What is wrong with CQC?
- Thread starter Dean Roddey
- Start date
bbrendon
Active Member
Dean Roddey said:
I originally let this go but I thought about this the other day and this argument makes no sense what soever. The environment CQC lives in is the SAME for all your customers. Microsoft Windows. Computers are binary and so it IS or IS NOT. My system uses serial or ethernet. So you're saying I either need to replace my ethernet or replace my serial because that is the problem that is causing CQC to crash?
So maybe CQC crashes because the VMware ethernet driver is at fault or Digium driver is at fault? Both with hundreds of thousands of installed customers? That still doesn't make sense because doesn't the NT kernel prevent other devices from destroying eachother?
It sounds to me like you're making random excuses as to why CQC has problems.
I've never heard Microsoft say.... "you know, that supermicro server and cisco firewall you're using isn't like the one we tested with so your Exchange Server that you want to use to email people, you know, it might not work reliably, I'm very sorry".
Also, there are zero complex things about my environment. I probably have one of the SIMPLEST setups. I have no PCI cards and almost nothing running with CQC.
I hate to tell you, but CQC is a program on windows. I have 20 years of professional IT experience with software and hardware so unfortunately for your argument, it was professionally installed.
Try again with your excuses.
For reference here are a few of the bugs I've reported with CQC. All valid Windows application problems.
Installer won't complete. Requires hackish intervention.
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?p=160426#post160426
CQCMacroWS.exe won't start
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=11521
CQC stuck saying : Waiting for CQC…
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=11481
I think the final solution to this was to start CQC after rebooting because of the network stack timing issue.
Macro could not be downloaded from the Master Server
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=11495
Not sure what the issue was here, I'm pretty sure it wasn't my issue.
SockPinger - StartPing bug when multihome
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=11376
[SIZE=11pt]cqctraymon crash[/SIZE]
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=11391
CQC spazzing - high CPU
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=11373
Turned out to be two problems. Licensing bug causing high cpu.
FYI, your tone comes across as very argumentative.
But Dean's response makes perfect sense - you're the one-off scenario. You work in IT, so you know exactly what I'm talking about - the office with 50 users, but only 1 has the issue; we both know who gets blamed in that scenario.
So before you run down the rabbit hole blaming Dean for shoddy software, perhaps you should check the efficiacy after shutting down CrashPlan and Zabbix or VSS or anything else cyclical. If you continue to have issues, check your virtual machines settings to make sure that you didn't screw something up there, and see if you're having I/O or SMART errors on your drives.
What I can say is that my install of CQC has crashed maybe 5 times in 10 years, making CQC (probably) the most stable piece of software I've ever used. I am running virtualized, mainly IP, with a single USB->RS232 adapter passed through. Mine was also 'professionally' installed.
But Dean's response makes perfect sense - you're the one-off scenario. You work in IT, so you know exactly what I'm talking about - the office with 50 users, but only 1 has the issue; we both know who gets blamed in that scenario.
So before you run down the rabbit hole blaming Dean for shoddy software, perhaps you should check the efficiacy after shutting down CrashPlan and Zabbix or VSS or anything else cyclical. If you continue to have issues, check your virtual machines settings to make sure that you didn't screw something up there, and see if you're having I/O or SMART errors on your drives.
What I can say is that my install of CQC has crashed maybe 5 times in 10 years, making CQC (probably) the most stable piece of software I've ever used. I am running virtualized, mainly IP, with a single USB->RS232 adapter passed through. Mine was also 'professionally' installed.
bbrendon
Active Member
jkmonroe said:
My tone is that I deal with shit like this too often with vendors and I constantly get the runaround. You want me to tell you about Synology? I could go on about them for hours too. I love open-source software. I get debug logs, builds go back and forth, the problem is solved within 2 days.
With CQC, I guess so many of my problems have been confirmed as bugs I have maybe incorrectly made up my mind that CQC is the most unstable software I've ever used. But how would you feel if you reported bugs with CQC that were crashing bugs. I have found at least 3 bugs that either crash CQC or made it unstable that Dean has fixed (or maybe partially fixed at this point, who knows).
I honestly don't think its the hardware, as 10 other VMs run on the same machine perfectly. I could create a new VM with CQC but I'm pretty sure I'll have the same experience. Windows doesn't report any problems, there are no issues other than CQC. I don't know, maybe I'll try it. I just feel like its wasted effort at this point.
My home automation system could be so awesome if I was motivated more, but dealing with this makes it more unsatisfying than anything.
Please let's not go back down the blame VM route. I moved CQC from a VM because people said that could be causing my issues. Moved to my WHS server and issues remained. Still had periodic issues that were never addressed with RadioRa2 driver UNTIL another user reported the same issues. Found out it was a bug in the RadioRa2 driver. Bugs are in every software, but one thing that I hope comes out of this thread is a way to grow CQC usage...if more people were using it and the drivers, the bug I experienced for over a year, would have been found, reported, and addressed much sooner. I should say that if I had really pushed it, I'm sure I could have gotten Dean to fix the issue, but frankly I just got tired of dealing with it. I'm sure that experience has negatively impacted the growth of CQC and automation in my house.
NeverDie
Senior Member
These posts seem to illutrate that it's impossibly hard to evaluate a home automation package (really, probably any package) until you're neck deep in it. On the one hand you've got users like dgage and bbrendon writing about their agonies, and on the other hand you've got users like jkmonroe, who are in love with it. They all sound like perfectly sincere and capable users. When I try to project what my experience with it would be, I don't think I can really know in advance in which camp I would end up, because it depends on such happenstance details.
I also run virtualized, so I'm not going to suggest you change that. I was just wondering how you're handling your datastore, if it's local/iSCSI/fibre, and how you have it provisioned (thick/thin/lazy). I don't know your proficiency with stuff like that, but it is important and misconfigs can cause issues with constant I/O services.bbrendon said:
I really haven't followed your threads on the forum, but CQC has so many moving parts that it is entirely possible (likely?) that we don't use the same bits.
BTW, I love Synology - never had a single issue.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Man, I should just give up...
I'm not going to get into a long argument, but I will say that Windows is not binary. There are almost uncountable variations of Windows because of patches, different runtimes, driver versions - both shipped and third party, audio/video filters, anti-virus/malware software, and so forth. And that's leaving aside completely the enormous changes between versions of the OS. The only thing that we know for sure is the same between two different people using version X of product Y, is product Y. That's about it unless you are going to compare the versions of all of stuff underneath.
That's one reason why you can go to pretty much any software product's forum and find some percentage of users who are screaming angry because they can't get it to work right, while the rest are not having any substantial problems. I'm not saying that as a justification for customers having issues, just saying that it is in fact a common issue.
And obviously, the larger and more complex a product is, the more likely it is that one user does something that no one has done before in that particular configuration and finds a problem. In extremely network distributed, extremely multi-threaded, multi-user, and highly configurable software like CQC, the odds are particularly high of this kind of thing happening.
And it can be the smallest thing or two small things that are seemingly completely unconnected, as anyone knows who writes software. I'm sure I'm not the only software engineer who has come across a bug in his product that is really fundamental, that has been there for years and years, and not a single person has reported a problem.
And then, OTOH, code that has been solid for a decade or more can suddenly have an issue because someone came along who just did something every so slightly differently from previous usages, or some difference in environment suddenly brought it out. The issue with the RA2 driver was one line of code, just like the issue that lost a Mars probe came down to a positive vs. negative sign, after probably untold numbers of hours going over that code.
In some cases, though it may seem like "I've reported this bug and it never got fixed, then Bubba posted about it and suddenly it's fixed.", it's usually down to some detail that Bubba reported that suddenly makes the puzzle pieces fall into place, which points the fickle finger of blame at the right place so that it can be found. Or, in some cases, it's just purely because, after having dug into it X number of times, the X+1'th time the answer suddenly is found.
In the end, I'd just argue that anyone can read our support forum. It's not at all filled with people ranting that we suck or about problems left unattended. We do the best we can and I think that best is very good for almost everyone. But, no matter how hard a vendor tries, it's not at all unusual to have some people leaving product X for product Y, because X never worked well for them, while Y works great, and just as many people going the opposite direction. How could that be if it there weren't differences in environment or usage patterns involved?
I'm not going to get into a long argument, but I will say that Windows is not binary. There are almost uncountable variations of Windows because of patches, different runtimes, driver versions - both shipped and third party, audio/video filters, anti-virus/malware software, and so forth. And that's leaving aside completely the enormous changes between versions of the OS. The only thing that we know for sure is the same between two different people using version X of product Y, is product Y. That's about it unless you are going to compare the versions of all of stuff underneath.
That's one reason why you can go to pretty much any software product's forum and find some percentage of users who are screaming angry because they can't get it to work right, while the rest are not having any substantial problems. I'm not saying that as a justification for customers having issues, just saying that it is in fact a common issue.
And obviously, the larger and more complex a product is, the more likely it is that one user does something that no one has done before in that particular configuration and finds a problem. In extremely network distributed, extremely multi-threaded, multi-user, and highly configurable software like CQC, the odds are particularly high of this kind of thing happening.
And it can be the smallest thing or two small things that are seemingly completely unconnected, as anyone knows who writes software. I'm sure I'm not the only software engineer who has come across a bug in his product that is really fundamental, that has been there for years and years, and not a single person has reported a problem.
And then, OTOH, code that has been solid for a decade or more can suddenly have an issue because someone came along who just did something every so slightly differently from previous usages, or some difference in environment suddenly brought it out. The issue with the RA2 driver was one line of code, just like the issue that lost a Mars probe came down to a positive vs. negative sign, after probably untold numbers of hours going over that code.
In some cases, though it may seem like "I've reported this bug and it never got fixed, then Bubba posted about it and suddenly it's fixed.", it's usually down to some detail that Bubba reported that suddenly makes the puzzle pieces fall into place, which points the fickle finger of blame at the right place so that it can be found. Or, in some cases, it's just purely because, after having dug into it X number of times, the X+1'th time the answer suddenly is found.
In the end, I'd just argue that anyone can read our support forum. It's not at all filled with people ranting that we suck or about problems left unattended. We do the best we can and I think that best is very good for almost everyone. But, no matter how hard a vendor tries, it's not at all unusual to have some people leaving product X for product Y, because X never worked well for them, while Y works great, and just as many people going the opposite direction. How could that be if it there weren't differences in environment or usage patterns involved?
I don't want my response to be taken in this context as I'm not the poster boy for CQC issues. I had a problem with one driver, and like Dean said, one line of code. Unfortunately, that was the driver that I bought CQC for and had intermittent problems. The issue has been fixed. Unfortunately, everything has its time and my time to do home automation has waned. I hope I can find the time and recapture the passion to make that happen again.bbrendon said:Yay! I'm not alone! Kiss kiss
l'll just stop there on a happy note
But I also don't want to see things blamed on VMs...I'm not able to get away with it when installing enterprise systems and I didn't appreciate my issues being immediately construed as likely VM issues. Dean did not say VMs might be the cause, it was the community (not sure if here or CQC forum) that jumped on VMs as a likely cause. Again, if more people were using CQC and the drivers, we'd have more configurations and usage scenarios out there to find these tiny issues. I do hope Dean is able to grow CQC and make it extermely successful as we will all benefit.
bbrendon
Active Member
Dean Roddey said:
Don't give up, fix it.
I feel like you're always trying to sweet talk me... talking about AV, this that, and all these variables that don't exist in my world.... My environment is very simple. CQC runs on ONE computer and that's pretty much it. I just don't understand how I can make 5 exchange servers work in harmony with such little effort but I can't make CQC happy.
Consider the problem is the code was never solid. It just appears solid.
I dunno. I'd love to love CQC but every time I try it stabs me in the back. Only you can fix the code. I'd love to force you to, but I can't.
Dogman
Active Member
Dean Please don't give up your system!!!!!! It is the very best out there in my opinion! I am not in the IT business but I am an Aerospace Engineer so I have very high standards probably much higher then IT folks (No offense) because a failure in an aircraft doesn't just give you a blue screen of death it can give your real death. Your product and your support is better then anything I have experienced including all the the other much larger companies that interface with your product. Leviton is terrible yet they are huge and have essentially unlimited resources but getting a straight accurate answer out of them is next to impossible. One of the reasons I decided to slowly dump my Vizia RF+ installation and move to Radio Ra which incidently has been perfect and same with the CQC driver. My CQC installation has been up and running for a few years on a windows 7 desktop that also doubles as my office desktop, my LMS server and my Megapixel IP camera server using Blue Iris and has been rock solid I have never had one single issue . Maybe because I am not in IT and don't mess with stuff if it works. CQC resources are extremely minimum in my experience much less then either the LMS or Blue IRIS. I use CQC to interface with my ELK , Denon AVR, Irrigation Caddy, Squeezebox, 30 nodes of VizIa RF + , Radio RA2 for my budding lighting network, Global Cache for more Audio Video stuff , OPPO Blue Ray and Pioneer Elite Plasma. Oh and my wife loves how easy all of it is for her to operate. She is a CPA so you know how those types are. So my vote is keep doing what you are doing and I really do hope you get more customers because your product and support is much better then all the new crap. I have tried the various smaller non integrated stuff and find I much prefer your integrated approach. I have used and still do both Android and Apple products with your product and both seem fine as well. I dislike the the reconnection delay of the RIVA clients but understand as a dumb non IT person this is something that is not related to CQC.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Does anyone here think I actually don't want to fix anything that could be wrong with the product? Obviously I do. The ones that get quickly fixed are ones that are repeatable, by me I mean. If I can repeat it, I can figure out what the problem is easily. It's a lot harder to fix problems that only occur on customer sites, and equally hard to fix things that only happen after some period of time. When it's both, it's extremely hard. We can't bring our entire debugging apparatus to bear on a customer's system, so it's trickier to deal with. We do try to provide plenty of logging to help, but of course you can't log everything, so it doesn't always work.
But ultimately we would of course like it to be completely flawless, since that would mean the most sales combined with the least support. It would be the ultimate outcome. And I'm sure every other software company feels the same. But, for anything pretty complex, I don't think anyone actually really achieves that, not for all potential users anyway.
But ultimately we would of course like it to be completely flawless, since that would mean the most sales combined with the least support. It would be the ultimate outcome. And I'm sure every other software company feels the same. But, for anything pretty complex, I don't think anyone actually really achieves that, not for all potential users anyway.
