the issue is then resolved.

Anyway, interested to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Many regards,
Jason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bell, B.I.T. (Honours)

Video Collaboration Champion
eResearch Analyst
Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Senior Research Technologies Officer
Information Technology Directorate
CQ University Australia
http://www.cqu.edu.au/

E-mail : ***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>
***@qcif.edu.au<mailto:***@qcif.edu.au>
Work : [phone]
Mobile : 0409 630897
Postal : Building 19, Room 1.55
Central Queensland University
Bruce Highway
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 4702
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience is a virtue.

But if I wanted Patience,
I would have become a Doctor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Jason Bell]

Keith

Many thanks for this email - it explains it accurately.

I am wondering (thinking out loud), but in regards to "vic.exe doesn't release the Black magic cards very cleanly", whether if imposing some sort of "delay" would assist vic to closing cleaning.

When I get a chance, I might do some "hacking" and see if I could come up with a solution that assists.

Also - I am aware of the "threading issue" and will implement something similar as you have described.

Anyway - I very much appreciate the response.

Regards,
Jason.


From: Griebel, Keith [mailto:***@sdstate.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 10:14 AM
To: Jason Bell; John I Quebedeaux Jr
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net; Huffman, Timothy
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

We are very familiar with the vic.exe and bluescreen issue here and troubleshot this a couple years ago. The issue we found and Doug K confirmed (back when we still did the Town Hall meetings) is that the current (bundled 3.2) Windows release of vic.exe doesn't release the Blackmagic cards very cleanly. This can cause the process to crash and/or the bluescreen, which if memory serves is complaining about the .sys driver for the Blackmagic capture cards. We use 3 of the Decklink SDI's in our capture machine, but I believe it also affects the Intensity cards and probably any Blackmagic card is my guess. As you might imagine, since the vic.exe processes close and re-open, this happens every time you navigate venues... The workaround that solves it all for us is to go into the vic menu and manually Release each Blackmagic capture card before changing venues or even closing the venue client (which is where we would also see the same symptoms you describe).

Please let me know if this helps your application also!

Doug would have more details (not sure if he still monitors these lists), but I believe he mentioned there is an updated Vic for certain Linux platforms that addresses those issues, but he didn't have any idea when a new Windows one would be developed. Another item we discussed at some Town Hall meetings is how the current Windows vic.exe version also doesn't do a very good job of multi-threading across multiple cores, so if there is a lot of HD video feeds present in a venue and you are displaying them in large sizes, it starts to choke because it is maxing out the individual cpu core processing limits... We have another workaround for this but only helps some, which is to run multiple instances of the consumer vic (we usually run 3 or so).

Hope that helps!
Keith

Keith Griebel
Communications Technician / SDSU DDN Site Coordinator
Classroom Technology Services
South Dakota State University
Pugsley Center 205A, Box 2218A
Brookings, SD 57007

Phone: [phone]
Email: ***@sdstate.edu<mailto:***@sdstate.edu>

[cid:***@01CE8216.A14E07A0]

From: Jason Bell [mailto:***@cqu.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 6:46 PM
To: John I Quebedeaux Jr
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

The Capture card is a "Black Magic - Decklink SDI".

From: John I Quebedeaux Jr [mailto:***@lsu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 9:45 AM
To: Jason Bell
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

What's the capture card(s) involved?

-----
John Q @ LSU via iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 6:42 PM, "Jason Bell" <***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>> wrote:
AG Colleagues

I have come across a couple of Access issues that I am hoping someone could assist me with.


* If I change Venues a couple of times, I will get a vic.exe error. See Attached screen shot:

<image001.png>

Every time I switch Virtual Venues, I would get another error message like above. If I directly enter the Venue and close the Venue Client when done, I don't see these messages. Has anyone come across it before? If I was to guess, I would think that the "vic" closes too fast and starts another "vic" before the original vic close properly. I have also found, if this error keeps coming up and I switch to 3 or more different venues, the machine would "blue screen".



* Another issue I have is if I use the AG software on windows 7 by multiple users, in which one of the users has "admin privileges". If you save a "Navigation Venue" by the "admin user", then use the Venue Client by a "general user", the Venue Client crashes and doesn't load. The error message is something like "unexpected end of file", or something along that line. Now - this issue was a little difficult to diagnose and it wasn't until I was running in debug mode that I determined what the issue was. So my questions are as follows:

o On windows, where do the "Navigation Venues" get stored?

o I assume if I can change the file permission for the Venues, I should be able to fix the issue.


As a work around, if I log back in as the "admin user", delete the saved venue, the issue is then resolved.

Anyway, interested to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Many regards,
Jason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bell, B.I.T. (Honours)

Video Collaboration Champion
eResearch Analyst
Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Senior Research Technologies Officer
Information Technology Directorate
CQ University Australia
http://www.cqu.edu.au/

E-mail : ***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>
***@qcif.edu.au<mailto:***@qcif.edu.au>
Work : [phone]
Mobile : 0409 630897
Postal : Building 19, Room 1.55
Central Queensland University
Bruce Highway
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 4702
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience is a virtue.

But if I wanted Patience,
I would have become a Doctor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Lloyd Pearson]

Hello team,

Thanks for the comments about the vic.exe problems. I've seen some or all here also.

In some experiments I did with Dell Precision T5400 (8-core, Windows XP) with 2 x basic graphics cards driving 4 x displays at 1600 x1200, I found that 3-4 VIC's was the maximum before the video on the displays ran noticeably slow. (Each VIC runs on a separate core, so muting the unwanted sources on each VIC was the key aspect as that effectively reduces the amount of decoding required by the CPU.)
I didn't experiment with better graphics cards as most of our Access Grid usage at the time was for seminars involving 7-10 venues with 2-3 cameras at each, and it was only realistic to run a few HD feeds before video lags occurred due to CPU overload.

We are currently trying to develop an image for Dell Precision T5600's which will likely only have quad SDI capture and use external adapters to cope with inputting other video formats. They will be used in a variety of video conferencing and lecture theatre interlinking and recording situations. I'd be interested to hear of anyone's experiences in this approach.

Regards,

Lloyd Pearson
eConferencing Specialist
Teaching & Learning Facilities, ITS
University of Otago
Dunedin
New Zealand

Ph [phone]
***@otago.ac.nz

From: Jason Bell [mailto:***@cqu.edu.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 1:22 p.m.
To: Griebel, Keith; John I Quebedeaux Jr
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

Keith

Many thanks for this email - it explains it accurately.

I am wondering (thinking out loud), but in regards to "vic.exe doesn't release the Black magic cards very cleanly", whether if imposing some sort of "delay" would assist vic to closing cleaning.

When I get a chance, I might do some "hacking" and see if I could come up with a solution that assists.

Also - I am aware of the "threading issue" and will implement something similar as you have described.

Anyway - I very much appreciate the response.

Regards,
Jason.


From: Griebel, Keith [mailto:***@sdstate.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 10:14 AM
To: Jason Bell; John I Quebedeaux Jr
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net>; Huffman, Timothy
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

We are very familiar with the vic.exe and bluescreen issue here and troubleshot this a couple years ago. The issue we found and Doug K confirmed (back when we still did the Town Hall meetings) is that the current (bundled 3.2) Windows release of vic.exe doesn't release the Blackmagic cards very cleanly. This can cause the process to crash and/or the bluescreen, which if memory serves is complaining about the .sys driver for the Blackmagic capture cards. We use 3 of the Decklink SDI's in our capture machine, but I believe it also affects the Intensity cards and probably any Blackmagic card is my guess. As you might imagine, since the vic.exe processes close and re-open, this happens every time you navigate venues... The workaround that solves it all for us is to go into the vic menu and manually Release each Blackmagic capture card before changing venues or even closing the venue client (which is where we would also see the same symptoms you describe).

Please let me know if this helps your application also!

Doug would have more details (not sure if he still monitors these lists), but I believe he mentioned there is an updated Vic for certain Linux platforms that addresses those issues, but he didn't have any idea when a new Windows one would be developed. Another item we discussed at some Town Hall meetings is how the current Windows vic.exe version also doesn't do a very good job of multi-threading across multiple cores, so if there is a lot of HD video feeds present in a venue and you are displaying them in large sizes, it starts to choke because it is maxing out the individual cpu core processing limits... We have another workaround for this but only helps some, which is to run multiple instances of the consumer vic (we usually run 3 or so).

Hope that helps!
Keith

Keith Griebel
Communications Technician / SDSU DDN Site Coordinator
Classroom Technology Services
South Dakota State University
Pugsley Center 205A, Box 2218A
Brookings, SD 57007

Phone: [phone]
Email: ***@sdstate.edu<mailto:***@sdstate.edu>

[CTS Signature]

From: Jason Bell [mailto:***@cqu.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 6:46 PM
To: John I Quebedeaux Jr
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

The Capture card is a "Black Magic - Decklink SDI".

From: John I Quebedeaux Jr [mailto:***@lsu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 9:45 AM
To: Jason Bell
Cc: accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:accessgrid-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] AG Windows issues

What's the capture card(s) involved?

-----
John Q @ LSU via iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 6:42 PM, "Jason Bell" <***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>> wrote:
AG Colleagues

I have come across a couple of Access issues that I am hoping someone could assist me with.


* If I change Venues a couple of times, I will get a vic.exe error. See Attached screen shot:

<image001.png>

Every time I switch Virtual Venues, I would get another error message like above. If I directly enter the Venue and close the Venue Client when done, I don't see these messages. Has anyone come across it before? If I was to guess, I would think that the "vic" closes too fast and starts another "vic" before the original vic close properly. I have also found, if this error keeps coming up and I switch to 3 or more different venues, the machine would "blue screen".



* Another issue I have is if I use the AG software on windows 7 by multiple users, in which one of the users has "admin privileges". If you save a "Navigation Venue" by the "admin user", then use the Venue Client by a "general user", the Venue Client crashes and doesn't load. The error message is something like "unexpected end of file", or something along that line. Now - this issue was a little difficult to diagnose and it wasn't until I was running in debug mode that I determined what the issue was. So my questions are as follows:

o On windows, where do the "Navigation Venues" get stored?

o I assume if I can change the file permission for the Venues, I should be able to fix the issue.


As a work around, if I log back in as the "admin user", delete the saved venue, the issue is then resolved.

Anyway, interested to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Many regards,
Jason.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bell, B.I.T. (Honours)

Video Collaboration Champion
eResearch Analyst
Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Senior Research Technologies Officer
Information Technology Directorate
CQ University Australia
http://www.cqu.edu.au/

E-mail : ***@cqu.edu.au<mailto:***@cqu.edu.au>
***@qcif.edu.au<mailto:***@qcif.edu.au>
Work : [phone]
Mobile : 0409 630897
Postal : Building 19, Room 1.55
Central Queensland University
Bruce Highway
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 4702
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patience is a virtue.

But if I wanted Patience,
I would have become a Doctor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------