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    (resolved) HS crash and vt_eng.dll

    Hi Emotion,

    I am having a problem with HS crashing and text to speach (I think) It only started after I upgraded HS to 2.5.0.20 and Emotion 1.4. Not sure if one or both causes or influences yet.

    I did both upgrades with the updater, though I don't understand as the update still says I have emotion 1.3 installed, but running emotion says I have 1.4 at the question mark when I click it.

    My problem is in a bout 24 hours, HS crashes with vt_eng.dll called out. I THINK this is the speach also HS and Emotion stop talking. HS continues to run events though unless I click on the exception window where HS then closes.

    Also, I notice that your fix for saving the HS voice and restoring it does not seem to work every time emotion speaks in 1.4 (I'm fairly sure it was every time in 1.3).

    I repaird HS and emotion and still get the vt_eng.dll exception under homeseer.

    Any ideas? Can I somehow re-install emotion 1.3.1 as a test? would that break any emotions? Where would I get it from? I may have it some where in my HS updates directories.

    cheers,
    Phil

    Update: I also just repaired .NET4, .NET3SP1, .NET2SP2 and the HS kate a Paul Voices to see if that helps. I am on WinXP SP3 with all MS updates current.
    cheers
    Last edited by Emotion; July 4, 2011, 09:31 AM. Reason: Resolved

    #2
    Hi Phil,

    Sorry it's taken so long to respond - We didn't get alerted by email that we had any HS posts - doh!

    I don't know what vt_eng.dll is. I've done a Google and you're right it does look like it's something to do with Neospeech TTS.

    As far as I can recall, we didn't touch the speech routines between 1.3 and 1.4, but it could be you've uncovered a bug that was already in 1.3 and didn't realise it! I'll check this out over the weekend just in case a mistake has been made.

    To try out 1.3.1 again, you'll have to uninstall 1.4 from Control Panel Add Remove Programs (or whatever it's now called in Windows 7) and run the setup.exe program for 1.3.1. If you cannot find it, give me an email address and I'll send you the install package (about 10MB) or you can wait for v1.5.

    Comment


      #3
      Hi Emotion,

      Thanks for the reply. I have disabled emotion in my windows startup and not been running it for 5 days now and had no vt_eng.dll exceptions during this period. After upgrading emotion I was getting about 1 exception per day.

      So I do suspect it may have been the emotion upgrade on that initial diagnostic basis. FYI, I did upgrade to .20 of HSPRO about the same time.

      I'll see if I can find the install for the previous emotion version. If I de-install, will my settings be retained if I downgrade to the previous version?

      Also not sure why emotion says 1.4 when I use about on the question mark, and HS updater keeps telling me I have current version 1.3.1 and new 1.4 is available. Might just be your HS updater package needs the version changed.

      Update: I found emotion 1.3.0 in my HSPRO updates 2 directory, de-installed what I think is 1.4 (from emotion but not the updater), and installed 1.3.0 and am now running emotion again as a test. I left HSPRO at 2.5.0.20. So hopefully this may help you figure if its a 1.3 .vs. 1.4 thing or later if it's HSPRO .20. I can't find a copy of 1.3.1, I hope 1.3.0 will do for the test, and look forward to 1.5!


      cheers,
      Phil
      Last edited by psampson; April 1, 2011, 09:13 PM. Reason: installed 1.3.0

      Comment


        #4
        Hi Emotion,

        After about 5 hours working ok with 1.3.0 and HSPRO 2.5.0.20, I heard emotion ack someone onsite. This person was deleted fomr emotion in the past (possibly under 1.4). So I expect somehow 1.3.0 install found an old xml file or something 1.3.0 specific and the person returned!

        I clicked on the taskbar icon of emotion to see how many people displayed, and got the vt_eng.dll exception thrown from HSPRO. The Emotion window had only painted the frame and no contents and got stuck. When I clicked the pop-up to see the exception info emotion painted ok, and all the log info in emotion scrolled up as though it was buffrered. Ultimately, HS exception asked me to "close HS" and it took our HS.

        AppName: homeseer.exe AppVer: 2.5.0.20 AppStamp:4d77b183
        ModName: vt_eng.dll ModVer: 0.0.0.0 ModStamp:40c53f79
        fDebug: 0 Offset: 000143bc

        I feel I triggered the exception by opening emotion from the task bar. I am fairly sure it has done it all by itself before, but perhaps this trigger may help you diagnose.

        It is possible something in HSPRO 2.5.0.20 makes emotion 1.3.0 and 1.4 behave this way. BTW I'm on Win XP SP3.

        cheers,
        Phil

        Comment


          #5
          Hi Phil,

          Just to let you know we're looking at this right now.

          We've found a problem that may or may not be related to your problem. The problem occus when Emotion is using with HomeSeer at what we think to be version 2.5.0.1 onwards. Emotion contains a legacy routine as part of the HS template plugin that was supposed to automatically create a device with a name of "Status" and type "Emotion". This template routine never worked and so a new routine was written to do this. However, the code was left in and now with what seems to be v2.5.0.1 of HomeSeer onwards, this template routine left in has now started to work!

          Unfortunately, this has a bad side effect having two routines creating two devices. In our case we had one with code Z99 and the other ^1 (the one created by the template routine). This caused HomeSeer itself to restart sometimes as little as 10 minutes after it was first started unless one of these devices was deleted (e.g. the one with code ^1)

          Please check you don't have multiple "Status" devices for Emotion while we work on a fix

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Emotion View Post
            Hi Phil,

            Just to let you know we're looking at this right now.

            We've found a problem that may or may not be related to your problem. The problem occus when Emotion is using with HomeSeer at what we think to be version 2.5.0.1 onwards. Emotion contains a legacy routine as part of the HS template plugin that was supposed to automatically create a device with a name of "Status" and type "Emotion". This template routine never worked and so a new routine was written to do this. However, the code was left in and now with what seems to be v2.5.0.1 of HomeSeer onwards, this template routine left in has now started to work!

            Unfortunately, this has a bad side effect having two routines creating two devices. In our case we had one with code Z99 and the other ^1 (the one created by the template routine). This caused HomeSeer itself to restart sometimes as little as 10 minutes after it was first started unless one of these devices was deleted (e.g. the one with code ^1)

            Please check you don't have multiple "Status" devices for Emotion while we work on a fix
            Hi Emotion,

            Yes, I have two devices. In my case I have Z99 and another created by the plugin as ?1, the latter has never been set. I'll delete ?1 and still run 1.3.0 and start emotion and monitor.
            cheers
            Phil

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by psampson View Post
              Hi Emotion,

              Yes, I have two devices. In my case I have Z99 and another created by the plugin as ?1, the latter has never been set. I'll delete ?1 and still run 1.3.0 and start emotion and monitor.
              cheers
              Phil
              I removed the extra device and ran with 1.3.0 overnight. In the morning I had a vt_eng.dll exception.

              So yes I had the dual device thing, but not sure if it is related to the vt_eng.dll exception.

              I do recall HS restarting again soon after a reboot, 10 minutes seems about right. I'll keep an eye out for that also.

              cheers,
              Phil
              Last edited by psampson; April 4, 2011, 12:17 AM. Reason: added homeseer reboot comment

              Comment


                #8
                Hi Phil,

                I'm wondering how we can help you with this issue - I'm assuming Emotion is requesting HomeSeer to do something that it doesn't like, and that this is relating to the Neospeech TTS engine that is being used.

                When Emotion can no longer communicate with HomeSeer due to an HS crash, it tries to post the following message in the event log: "Connection not established after 10 minutes - restarting HomeSeer...". It then tries to cleanly shutdown HS with the hs.Shutdown() command. At the same time, it launches HSrestart.exe which waits until HS is no longer running and then automatically restarts it. HSrestart.exe is in the Program Files\HomeSeer HS2 directory.

                Perhaps you could try manually issuing the hs.Shutdown() command from the Immediate Script Command box off of the Control menu on the HS web interface to see if that brings-up the vt_eng.dll error?

                You could then immediately run the HSrestart.exe to directly simulate what Emotion would do to see if it's this that is causing it.

                Other than this, all commands that Emotion issues are via the hs API - there is no direct communication with the TTS engine, etc.

                The only other non HS call Emotion does relating to speach is to pause iTunes (if installed) while Emotion is speaking. Perhaps you could try toggling this Emotion setting on the Connection tab?

                Without the Neospeech TTS engine, we cannot recreate the issue here which is a bit of a pain!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Emotion View Post
                  Hi Phil,

                  I'm wondering how we can help you with this issue - I'm assuming Emotion is requesting HomeSeer to do something that it doesn't like, and that this is relating to the Neospeech TTS engine that is being used.

                  When Emotion can no longer communicate with HomeSeer due to an HS crash, it tries to post the following message in the event log: "Connection not established after 10 minutes - restarting HomeSeer...". It then tries to cleanly shutdown HS with the hs.Shutdown() command. At the same time, it launches HSrestart.exe which waits until HS is no longer running and then automatically restarts it. HSrestart.exe is in the Program Files\HomeSeer HS2 directory.

                  Perhaps you could try manually issuing the hs.Shutdown() command from the Immediate Script Command box off of the Control menu on the HS web interface to see if that brings-up the vt_eng.dll error?

                  You could then immediately run the HSrestart.exe to directly simulate what Emotion would do to see if it's this that is causing it.

                  Other than this, all commands that Emotion issues are via the hs API - there is no direct communication with the TTS engine, etc.

                  The only other non HS call Emotion does relating to speach is to pause iTunes (if installed) while Emotion is speaking. Perhaps you could try toggling this Emotion setting on the Connection tab?

                  Without the Neospeech TTS engine, we cannot recreate the issue here which is a bit of a pain!
                  Hi Emotion,
                  I'll try a couple of things you suggested.

                  I am surprised emotion is playing the part of a homeseer watchdog. Ordinarilly for HS2 that is a great idea. But I am running HSPRO which already has HSsentry doing that job. Perhaps there is a conflict. HSsentry tries to ping the HS webserver and reboots HSPRO after a number of failures.

                  I did see the HSrestart pop-up a few times and didn't know what was doing it. Also, when HSPRO leaves and exception window onscreen, you can't gracefully shut it down without human intervention to clear that execption from what I'm seeing. Interestingly, if the exeption pop-up is still onscreen I can see HSPRO restarting behind at times. The issue there is not clearing the exception pop-up somehow keeps the HSPRO TCP ports assigned, so that HSPRO being restarted cannot run start the normal webserver port (80) and starts on normal+1 (81) and then remebers that through HSrestarts and I have to set it back to 80 manually.

                  What would help is if it were possible to disable he HS2 watchdog in emotion, can I do that in a config file or somewhere else? Is there a way to adjust the timeout or number of pings missed?

                  My HSPRO takes a while to start, you can see the number of plugins I have in my signature. It is possible 10 minutes shutdown and restart time is not quite enough. I have it longer in HSsentry. (about 15 or 20 minutes I think).

                  I also have emotion and HSPRO on the same machine, so I changed the emotion connection to 127.0.0.1 instead of the IP address of the ethernet interface in case there was a network or routing issue.

                  I just noticed the only emotion device I have is Z99 (online). In the emotion 1.3.0 (version I am debugging with) I have devices from Z95 up defined for other functions such as speech on and off etc. But not all those are ticked. Could this be a problem? Should i define Z95 thru Z98 even though I am not using the devices as yet or at all?

                  cheers,
                  Phil
                  Last edited by psampson; April 4, 2011, 10:15 AM. Reason: Z devices comment added

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Hi Phil,

                    You only need the Z99 device if you're not using any of the other functions such as Mute, etc.

                    To stop Emotion self checking HS, disable the event in HS called "Check Emotion".

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Hi Phil,

                      I contacted June Hostetter from Neospeech about the vt_eng.dll issue and pointed her to this thread.

                      This was her reply:

                      Originally posted by Emotion View Post
                      Homeseer program uses Microsoft API and SAPI voices.
                      vt_eng.dll is from our Voicetext engine, which won't work with SAPI-compliant programs.

                      I suggest Phil Sampson to get Microsoft SAPI SDK.
                      I'm not sure exactly where this leaves us.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Emotion View Post
                        Hi Phil,

                        I contacted June Hostetter from Neospeech about the vt_eng.dll issue and pointed her to this thread.

                        This was her reply:



                        I'm not sure exactly where this leaves us.
                        Hi Emotion,

                        thankyou for continuing the follow up. I'm not sure what that means to us either! I'm racking my brain to try to work out what other voice apps or plugins that may have voice capability (even if I am not using it) to see if perhaps one of them is making a call to vt_eng.dll mechanism.

                        I have been runnig with Emotion disabled and homeseer has been quite stable for days. I did,however, have one instance where it had a vt_eng.dll related crash and I'm pretty sure emotion wasn't running, although I may have started it automatically on boot, and then shut it down. So it was loaded once.

                        I'm still trying more tests to see if I can narrow this down. I even thought renaming vt_eng.dll and see if a plugin or hspro fails to load. A bit brute force..

                        regards,
                        Phil

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I used a process explorer across all of win XP and found that HSpro has loaded the vt_eng.dll for the voice kate. (which is my default for HSpro, I switch between gate and the male paul voice in emotion for different male and female house guests).

                          None the wiser yet!
                          Attached fyi.

                          phil
                          Attached Files

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Hi Emotion,
                            An update. I racked my brain to figure out if I had a SAPI5 problem, other programs seemed to speak without issue.

                            As a strategy built predominently on hope, I went to the windows XP taskbar and opened the voice settings. I selected the default voice from VW Kate to VW Paul and back and saved the settings.

                            Now I can't be sure, as I need to wait for 3 x the mean time between failure of my VT-ENG.DLL exceptions, but we're 2 days in and I am now running emotion 1.4 and not seen a vt_eng.dll fault. Fingers crossed for the week...

                            Thanks for your support, I think the SAPI5 mention may have helped from the voice vendor - but not directly, at least to change where I was looking. This would make it a windows XP SAPI5 issue I think.. It may be cleared now.

                            Will advise progress. Also HSPRO has stopped rebooting since I changed the emotion connection to 127.0.0.1 and also deleted the 2nd emotion device that was created with the bug you mentioned.

                            Will advise if the fix has stuck :-)

                            cheers,
                            Phil

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Has the vt-eng.dll issue now cleared? By my calculations, that'll be 5 days now...

                              Comment

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