Macexpress Freezes Over Time (solved)

[cuban_cigar]

I like this program and it has worked great, have been able to create artificially intelligent macros that can do lots of stuff. Last year some were running that had an up time of days it seemed like... maybe.

 

 

 

 

Has anyone encountered this issue:

 

After long periods of time (+8 hours) macro express stops doing anything, but the "macro is running" icon still apears on the start bar. Even if te editor is up, the macro stop button wont do anything, nor can any other macros be started. Its like the program wasnt up at all. When I move the mouse to the running macro icon it disapears, similar to all phantom programs that have stopped working. Din't have this problem last year it seems.

 

The macro runs on for hours doing it's thing perfectly.. then something happens

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suspected causes:

 

-) another program is interfering, as sometimes the main application that macro express works with is booted to the desktop (like lots of windows stuff, virus scanners, zone alarm etc) which have been disabled on a test rig

 

 

-) using some different methods than before, these might lead to instabilities. Mainly having a funtion that assisgns a 1 or 0 to a variable depending if a certain screen is up, then having other functions call it at different times and looks at N# to see if yes or no. Don't want to give it up as it is really modular.

 

 

Edit * first post sucked as i was in a hurry

[joe]

Has anyone encountered this issue: After long periods of time (+8 hours) macro express stops doing anything ...

Could be a lot of reasons, but it sounds like some type of a memory leak somewhere. What operating system are you running under?

 

But to answer the question: yes, I've experienced this under Win'98. I had a macro that mined eBay data for exactly 8.5 hours and then the machine would freeze ... every time. I could set my watch by it. Once I switched it to a Win'2k machine it ran forever. Well, not really forever. I think it ran for about 3 weeks before we lost electricity in a storm.

 

If a macro runs fine over a period of time (or even just once) then it is logical to assume that the problem must be external to the macro.

[cuban_cigar]

OS: Windows XP SP2

 

 

That was a nice tip with the memory leaks, was able to read about them. A program asks for memory to do something, and when it is finished the memory is not given back for some reason.

 

Over time, the program takes up more memory untill it stops functioning. The process can go unoticed for years if the part of code with the error is not used often. When the macro stops, memory is purged so a leak would be more apparent in a long running macro.

 

It seems like the problem began when I added many functions that were like free floating and autonomous, they led to each other based upon circumstance and not in a linear fasion really. They take readings more often than before assisgn a value and the go to the next one.. maybe the memory is not being released.. tough to say for sure.

 

 

wait i'm not using the "clear variables" command... hm going to test

[kevin]

As Macro Express runs, certain operations request additional memory from Windows. When that operation is complete, Macro Express tells Windows to free up that memory. Unfortunately, many times, up to 16 bytes of memory is not freed in this process. When Macro Express runs for many hours or days, or performs certain functions frequently, the amount of memory that is not freed builds up. In these cases we recommend that you periodically restart Macro Express.

 

Try this: Create a scheduled macro that runs every day at 2:00 AM. Put the Restart Macro Express command in it.

 

When Macro Express is terminated, all memory that was allocated is freed.

[cuban_cigar]

It works, having it on a schedule clears the memory out.

 

Thanks again for all of the help.