[Fourlanders] URGENT...Writelog problem discovered

Mon Jan 6 11:02:35 EST 2014

I propose discussions about moving to a different platform should be
reserved for when we are all together in a few weeks at contest so we can
discuss the pros and cons...the 1 con being the immense expense of doing
that. 

Otherwise we will have our mailboxes filled with long threads about this.

That was not the intent of my first e-mail. I am testing today to see if a
re-install of WL will correct the situation.

Ron

WW8RR

  _____  

From: John Kludt [mailto:johnnykludt at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 10:48 AM
To: Kos; Ron Rogers
Cc: Fourlanders
Subject: Re: [Fourlanders] URGENT...Writelog problem discovered

Kos,

I have a copy of WL 11.11 loaded on a dual boot machine with Windows 7 32
bit.  I will give it a try.  I have a couple of Win7 64 bit machines as well
so I can test that environment as well.  That does bring up a question:
when Fourlanders moves to Win 7 and I agree we should, are we going to 32
bit or 64 bit or do we not really care?

John

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kos 
Sent: Jan 6, 2014 9:49 AM 
To: Ron Rogers 
Cc: Fourlanders 
Subject: Re: [Fourlanders] URGENT...Writelog problem discovered 

This was the behavior I was experiencing with WriteLog 10.x in June but NOT
in September with 11.11. In both cases I had the latest XP updates
installed.I will re-test the setup tonight to confirm that I can still
record WAV files.

I am also going to load WL on Win 7 on another system and test that as well.
I hammered the hell out of my computer this weekend on the RTTY roundup on
my XP computer, and quite frankly there were times where it was exhibiting
latency between talking to the radio, decoding signals, and automatic
logging of QSOs. Time for a 64-bit OS on a i3 or i5 processor with lots of
RAM. I expect to have this in place for the June contest provided I can
successfully test WL, the WSJT suite, and successfully configure the
external soundcard I use.

XP has had a great run, but I think it's time to move on. The WL
documentation copiously references Win 7, and presumably future development
and enhances will be be in that direction rather than on perpetually fixing
bugs for an OS that will no longer be supported.

Kos

On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Ron Rogers <ww8rr at charter.net> wrote:

To all W4NH band captains and users of Writelog >>

An anomaly was discovered late last night and confirmed today during station
setup at W4ZST's house. It appears to be linked to a recent (not identified
yet) MicroSoft update and NOT an issue caused by any particular version of
WL. However, it DOES appear to affect ALL versions of Writelog we have
used..including V11.11.

IF YOU HAVE NOT ALLOWED YOUR WRITELOG  PC TO PERFORM A MS UPDATE WITHIN THE
PAST MONTH, DISABLE ALL FURTHER UPDATES IMMEDIATELY UNTIL WE HAVE MORE INFO
ON THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM !  

Failure mode > Recording .wav files 

Writelog appears to function normally except when attempting to record a new
.wav file now. WL will play previously recorded and saved .wav files as
normal. But when a new .wav file is recorded the mic is muted during record
even though a .wav file is stored in the proper folder.  

It was confirmed during multiple experimentation and debug today that this
is NOT an issue with .wav file playback or recorded .wav files being stored
in different folder locations (as we have experienced in the past during
simple WL version upgrades)  

To confirm, a suspect recorded file was copied to another PC and Windows
media player was used to confirm it contained no digital voice. Then a known
good file was transferred from a functioning WL machine, and placed in the
WL  .wav file folder of the machine in question. That .wav file played
normally when F2 was pressed. So playback set up is fine. 

All audio setup screens, soundcard parameters, and various audio mixer
screens of BOTH Windows XP and Writelog have been explored with no success.
The only hint visibly seen is a window within the WL audio mixer screen that
shows the mic being muted. Un-Checking the Mute box lasts only until a
Shift-F2 is performed to record a message. At that point, the mic appears to
go muted again !!  

This has now been observed on 3 different WL computers recently allowed to
do a MS update, including a computer running WL 10.65 used successfully for
the past 7 W4NH VHF contests. It too, is now "broken" !

Even when a computer is "rolled back" to a previous version of Windows XP
the situation is not corrected. It just appears that some recent MS update
has modified something in a WL initialization file.

My next step the next few days is to uninstall my WL 11.11, allow the PC to
receive all MS updates once again, then attempt to re-install WL V 11.11 to
see if the problem is corrected. 

This particular PC was the one that I began with back in Oct. with a fresh
hard drive, fresh install of XP, and full install of WL V 11.11. The box has
been running flawlessly and everything in WL installed cleanly and worked
well...until last night when doing a final test before contest in 2 weeks. 

Stay tuned for more updates !

Ron

WW8RR

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