I
THINK that I may have found the cause of these issue.
For testing purposes, I had 2 separate HG612_stats.exe tasks running overnight via Task Scheduler, (staggered by 30 seconds via Task Scheduler, NOT by adding a delay option via HG612 Settings editor).
There were no issues until my AVG virus kicked in.
As expected, despite AVG being set to run at lowest resource priority, the whole PC slowed down causing another HG612_stats.exe task to start before the first one had completed.
Both instances were exited as planned & the data was not harvested for that minute.
This didn't leave any 'stuck' instances of HG612_stats.exe in Task Manager & as it only happens a couple of times during the virus scan, it isn't of great importance that a data sample is missed here & there.
When only 1 Scheduled task is running (i.e. normal operation for most users), the slowing down issue is even less of a problem.
This morning, to test things out a bit further, I forced both tasks to run at the same time i.e. bang on the minute.
By the time each instance of HG612_stats.exe had checked to see if another instance was already running, there were indeed 2 instances so both instances exited as planned, with no data harvested.
There were no 'stuck' instances of HG612_stats.exe in Task Manager.
This continued until I added a 30 second stagger again & normal service was resumed, with both instances harvesting & storing the data again.
Just for
fun, I then added a 3rd Scheduled task to run HG612_stats.exe, staggered by 45 seconds past the minute.
As HG612_stats.exe normally completes in 2 or 3 seconds (when the PC isn't busy), these all worked perfectly with no 'stuck' instances.
Returning to just 2 tasks, I then fired up Eric's DSLStats & started sampling at 10 seconds past the minute.
Neither of my 2 HG612_stats.exe tasks were affected as they didn't attempt to run during DSLStat's sampling period.
DSLStats also worked perfectly.
I then stopped DSLStats from sampling, leaving the program running.
Again, there were no issues.
As a final test, I started DSLStats's sampling again, but this time ensuring sampling would start 5 seconds before one of my tasks was due to start.
When it was time for my task to run, DSLStats was still displaying the Sampling message & I can see that my task reached this point & then locked up:-
25/08/2013 8:04:31.50 - ONGOING-ISRUNNING-080430-509.TXT - **** reply(config.Shell) O.K. Status = 1. i.e. it couldn't continue to login to the modem & ended up 'stuck' in Task Manager.
That is at exactly the same point it locked up during your testing yesterday afternoon:-
24/08/2013 14:56:01.38 - ONGOING-ISRUNNING-145600-445.TXT - **** reply(config.Shell) O.K. Status = 1. As this left an instance of HG612_stats.exe in Task Manager, any further attempts for my tasks to run were exited.
Leaving DSLStats running & sampling switched ON, I ended the stuck process just after DSLStats had completed sampling & my first task ran correctly, harvesting & storing the data accordingly.
However, the 2nd of my tasks started during DSLStat's sampling period & the lock up occurred again.
As Eric & I have not yet discovered a method of checking if a Telnet session is already open without actually logging in to the modem, we'll have to find a workaround for when both programs are running together.
I have an idea in mind that I'll run past Eric during today.
However, if you weren't actually running DSLStats at the time HG612_stats reached this point yesterday, I'll have to discard my theory & start again:-
24/08/2013 14:56:01.38 - ONGOING-ISRUNNING-145600-445.TXT - **** reply(config.Shell) O.K. Status = 1. Finally, as mentioned previously, there is an issue with some versions of Windows (apparently not an issue with XP), where Scheduled tasks can sometimes start more than once in the same minute.
From monitoring this, it seems that the second (spurious) instance can start as quickly as 0.15 seconds after the 'correct' instance.
HG612_stats.exe handles this by exiting one of the instances & thus allowing the other to continue (apart from when both instances start more or less together, in which case both instances exit).
This duplication of tasks is only seen occasionally, often a few hours apart but at the same minute past the hour, so again, it's not much of an issue.
There is a supposed fix for this Windows Task Scheduler issue here, but I haven't tried it yet:-
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2461249/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14019