xAP3 for Xlobby

[CouchPotatoe]

You always know if you have the latest HomeSeer xAP plugin running because at the top of the xAP related pages within HomeSeer it says "There is a new xAP Conduit available, please visit http://www.mi4.biz for more information" should it be out of date. Currently latest is v2.0.313

When you say a constant stream of messages what do you actually mean - how many messages per minute are you seeing (there is a figure supplied in the bottom of a xAP Viewer window and it is also shown in the Stats page of the HomeSeer plugin)

HomeSeer will send xAPBSC.event messages whenever a device setup to originate xAP commands changes state. It will send a xAPBSC.info message periodically for each such device (around every 10 minutes per device I believe). It will also send a .info message if you ask HomeSeer for the state of a device using a xAPBSC.query command or if you ask a device to change state to one that it is already in. If you are seeing a few messages per second then it is likley that you have created some form of loop eg toggling a device state that itself toggles its state. If you stop XLobby does that stop the messages , if so something is creating a loop between the two applications. Normally loops show as .event rarher than .info messages however.

Is it possible that some of the devices that you have enabled for 'xAP' r are changing state very frequently (eg being updated with a time figure or something). You can enable/disable xAP on a per device basis should you wish. There is also an issue with one of the plugins - a 'motion sensor' one from memory which constantly updates devices - are you using that by any chance ?

The other thing to look at is what originally created these devices in HomeSeer - were they created from a xAP message (device) or are they plugin/inbuilt devices within HomeSeer. You don't want devices that were created by xAP messages to themselves send xAP messages as again loops can be set up if you are not careful.

Lastly - I would try running a standalone xAP hub (or Viewer) rarher than the hub built into the XLobby plugin. That will at least eliminate a hub issue.

K

[CouchPotatoe]

When I run the plugin (currently about 50 Homeseer devices that have a "toggle" control in xlobby) xlobby memory usage continues to climb until it shuts my system down.

If you quit Homeseer (or dont load the HomeSeer xAP plugin) does XLobby memory usage remain constant ? I would definitely take the XLobby inbuilt hub out as the first step (ie use an alternate hub - see above). You could also try clicking on your toggle buttons and see if it affects memory whilst XLobby is running or sending from another application a bucketload of xAP messges (using Viewer perhaps) and watching the memory footprint

If there is a race /loop situation between XLobby and HomeSeer it would result in potentially 10s or even hundreds of messages per second. In 'normal' course of things even a heavy saturation of xAP messages has negligable network bandwidth utilisation. Here I occasionally see around 200 per minute but it is all legitimate traffic, TV listings, PIR's , lighting, emails, news, temperatures etc.

K

[Bill Lott]

Thanks Couch - I'm traveling but will try these suggestions tonight when I return home.

I do run the motion sensor plugin, I'll start by disabling it. [/quote]

[CouchPotatoe]

Bear in mind though the problem you are seeing is with XLobby & plugin and not HomeSeer & plugin. Hence the hub suggestions.

K

[CouchPotatoe]

Hi Bill,

The problem you are experiencing is definitely related to the xAP hub implementation within the xAP XLobby plugin. It is also reported on the HomeSeer board and is fixed by using one of the 'official' hubs.
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=111079
I would suggest using the service hub from http://www.xapframework.net and then the hub will be available every time you start Windows.

If however you prefer to be able to see all the xAP messages then you can run the GUI version instead. Using the service version you can of course launch xAP Viewer and see messages at any time, which is useful for diagnostics, which is what I recommend.

Kevin

[Bill Lott]

Thanks for the help and advice. I have installed the hub as a service and minimized the number of devices in Homeseer. It's too soon to tell if that solves my problems. I see the memory still rising but hopefully it will settle down around 60,000.

Yesterday I tried disabling the motion sensor plugin in Homeseer, but it did not solve the problem.

Trial and error will probably be the key.....

[Bill Lott]

I spent the better part of yesterday testing running the standalone hub running as a service.

If I run xLobby without the xAP plugin - no memory problems

If I run xLobby with the xAP plugin and do not run Homeseer - no memory problems

If I run xLobby with xAP plugin and Homeseer with no devices selected (checked each Homeseer device to "red" in the Homeseer plugin configuration) - no memory problems.

But, if I configure even 1 device to "green" in Homeseer and make it accessible to xLobby - memory problems return.

If I only have 1 device memory climbs much slower than having multiple devices active, but the problem is stil there.

Any ideas of what to try next?

[CouchPotatoe]

Bill, This now looks like a problem with the XLobby plugin (or XLobby itself) I'm afraid so I cant help much further. Hopefully Pierre (the plugin author) will pick this up and continue in resolving it. K

[Bill Lott]

Thanks Couch, you've been a lot of help in narrowing down the problem. Hopefully Pierre wil have some ideas.

I haven't given up yet because the upside is tremendous. If I can just get past this issue I can finally settle down and enjoy all this nice automation and theater stuff.

Bill

[stevenhanna6]

I have tried to see if there was a bug with xlobby regarding the memory issue, and I couldn't find one.

I managed to install homeseer, get the status of an x10 device in xlobby with no memory issues at all for me. So i'm going to have to say its probably in the plugin, which looks pretty complex (but i dont have the source code for it)

The only thing xlobby does with plugins is poll information from them, thats it. I looked at this polling code again and its impossible to have a memory leak there...the only thing that could cause a memory leak is passing an image to xlobby through a plugin and thinking xlobby will dispose of it...that is incorrect....xlobby will not dispose of any image objects it receives. Basicly its up to the plugin developer to manage everything. The GetVariable function in the plugin would be a good place to start looking for a leak. Not sure what else I can do.

[Bill Lott]

Thanks Steven for giving it a look. I don't know if this helps, but even if I remove the .png files and just use a toggle event with no status images I still get the memory gains.

The memory usage really bounces around. It will start about 44,000 after xlobby is loaded, but after I navigate a few places (check a weather report, browse a couple DVDs, and return to the main menu) the memory usage is up to about 50,000. It will then bounce around every couple seconds between 44,000 to about 53,000. Then over about 30 minutes that will grow to 48,000 to 60,000. This type pattern continues until it eventually uses up all the available memory. What I can't understand, is that sometimes as the memory is rising, it will return to a low number around 35,000 before it begins to steadily rise again. If I could just figure a way to have it "purge" or clear every 30 minutes or so I'd be OK.

Hopefully Pierre and the xAP plugin developers can give this a look and make some suggestions.

[Bill Lott]

Can someone please email me or post the latest version of the xAP plugin?
mailto:lottbill@bellsouth.net

Thanks!

[CouchPotatoe]

For Xlobby or for HomeSeer ?

Tha latest Homeseer one is always available from http://www.mi4.net and the plugin always advises you if you are out of date. Unfortunately Pierre is not in formal contact (or supported) within the official xAP developer community and I don't know if he even is monitoring this thread.

Heh !...... Pierre ????


Kevin

[Jay]

Using HS2, mi4 xAP, HubGUI and xAP3. These played nicely for over a month.
I now have a situation where xAP3 dies and disappears. This happens after I restart XL. I have tried to reinstall just the plugin. No joy. The only way I can get it back is to reinstall XL.
Does anyone know what file/s actually change when xAP3 dies? It would be great to be able to do a repair rather then a complete reinstall.
TIA.

[fletch]

Jay, I was having a similar problem. In my situation the DeviceMap.xml file was getting messed up. After running for a little while something was added to the file that took out the plugin. Try deleting the file from the plugins\xAP-Xlobby\schema directory and restart Xlobby. For me this would always bring back the plugin.

Now I still haven't found what device was causing my problem. But I configured the Homeseer xAP plugin to only control\report actual X10 type devices. This as resolved the corrupt file problem for me. I plan to add some other device type back soon, I'll let you know if I come across the device that was causing my problems. Anyway I hope this helps you.

Aaron