What am I missing in 2.70p beta 3? I probably have not absorbed all the newer concepts. All the following is running as a SERVICE.

Auto-Save data on 2.70p seems to only be the destination data - no hops at all(?). Data size is a lot less, making me think it's not saved.

A little history...

I was previosly Auto-Saving from 2.60p beta as well as several older versions. My trace interval is 15 seconds so I set the Max samples to 11760 to get over 2 days worth. I auto-save everty 1/2 hour and got in the silly habit of stop/start on an hour or 1/2 hour so the saved files are nicely timed (BTW it drifts earlier about a minute a week). Then, I save off the midnight samples creating an arcive of daily files. Been doing ity this way for years, in fact. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Hi, Bill.

There's a problem with the auto-save service stuff specifically with beta 3. After you stop the service, then restart it - the *next* time you stop it, it doesn't correctly update the service save files, which means the next time you restart it it doesn't load things right. If you manually load the save files, everything will be fine until you stop and restart it again.

We've not found any problem with the actual saving process. It certainly saves all collected data. If you set up any of the targets to ping final hop only, then it would only save that data, but if it's collecting everything, then it should save it too.

Have a closer look at this an let us know what you're seeing. Over the last day or so I've done some pretty in-depth testing of the save system, and it seems to work fine except for the problem mentioned above.

- Pete

Hi Pete,

Interesting... I'm sure it's not coincidence. About the time the max samples hit, the auto-save data files took a size jump (64k to 170k) and the hop data is now included. The display was clearly tracing all hops while the data was not including it. I haven't stopped the service and will continue until power failure - the usual stopping time of this. It's running on my utility box.

On a secondary note, I did wrestle with settings. When running as a service it doesn't seem to hold some basic settings - like screen position and size. The host list also resembles an old install - which made me search all over my harddisk and registry for where it may be getting data. I suspect an old install may be interfering somehow but could NOT find from where. Perhaps I need a good clearing of old installs to get it working?

Registry keeps service (non-user) data in HK-USERS, right? I thought I'd find settings there but only minor entries. Could there be a gap? Or mishandled INI?

All the configuration settings are stored in an INI file.

The "Master" INI file is in your program install directory, or, if you pass it a command-line setting to tell it the master is elsewhere, it uses that. After loading the "Master", it checks in your \documents and settings\(username)\application data\PingPlotter directory for PingPlotter.ini and Alerts.ini files. If it finds files there, it uses those as "overrides". The settings from the master get used, but anything that's different in the per-user file gets changed on top of that.

The per-user file will get automatically created if the master is read-only. Once the per-user file exists, all changes made to the user interface are written there. If you delete the per-user file and make sure the master is read-write for your service user (and that it's also read-write for your non-service user), then you should be sharing settings between your service user and your non-service instances.

Hopefully, that clears things up.

It sure does help! The service installs in Win2K/SP4 running as "system" and I found the elusive INI under "Default User". Makes sense. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Again, I did a stop/start of the service, something I tried before (also tried rebotting) and THIS TIME the setting updated. The GUI held the settings. I am confused why this didn't work just yesterday - unless it ties to the not-yet-filled memorty limit(?)

Runnin' good now, best I can tell. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />