v4: Trying to solve the freezing browser issue

[AutoIM 5]

Hi Guys

 

Apologies, this is a long post...

 

Like many here, I've been suffering with the 'frozen browser' issues, and have always hoped that the next update would cure the problem. Other problems have been bots, either compiled or running direct from ubot studio that work one minute but not the next, freezing during editing nodes, many processes running that eventually cause things to run at a snails pace and other issues that appear to come and go without any apparent reason.

 

I'd like to say that I decided to try and get to the bottom of it, in a methodical, organised way, but that's not true. The truth is I've been forced in to using ubot on my desktop while I recovered my main development machine, a laptop, from a hard drive failure.

 

I'm not sure of the significance of what I've found, but I hope it might help others to understand what might be worth trying if they are having similar problems, and hopefully help the dev's to find a solution.

 

To set the scene:

 

I normally use my laptop for development. No probs at all with v3.5, but when starting with v4 I found ubot to be unreliable, but more importantly, unpredictable. After being able to compile bots, what became apparent was that the same .exe file might work today, not tomorrow, but would be fine the day after. With v4 being so new, and with others having similar issues, I put it down to ubot. I should have realised at that point that trying to run the same compiled bot as a .exe with no changes being made, should either always work, or always not work. If the file hasn't been modified, the result should always be the same.

 

Being forced then to use my desktop to continue with my ubot work as my laptop was being recovered, re-installed vista, SP1, then SP2, and then restore from backups my files, I went back and forth on the desktop between v4.0.55 up to v4.0.74 in an attempt to get a version that allowed me to continue developing. After two days I found that it wasn't the version itself that made things work, but the delete %/appdata/%ubot studio folder and then re-insatalling a different version. The version itself wasn't critical, it was the process of re-installing that made the difference.

 

So today my laptop was ready to try again. I copied across from my desktop a 'demo' ubot ( actually a posted fix to a v4 bot from JohnB that had taken my interest, which had failed to run at all on my desktop after compiling it) from the desktop to my laptop. My reason to try this was that I'd like to know what users of my bots might experience when they try to run it, and at this stage I hadn't restored all of my programming apps like MS visual studio, . net, etc. and which extra files they might need. First issue was that I was told I needed to install .Net v4.0.30319 so I downloaded the setup file, ran it, and it downloaded and installed the 39Mb of support files. When I tried again to run the compiled bot, it went through the process of 'downloading the necessary support files' about ten times if I counted correctly. Next, the bot started and ran perfectly !

 

Having never seen the same bot work on my desktop, I took another of my own compiled v4 bots from my desktop that only ran in about 2 attempts out of 10 from my desktop to my laptop, not re-compiling it, exactly the same file. On my laptop, it ran perfectly, 10 times out of 10 attempts.

 

Eureka ! The penny has dropped. It must be down to the newly upated files downloaded when I tried to run JohnB's compiled bot on a fresh vista installation on my laptop. So I copied the ubot studio folder from my laptops appdata/ubot studio folder on to my desktop, and ran the same compiled bot, and .... nothing. Just the same as before, starts up but just sits there with a blank browser screen, and unable to enter anything in to the UI text boxes Ok, let's try uninstalling ubot, deleting the appdata/ubot studio folder, use exactly the same setup.exe file that I used on my laptop and see what happens... and I was still presented with a disfunctional bot that appeared to be frozen. So I appear to have a laptop that now, after a clean install of vista and ubot, runs v4 bots, and a desktop pc that only runs them 20% of the time.

 

Where does this leave me? Although I have some bots on the drawing board that will be for my personal use, I have little faith in producing producing bot's that can be sold to clients as I can't guarantee that they will run on their machines. My experience is two machines and a fifty per cent success rate.

 

The way forward? From numerous posts here, it appears that many users have similar issues, and it also appears that many other users can't replicate the issues as reported or submitted, so we seem to have a platform / other installed files / Operating Sysytem issue here. I'd like to help other users users experiencing the same problems, and potential clients with the same problems, by suggesting:

 

1) Can we have a breakdown of the files in %/appdata/%/Ubot Studio please, and if different versions are required for different operating systems.

2) A method established to provide more feedback to the Dev's to include details of the pc's with problems, the files used, and the problems encountered.

3) Investigate if a pack of files can can be supplied as an installer to make sure the right files are supplied by developer and the client doesn't have to go through the process of having to install .Net v4 themselves, as many won't.

4) If necessary, can we be allowed to download specific versions of v4 that are tailored to run on Xp, vista, and windows 7, if this provides a solution to working on some machines but not others.

 

A long post, but hopefully after realising that the issues experienced are difficult to reproduce for some and therefore impossible to fix and at the same time seeing how my two installed installations have behaved recently, hopefully a way forward. Or at least, a better understanding of the problems that some see and others can't.

 

My two machines used for these tests:

My laptop: Vista Home Premium, 32 bit, currently a fresh install without other installs.

My Desktop: Windows XP, no dev / programming apps installed.

Just a thought: my locale is UK, could this be something related to not US?

 

Phil

[Eddie Waller 158]

1) Can we have a breakdown of the files in %/appdata/%/Ubot Studio please, and if different versions are required for different operating systems.

AutoSave directory: This is used to store copies of your bot that we automatically save when you are working in UBot Studio.

 

Browser directory: This directory contains all the files necessary to run the UBotBrowser separated by version. This includes the dlls for the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime. All the files here are the files downloaded when UBot tells you it is "Downloading necessary support files". These files are exactly the same in UBot Studio and compiled bots. They are also exactly the same across operating systems.

 

Log files: You should see a few log files, which you can delete at any time. A few updates back I made a change to log less data by default, so the log files would not grow so much. You can delete these, or clear them out inside UBot Studio in the Options menu.

 

captcha_services.xml: This is used to store your information for the captcha services you have chosen. This data is shared across compiled bots as well, so you can use it from any compiled bot or UBot Studio.

 

options.xml: This file is used to store your options for UBot Studio, such as whether or not you have autoscroll disabled.

 

license.txt: This file holds your username and password for validating your UBot Studio.

 

2) A method established to provide more feedback to the Dev's to include details of the pc's with problems, the files used, and the problems encountered.

I'm not sure what you would like to propose. The details I would recommend including are listed in this thread: http://ubotstudio.co...ful-bug-report/

 

3) Investigate if a pack of files can can be supplied as an installer to make sure the right files are supplied by developer and the client doesn't have to go through the process of having to install .Net v4 themselves, as many won't

For #3, we are looking at ways to allow users to build installers that could install their bot like other windows applications, but without an installer we can't install .NET on someone's system. All the browser files downloaded are verified to be correct after downloading to ensure that no one is downloading a corrupt or modified file.

 

.4) If necessary, can we be allowed to download specific versions of v4 that are tailored to run on Xp, vista, and windows 7, if this provides a solution to working on some machines but not others.

For #4, I'm really not sure what you mean by this, as our goal is to have UBot Studio running the same on all operating systems back to XP.

 

To me, it sounds like some other software you have may be interfering with UBot, as when you did a clean install of Vista, everything seemed to work normally.

 

As far as your locale, it could be an issue, I haven't done much testing using different locales.

 

 

If you are available sometime this week to have a TeamViewer session with me, I would like to connect to your XP machine to see if I can find what the issue is on your system. You can contact me on Skype at wallerdev.

 

As far as other information you can provide, could you elaborate on what is happening before the browser freezes? Is your system running low on memory when it happens? Does it always freeze when doing image recognition? Does it always freeze right when you start up UBot? Does it freeze when you are resizing UBot? Does it freeze when you are running certain commands? Any more info on what is happening before it freezes would be great. Even if it seems like it happens randomly, it's still useful to know that it either sometimes freezes right when it starts up, or never freezes when starting up, and always freezes after a certain number of minutes running, etc.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to make this post.

[gillian 0]

I'm having similar problems with Ubot4 and thought it was because my laptop only had 994MB Ram. But I've been trying to use it on a brand new PC with Windows 7 installed and 8GB RAM and it is still is pretty much unusable. When I click on anything (e.g. scroll bar, Run button, Help, File) even before creating a bot, it takes ages to respond. And, if in frustration I click again, it freezes and the only way to close it is to do a "control, alt, delete" and end it in Task Manager.

 

The only thing I've added since buying the computer is AVAST and I know others have had problems with that. However, turning off AVAST makes no difference.

 

No idea why being in the UK would make a difference but that is also my locale.

[Pete 121]

Gillian looks like your profile may need updating

but i would check this

 

Framework:v3.5

 

What are the Requirements to run UBot Studio?

 

You will need Windows (XP, Vista or Windows 7), 512 MB of Ram, 5 MB of disk space, and the .NET Framework 4.

 

http://ubotstudio.com/faq.aspx

[gillian 0]

Hi zap

 

My profile is showing the details for my laptop which has 3.5 installed.

 

Ubot 4 is on a brand new PC with Windows 7 and 8GB RAM so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Gillian

[AutoIM 5]

Hi Eddie

 

Thanks for your detailed and concise response, I'm sure others will find it useful also.

 

I'd be more than happy to take part in a TeamViewer session to help identify the problem.

 

As for when it happens, I can rule out the image recognition bit as I aren't using that feature. In the compiled bot, it happens when the bot starts up, ie the browser window navigates successfully to google, and I can enter something in the search box and manually click and it will find the results, but it's not possible to enter anything in the UI text boxes. Clicking on run seems to do something that takes about 10 seconds to complete, but no visible changes take place, and the browser doesn't change at all.

The 'test' bot I'm using for these tests is JohnB's one from here:

 

http://ubotstudio.co...h__1#entry40620

 

clear table(&businesses)

ui text box("Category for search", #Search Category)

ui text box("City", #city)

ui text box("State", #State)

clear cookies

navigate("http://www.whitepages.com/", "Wait")

type text(<name="key">, #Search Category, "Standard")

type text(<id="bus_location">, "{#city}, {#State}", "Standard")

wait(2)

click(<id="business_submit">, "Left Click", "No")

wait(7)

clear list(%businesses)

add list to list(%businesses, $scrape attribute(<class="result_name">, "outertext"), "Delete", "Global")

clear list(%names)

add list to list(%names, $scrape attribute(<class="address_container">, "outertext"), "Delete", "Global")

add list to table as column(&businesses, 0, 0, %businesses)

add list to table as column(&businesses, 0, 1, %names)

save to file("{$special folder("Desktop")}/businesses.csv", &businesses)

 

 

I took the code and pasted it in to a new bot, compiled it, but it only works (perfectly !) on my vista laptop, not the Xp desktop, even with a clean installation of ubot studio.

 

If I find anymore details that might help, I'll let you know.

 

Phil

 

 

I've just updated to 4.0.76 (same problem on my Xp desktop by the way, the bot from JohB's code above freezes as soon as I type anything in the UI text box) but it reminded me of the settings I need to use to run Ubot, prompted in Xp after an update. If I try to run as admin, it won't. I have to uncheck the 'Protect my computer and data from ...' then click ok. I don't get this prompt on my Vista laptop.

 

[AutoIM 5]

I'm having similar problems with Ubot4 and thought it was because my laptop only had 994MB Ram. But I've been trying to use it on a brand new PC with Windows 7 installed and 8GB RAM and it is still is pretty much unusable. When I click on anything (e.g. scroll bar, Run button, Help, File) even before creating a bot, it takes ages to respond. And, if in frustration I click again, it freezes and the only way to close it is to do a "control, alt, delete" and end it in Task Manager.

 

The only thing I've added since buying the computer is AVAST and I know others have had problems with that. However, turning off AVAST makes no difference.

 

No idea why being in the UK would make a difference but that is also my locale.

 

Hi Gillian

 

Maybe you'd like to use the same 'test' bot that I've had the problems with and see what results you get. I know that there is nothing wrong with the code itself and I do have it working perfectly on my laptop now, but it refuses to run on my desktop.

The code is in my reply to Eddie.

 

It would be interesting to see if it works for you, and that might help to identify the problems we're having.

 

Phil

[gillian 0]

Hi Gillian

 

Maybe you'd like to use the same 'test' bot that I've had the problems with and see what results you get. I know that there is nothing wrong with the code itself and I do have it working perfectly on my laptop now, but it refuses to run on my desktop.

The code is in my reply to Eddie.

 

It would be interesting to see if it works for you, and that might help to identify the problems we're having.

 

Phil

 

 

Hi Phil

 

Not sure I can help since everything takes forever. Just opening the test bot took 9 secs then right clicking on the save file and changing the name took another 30 secs. Trying to get it to scroll down takes 5 secs and on and on.

 

I did change the save file path and tried to run it but I got a "finish editing all nodes" error.

 

I can't see much point in spending ages trying to test the script when something is very obviously wrong with my set up.

 

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but to no avail. And, as mentioned earlier, I tried turning off AVAST.

 

I'm going back to 3.5 until there is a version that works on my new computer.

 

If someone from support wants to have access I'm OK with that. Just let me know.

 

Gillian

[AutoIM 5]

Hi Phil

 

Not sure I can help since everything takes forever. Just opening the test bot took 9 secs then right clicking on the save file and changing the name took another 30 secs. Trying to get it to scroll down takes 5 secs and on and on.

 

I did change the save file path and tried to run it but I got a "finish editing all nodes" error.

 

I can't see much point in spending ages trying to test the script when something is very obviously wrong with my set up.

 

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but to no avail. And, as mentioned earlier, I tried turning off AVAST.

 

I'm going back to 3.5 until there is a version that works on my new computer.

 

If someone from support wants to have access I'm OK with that. Just let me know.

 

Gillian

 

 

Hi Gillian

 

Ok, it seems then that your issue is a bit different from mine.

 

On a positive note, Eddie spent a very long time on my machine yesterday to identify problems like this, and although it's still ongoing, I think he has identified the problem. Hopefully it will help you when he's finished.

 

Phil

[gillian 0]

Hi Gillian

 

Ok, it seems then that your issue is a bit different from mine.

 

On a positive note, Eddie spent a very long time on my machine yesterday to identify problems like this, and although it's still ongoing, I think he has identified the problem. Hopefully it will help you when he's finished.

 

Phil

 

He found some stuff with mine as well but the update he did last night caused something else to not work today! So I'm hoping to get back on Team Viewer with him when he gets up.

 

I made some progress yesterday. I'm just chomping at the bit to get going with my Bots without all these false starts.

 

Hope your stuff is sorted soon.

[blinton 0]

Thanks for the latest update Eddie, now able to use ubot4 on desktop

[gillian 0]

Hi Gillian

 

Ok, it seems then that your issue is a bit different from mine.

 

On a positive note, Eddie spent a very long time on my machine yesterday to identify problems like this, and although it's still ongoing, I think he has identified the problem. Hopefully it will help you when he's finished.

 

Phil

 

Hi Phil

 

Just wondering . . . did you get your problems sorted?

 

Mine are worse. This morning I can't get ubot to connect to the browser (right hand side) at all, despite shutting down my computer and restarting which worked yesterday. I've already wasted an hour trying to get it to open.

 

Yesterday I was able to get it to work for a while before it froze up and would not reconnect. TJ kindly used team viewer for me and when he opened Ubot it connected to Ubot store, as it should.

 

I've had a similar experience with Eddie and Team Viewer.

 

So . . . when Ubot is frozen or not opening for me, if someone opens it via Team Viewer it starts it off again.

 

Any ideas why that might be?

 

Also, I notice that when ubot starts, in Team Manager - Processes there is the main file and a browser file showing. If I click on another tab in Ubot an additional browser file appears. Do you know if it's supposed to do that or is there only supposed to be one browser process showing at a time?

 

Any suggestions you have would be VERY gratefully received.

 

thanks

Gillian

[AutoIM 5]

Hi Phil

 

Just wondering . . . did you get your problems sorted?

 

Mine are worse. This morning I can't get ubot to connect to the browser (right hand side) at all, despite shutting down my computer and restarting which worked yesterday. I've already wasted an hour trying to get it to open.

 

Yesterday I was able to get it to work for a while before it froze up and would not reconnect. TJ kindly used team viewer for me and when he opened Ubot it connected to Ubot store, as it should.

 

I've had a similar experience with Eddie and Team Viewer.

 

So . . . when Ubot is frozen or not opening for me, if someone opens it via Team Viewer it starts it off again.

 

Any ideas why that might be?

 

Also, I notice that when ubot starts, in Team Manager - Processes there is the main file and a browser file showing. If I click on another tab in Ubot an additional browser file appears. Do you know if it's supposed to do that or is there only supposed to be one browser process showing at a time?

 

Any suggestions you have would be VERY gratefully received.

 

thanks

Gillian

 

 

Hi Gillian

 

Yes, for me I've had no problems with freezing at all since Eddie spent about 10 hrs on a teamviewer session. I believe that during this Eddie saw or found something that went in to v4.0.79, and since then I've been working away without any freezing issues at all. That, by the way that is on (at seperate times) alternating between my laptop and my desktop machine, so it's not just a fix for one of them, and I had experienced it on both before.

 

Strange that it worked for you after a teamviewer session, but not afterwards. This morning I think it was Bob the Builder who mentioned that he found his freezing problems were fixed after he changed his settings in Roboform, which I also have, do you?

 

It sounds to me that you may also have something on your machine that it causing a similar effect. Yes, I see two instances of the browser running and I believe that to be normal, in fact when running a bot I can see many more than that at times, so I don't think that is your problem.

 

I still have a sneaking suspicion that some of these issues may be down to a locale issue, although I have no proof. Strange though when you go to update say a .NET file, it asks you to choose between English/english and USA/english - is there a difference in the file or just in the licence agreement wording?

 

I certainly don't have Eddie's expertise, however I'm willing to help if I can, if you want to you can PM me for contact details, and we'll see if we can solve the issues you you have via phone/email/skype. Based on the fact that we're probably using exactly the same downloaded file since we both updated last, it does point to something on your machine. Even exchanging simple bots between us that either work or don't work might be a help to eliminate things, although without the browser window loading when you start ubot, I'm not sure if that would help. Without it navigating to the ubotstore, I never got much further either.

 

Happy to help if I can though, and in the last week, between restoring my laptop back to a backup where I had to go back as far as October 2010, and my 'clean' desktop which didn't initally have .net installed, I may be able to shed some light on what I (and Eddie ! ) did that fixed it for me.

 

Regards

Phil

[gillian 0]

Thanks for the offer of help Phil. Glad to hear that your problems are sorted.

 

I notice there's a new update this morning so I'll give that a go and get back to you if I still have problems. At least it has opened which is a step in the right direction. It didn't go to the ubot resources page though (I thought I read it had been upgraded to do that) but to the usual Ubot store.

 

Fingers crossed!

 

Gillian

[gillian 0]

Well that was short lived. After it opened I was unable to click on any of the tabs. I know it's not the script because TJ has tried it on his machine with no problem. So I uninstalled and reinstalled and now I just get a white screen.

 

PM on it's way.

[AutoIM 5]

Thanks for the offer of help Phil. Glad to hear that your problems are sorted.

 

I notice there's a new update this morning so I'll give that a go and get back to you if I still have problems. At least it has opened which is a step in the right direction. It didn't go to the ubot resources page though (I thought I read it had been upgraded to do that) but to the usual Ubot store.

 

Fingers crossed!

 

Gillian

 

 

Hi Gillian

 

Not sure if this is of any help or not, but I did the update and it did take me to the new page. Also my bot is still working well.

 

Do you see the latest browser version (4.0.81) in your ubot studio folder in your roaming profile?

 

Regards

Phil

[gillian 0]

Hi Gillian

 

Not sure if this is of any help or not, but I did the update and it did take me to the new page. Also my bot is still working well.

 

Do you see the latest browser version (4.0.81) in your ubot studio folder in your roaming profile?

 

Regards

Phil

 

 

Our posts must have crossed. (I was editing mine). PM sent.

 

Thanks

Gillian

[mamica 10]

I can confirm that every computer is different. At this moment i use both windows 7 computers, one gave 8gb ram other 4. Both are very stable. Was runing ubot through whole day and night and didnt freeze. But i noticed that compiled bots freeze after 24 hours. Maybe because i disconect and reconect automatically to internet. Or they just get too big, not sure... But Ubot Studio running continues to run forever.

 

So it got to be something in your system.

Scan for malvare, viruses and stuff like that. This things can make things go weird and unstable.

[AutoIM 5]

we are looking at ways to allow users to build installers that could install their bot like other windows applications, but without an installer we can't install .NET on someone's system. All the browser files downloaded are verified to be correct after downloading to ensure that no one is downloading a corrupt or modified file.

 

Hi Eddie

 

Just wondering if there's any estimate on the installer being available? Since I've been up and running now for a couple of weeks, I've got 2 bots ready for commercial release, and a third one in the pipeline. The first two could go without it, and I'll take a punt that the users can download the required files and get it working for them, but the third one is a 'biggy' and I can't take the risk, it must run smoothly straight after installation.

 

If not, would it be safe to assume that for any given version we are developing in, could we bundle up the files from our ubot installation, minus the log files etc?

 

Best Regards

Phil

[Eddie Waller 158]

Hi Eddie

 

Just wondering if there's any estimate on the installer being available? Since I've been up and running now for a couple of weeks, I've got 2 bots ready for commercial release, and a third one in the pipeline. The first two could go without it, and I'll take a punt that the users can download the required files and get it working for them, but the third one is a 'biggy' and I can't take the risk, it must run smoothly straight after installation.

 

If not, would it be safe to assume that for any given version we are developing in, could we bundle up the files from our ubot installation, minus the log files etc?

 

Best Regards

Phil

 

We haven't started working on creating installers and don't have any specific timeline for it. You can create an installer yourself that can preinstall the .NET framework if you would like to do some research on it. As far as the support files, if you have your installer put the files you see in your browser folder in the browser folder for your users, it should work as expected.