Knowledge Base

Why doesn’t PingPlotter automatically save data all the time?

Question

Sometimes I'll start a quick trace to a target, and then close down PingPlotter - only to find that it hasn't saved my trace data for that session! Why does the program seem to save some trace sessions, but not others?

Solution

By default, PingPlotter waits a few minutes before saving trace sessions. This setting can be changed to meet your needs, which we cover in more detail below.

As for the rationale behind this feature: after quite a bit of testing and observation of how users collect and save data, we noticed a pattern - the longer you collect data, the more you care about keeping it. Often times those quick "1 minute" tests are pretty valueless in the long run (and most don't seem concerned with saving those sessions).

On our machines here at Pingman HQ, we're collecting data with PingPlotter all of the time. We have a handful of targets that we really care about. During the course of the day, though, we might trace to another target on a whim. In those cases, we might start a trace for a few minutes, and then close it down. We're not too concerned with having the data saved for those sessions, but we do care about our regular set of targets - and they're all mixed in together.

Some rules were put into place, to auto-save after a while, but not immediately. Actually, PingPlotter does save immediately - always (every sample, every time). These quick sessions (the ones that are less than the time period in auto-save) get marked for deletion when the program is closed, though. And while they are marked for deletion they are hidden everywhere except in the session manager. After 5 cycles of closing / reopening PingPlotter, they get permanently deleted (or when you delete them in the session manager). If you go to the session manager, you'll see them as "Will Delete" during that limbo period. You can open them any time and resume them.

If you always want to save everything immediately, there's a mode for that in the auto-save settings. You can also switch any target to "save it" mode by right-clicking the tab and changing the mode. When you see an "X" on the tab, it's going to go to "will delete" mode when you close it. If it's a checkmark on the tab, it's going to stick around until you get rid of it.