AirNav Systems Forum
AirNav RadarBox and RadarBox24.com => AirNav RadarBox and RadarBox24.com Discussion => Topic started by: GlynH on May 05, 2010, 04:40:26 PM
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Hi there,
Long standing issue with menus here and was wondering if I was the only one who is affected?
It definitely gets worse the longer the program has been running.
ANRB has probably been up for a week or so now uploading to my website via FTP and as a consequence has had no user input from me - until today that is.
See here - this shows the issue far better than I could ever explain it;
http://www.screencast.com/t/NjIwYTkwN2
If I reboot the problem will go away but as I said after it has been running a while the issue returns.
I also see the busy/sleepy pointer more than expected too.
Is this peculiar to my system I wonder?
Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-
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I have a similar issue. If I leave it running for a few hours and then try and click on a menu item, nothing happens. I also have to shut down the application and restart it for the menus to start working again.
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I have mine on all day from 0800 ish till 2000 ish and don t have any problems. Windows XP and 3.13.
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Just adding to the observations. Homebuilt PC at 3 Ghz with 512 vid card and 3 gigs RAM. Airnav Radarbox has been in service continuously for five weeks three days so far using XP plus - no internet connection. No problems recorded thista with 24 hour service rota. Regards to all, Roger. PS Using 3.13
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Using 4.03 here in 2D with Dual 3.2GHz Xeons/4GB RAM/NVIDIA Quadro4 graphics/Dual monitors/4TB RAID etc. etc. uploading FTP every 30 seconds.
Currently have 528 aircraft in MyFlights
Machine used for Digital Audio Workstation/Digital Video Editing with real time rendering & effects with no slowdown anywhere else but ANRB which has always done strange things with menus here since v1.x so must be machine specific I guess?
Having said that out of the dozens of programs I use ANRB is the only program affected in this way...everything else just zips along.
Thanks for your input.
-=Glyn=-
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GlynH
I too suffer from the same issues when the program has been running for a few hours.
Installed the software on a different PC with the same issues.
Again if i restart the system all works ok for a few hours
Regards
Paul
MW0CVW
EGGP/EGNR
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No problem at all with sluggish menus, even when FTP uploading - mind you, the maximum I tend to get in MyFlights is around 80 aircraft - 528 sounds incredibly high! What timeout settings are you using?
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Hi Gary,
I do see a lot of aircraft here though...started with a clean database when I finally went over to 4.03 23rd February and have 13124 aircraft in there so far.
It is showing 10205 for last month alone.
Not sure what my timeout is set to...the damn File menu won't open for me to get to Preferences! ;^)
It is at the default 30s/60s I believe...I will take a look next time I reboot.
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
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I use 20s and 7s for MyFlights and 90s and 10s for Network. I can't remember what the defaults are, but I don't want too much 'old' data showing.
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Currently have 528 aircraft in MyFlights
-=Glyn=-
Can anyone even come close to this?
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Currently have 528 aircraft in MyFlights
-=Glyn=-
Can anyone even come close to this?
I must admit that I do find this figure oddly high. Even when I'm down in London I rarely bust the 100 aircraft level in MyFlights, although that is only using the standard antenna outside on the window ledge.
I wonder if this figure is an indication of other problems that Glyn might be having? I'd be interested too to see if anybody else is getting even close to the 528 aircraft figure.
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What O/S is everyone that's having the problem running? I have the problem and I run it on Windows 7 32bit.
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I have always seen hundreds of aircraft in MyFlights...when I got my first box I did see in excess of 700 at one time before it went deaf!
The second and subsequent boxes never did reach the same dizzy heights but on a busy day I do see 500+
My mate Terry who lives a couple of miles from me sees more than I do but he uses a pre-amp and I don't!
Like I said I have recorded 13172 unique aircraft between 23/2/2010 -7/5/2010 and 711 in the last 10 minutes alone!
Running XP here...
Have a look here - screen video captures taken while I was writing this post. Click the 'Full Size' icon to be able to read the numbers - the first one goes up to 517 and the second one reaches 529;
http://www.screencast.com/t/MTcyN2ZlNTct
http://www.screencast.com/t/OTIzOTY2ND
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
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No doubt about it - that's pretty impressive! I can see aircraft where you are seeing them, but only by using the Network.
I'm using the BS1100 antenna with about 10M of fairly lossy cable and I'm in a bit of a dip at the home QTH with high ground to the east and some further off to the west.
Have you tried deselecting Airport, coast outline etc to see if this makes any difference at all.
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Glynn
when you say sluggish menu's do you mean they do not work at all, there is a known and reported problem that if you access RB with something like LOGMEIN remote access software the menus lock up and dont work. This never got fixed although reported a while back during Beta testing. I confirm that I get it now on the latest version, the only way to clear for me is to stop and restart RB.
Keith
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Hey Gary,
I never use the network myself as I am really only interested in what my box can 'see' from my QTH
Using the Watson antenna here mounted atop a 17 foot pole affixed to the gable end of my house which is @ 450ft ASL connected by 8m Westflex with a pigtail N Type->SMA adaptor to the box which is in the loft.
I have tried many remote USB->Ethernet hardware/software 'solutions' but none of them have proved succesful as I want to keep the box on a short cable well out of the way of EMI/RFI from my computer, music & rack systems so have settled on an active 5m cable dropped through the ceiling directly into this PC.
Interestingly when I added a Kuhne pre-amp I lost 50% of my contacts...go figure.
Not tried deselecting Airport or Coast Outline as I need a guide to where the aircraft are hence I only use Country Boundaries & Airport Name. No hi-res outlines, 3D or anything like that. I guess I subscribe to the KISS theory ;^)
A reboot offers a temporary cure in that I am able to open menus etc. but the longer it runs the worse it gets.
On the surface the symptoms are akin to a memory leak but I still have 1.6GB physical memory available to the system currently and ANRB consumes 7-22% with the odd peak @30-something CPU which is not huge in the scheme of things.
Task Manager shows anywhere between 60-80% available to System Idle Process so the PC is ticking over really.
I keep on about building a new PC but I use this for work and everything else runs like a dream so reinstalling all my programs, setting up preferences & transferring data is off putting to say the least when everything else runs like greased lightning!
Looking at my emailed logs tells me that ANRB has been up for 11 days now since I last rebooted the system so I guess I am due another one about now.
I was just curious to see if anyone else suffered from similar issues.
I remember Deadcalm who had a system spec close to mine used to suffer a similar fate on older versions anyway.
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Hi Keith,
If you take a look at the link in my OP you will see exactly what happens with my menus - far better than I could explain by typing!
Here's a link to a full size video - click the full size icon to see it as I see it on screen;
http://www.screencast.com/t/YzlmZTQ0Y
This time it only seems to have affected the first three, File, Filters & Map but usually I lose all of them - when I click on them they are outlined by a fine black line as if selected but the menus do not open and usually stay selected like this when I move off them.
I don't use LogMeIn RA software so that isn't applicable here I'm afraid.
Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Glyn,
I don't use the coast outlines as there is enough of a difference in the land/sea colours to see the coastline. I do use a selection of bones' airways outlines - force of habit from when I was controlling, didn't really matter where you were over the land, but the airways were a different prospect altogether! You can get an idea of my display from my FTP upload site here (not uploading at present, but you will get the idea.)
http://www.ruyton.demon.co.uk/html/radarbox_screenshot.html
I tend to turn my PC off at night, so I've never left it for as long as you are doing. My maximum online time is probably only a maximum of 18 hours at a time. I also shut down RB when I'm updating my iPod using iTunes as iTunes is really a memory and processor hog!
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Hi Glyn, superb numbers, can you post a screenshot with your polar diagram please. The highest I've ever had in My Flights was the other day; I assume whilst they were catching up and getting the A/C back where they needed to be; and I had 62/63, my average, depending on day and time is 20 - 30, so your's is quite incredible. Still using your standard twig, performing exactly as it should!
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Fantastic numbers on My Flights as the most I have ever had is around 40. The full network only gets around 1300 at any one time so you are receiving just under half of them yourself.
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Thanks for the kind comments guys but I'd trade the numbers & range for speedy menus & operation any day of the week!
Gary, when you get to my age your eyes will need all the help they can get with contrast! ^)
Screenshot showing polar diagram attached FYI Jon.
Kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Couldn't post both screenshots together due to being slightly over the filesize limit :-(
As I said earlier my mate Terry sees more aircraft than I do and so I would expect him to have a bigger polar diagram...surprised he's not been along yet as he's usually up for a challenge! ;^)
Regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Hi Glyn, fantastic range, thanks for the diagrams, hopefully inspire to buy some tower scaffold and get my Watson antennas up this year!
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Fantastic numbers on My Flights as the most I have ever had is around 40. The full network only gets around 1300 at any one time so you are receiving just under half of them yourself.
We still don't know his real time-out settings!
With long time-out settings I also can get hundreds of flights in mylog, no problem at all.
Have average on weekdays 150 flights with time-out 30/5 sec.
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Hey Jon, no excuses...get that Watson up!
I have a BS1105 here to compare to the Watson. I know it is a much smaller antenna so I am not expecting too much from it 'naked' but I want to try my Kuhne pre-amp on the end of it.
Having said that the smaller BS1105 antenna might have a better pattern than the high gain Watson antenna if I am to believe what has been written.
Previously the combination of Watson & Kuhne seemed too much for the poor little RadarBox to handle as MyFlights is decreased by @50%...not what one would normally expect from the addition of a pre-amp!
Maybe the Watson/Kuhne overloaded & swamped the RB? Never did get the definitive reason for this issue...
The BS1105 & Kuhne could prove to work well...I am not interested in increasing the number of contacts but need the added protection of the Kuhne & Bias Tee so I don't lose any more RadarBoxes to lightning, static, wind, phase of moon or whatever! ;^)
Jannuh, just for you I exited & restarted ANRB...took @30 seconds to close and over 2 minutes to open again - this with a 110MB MyLog.db3 :-(
At least I have all of my Menus back again for a while...
Not sure if this qualifies as your idea of long time-out settings or not? See attached...
Regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Nothin wrong with those settings. My only comment is My Log is only 6.91Mb
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Previously the combination of Watson & Kuhne seemed too much for the poor little RadarBox to handle as MyFlights is decreased by @50%...not what one would normally expect from the addition of a pre-amp!
Maybe the Watson/Kuhne overloaded & swamped the RB? Never did get the definitive reason for this issue...
I had the same problem here - I run just the Watson now.
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Well after exiting & restarting ANRB @36 hours ago I woke up this morning to find the virtual radar map not being updated on screen. Every so often MyFlights would flash briefly but the aircraft were not moving and it was showing 256 aircraft permanently.
A quick check in TaskManager showed ANRB was taking up >30% CPU and was consuming nearly half-a-gig of RAM!
Maybe some kind of memory leak after all?
It took nearly 5 minutes to shut it down and an error was generated when it finally decided to exit.
I saved the .txt file generated if it might be of any help to determine what is happening...
Having said that it normally runs for much longer than this before it starts to bog down so maybe this particular instance is the exception rather than the norm?
Interesting pjm...we mentioned this in another thread but saw no 'official' response from AN at that time;
http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=3985.msg40301#msg40301
Do you have any idea or theories as to why that should be pjm?
Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Hi GlynH,
We don't read every single post on the forum so we didn't reply out of a reason.
With any amp, your going to be increasing noise at certain stage which may also counteract your getting more messages. Though once you start to recieve many aircraft you run the risk of messages being recieved the same time and hence this overlap will cause you to loose messages.
A simple Example (not with all the details and message type), 250 ADS-B aircraft each sending 2 messsages per second. Therefore 500 messages recieved in that second. That means it can cope with a message being sent every 1milisecond then 1milisecond gap etc. ADS-B doesn't know another aircraft is sending a message closeby and hence can broadcast at that same time.
Hope that helps.
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We still don't know his real time-out settings!
With long time-out settings I also can get hundreds of flights in mylog, no problem at all.
Have average on weekdays 150 flights with time-out 30/5 sec.
Just tried a quick experiment with time-outs on My flights.
My usual settings are 5secs/5secs and I was steady at around 140 in MyFlights.
I increased the time-outs to 60secs/60secs and within one minute MyFlights had risen to 180.
I reverted to time-outs of 5/5 and within one minute I was back down to 140 in MyFlights.
Rough and ready and needs repeating, but seems to demonstrate that if we're making comparisons we need to standardise the procedures.
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Glyn,
Maybe it's worth trying a couple of experiments to identify the cause of this problem. Maybe for a couple of days, unplug the antenna. I realise that means you'll see no aircraft, but it may eliminate whether this problem is caused by high traffic volumes.
So, unplug the antenna for a couple of days, and see if the menus, etc. are still sluggish.
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Hi GlynH,
We don't read every single post on the forum so we didn't reply out of a reason.
S'funny...I thought you read all of mine! ;^)
With any amp, your going to be increasing noise at certain stage which may also counteract your getting more messages. Though once you start to recieve many aircraft you run the risk of messages being recieved the same time and hence this overlap will cause you to loose messages.
A simple Example (not with all the details and message type), 250 ADS-B aircraft each sending 2 messsages per second. Therefore 500 messages recieved in that second. That means it can cope with a message being sent every 1milisecond then 1milisecond gap etc. ADS-B doesn't know another aircraft is sending a message closeby and hence can broadcast at that same time.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for the explanation...I have read it twice but it still hasn't sunk in so I will digest it when I get a little time as I have just walked through the door having done 18 hours and I have some work to do in preperation for tomorrow.
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
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Hi Chris,
Might give that a go...only problem is it might not be for just a couple of days. ANRB has been up since Saturday and I still have my menus at the moment.
I noticed it last time when it had been running for a week or so...
No aircraft for a week? I'll get withdrawl symptoms...;^)
Seriously though I would be prepared to unplug it for a week but I'm going to leave it running now until my menus cease to function again and see if it was repeatable in a similar timescale to last time.
Interestingly when I restarted ANRB it was using just 65MB RAM...I scribbled down 65K on my notepad but I must have meant 65MB as currently its using 299MB RAM
When my menus had locked up it was using 500MB RAM according to TaskManager so I'll keep an eye on that side of things also.
I have attached the text file that accompanied the shutdown error to see if it might give AN a steer on what is going on?
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
PS. By the time I got to the end of this post my memory usage had increased from the aforementioned 299MB to 303MB so it looks like it is on the way upI Is this normal?
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Well it didn't last a week this time :-(
Let me know if you need the memory dump files & accompanying text files AN...although the heap dump file is @310MB!
The Mini dump file is a more manageable 7.5MB if that helps...
Aah well...time for another reboot methinks...
-=Glyn=-
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Glyn, just a long shot, but have you tried 3.13 rather than the 4.03 3D version? Only to see if 3.13 clears the problem.
I had something similar when I installed 4.03, would fix the screen frozen for no reason and had to either try refreshing but turning process hardware off then on or restart RB. Since going back to 3.13 no problem. Although I did have to ensure a good clean uninstall between the two versions.
As I said, maybe worth a try just to see.
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I could give 3.13 a shot but I thought I saw somewhere that 4.03 is the version of choice that will be actively developed so I stopped using 3.13 a couple of months ago.
I only use 4.03 in 2D mode and have always had menu issues with all versions from 1.5 onwards!
Don't recall seeing many screen freezing problems though...
I guess I have a few things to try when I get the time! ;^)
Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-
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I haven't had a chance to experiment further yet, but if there's a memory leak with the ANRB software, you may be able to get around the issue by running a little application called minimem. Firefox has an inherent memory leak issue, and minimem always keeps the memory footprint low for me. This application should work with any program including ANRB in theory.
Check it out. http://main.kerkia.com/Tools/Minimem/description.aspx
Obviously as a long term approach would be to have Airnav fix it in a future update (if it is a memory leak), but as a workaround this little app may resolve the issue.
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Glyn,
Maybe it's worth trying a couple of experiments to identify the cause of this problem. Maybe for a couple of days, unplug the antenna. I realise that means you'll see no aircraft, but it may eliminate whether this problem is caused by high traffic volumes.
So, unplug the antenna for a couple of days, and see if the menus, etc. are still sluggish.
I can confirm this issue arises with low volumes of traffic. I don't pick up that many aircraft in my location and it's faulted for me on many occasions.
I'm going to leave it running until it fails for me.. and when it does, I'm going to check the memory usage, and then activate minimem (from my last post). It should release some memory, and i'll see if I get the menu function back. Stay tuned. May be a day or two though ;)
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I'd be interested to see what you find.
Every time I start ANRB it initially uses a memory footpriint of 65MB.
Within minutes its up to 80MB or so.
Following my reboot last night I just checked and its now up to 211MB but the menus are still working.
Before the reboot last night it was showing a little over 300MB and they were still working but shortly after that the screen update froze which forced the reboot.
Some time after my menus stopped working the other day ANRB was showing @ 500MB memory usage but I plan to keep an eye on it and see if it is repeatable.
I might be barking up the wrong tree but that does seem excessive to me however in the absence of clarification from AN that might be how it's designed to function - the longer it runs the more memory it needs?
Strangely MyLog.db3 is now showing smaller than it was the other day at 99MB with 13388 aircraft logged since the end of February.
The whole program often takes an age to respond and is like wading through treacle - for example I just clicked MyLog and the screen stuck at 475 aircraft and stopped updating for nearly a minute while MyLog opened.
Close MyLog and open it again and it opens much faster and doesn't have any impact on the screen.
CPU usage does seem to go up with the increased memory usage - after a reboot it flicks between 7-20%
A few minutes ago before I clicked on the program screen it was showing 13-31 but now it is 35-53 although that is purely an unscientific observation...
I also upload a screenshot via FTP every 30 seconds or so and when this happens I get the busy/sleepy pointer for a good few seconds or indefinitely if I am navigating a menu.
It returns to the normal pointer when I move away from the menu...not sure if you use ftp or if you have seen this behaviour?
Makes navigating the menu feel akward when this happens...
Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-
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I might be barking up the wrong tree but that does seem excessive to me however in the absence of clarification from AN that might be how it's designed to function - the longer it runs the more memory it needs?
Not in my experience. Memory usage here remains pretty constant over many days of running.
Strangely MyLog.db3 is now showing smaller than it was the other day at 99MB with 13388 aircraft logged since the end of February.
I wonder if there could be a database update problem here. What file system is the hard drive where the database is formatted as? In my experience, disk write queues/issues can have a major impact on system performance, even when CPU shows only <20%. Check in Windows Reliability and Performance monitor where Radarbox is updating the database, and look for any queue issues.
I also upload a screenshot via FTP every 30 seconds or so and when this happens I get the busy/sleepy pointer for a good few seconds or indefinitely if I am navigating a menu.
Try turning off FTP upload for a few days and see if that fixes the apparent memory leak.
Might be worth checking Windows Reliability and Performance monitor for anything unusual on memory, CPU, or disk usage.
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3342/4601124886_2a9dd5945c_o.jpg)
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I haven't had a chance to experiment further yet, but if there's a memory leak with the ANRB software, you may be able to get around the issue by running a little application called minimem. Firefox has an inherent memory leak issue, and minimem always keeps the memory footprint low for me. This application should work with any program including ANRB in theory.
Check it out. http://main.kerkia.com/Tools/Minimem/description.aspx
Have the app runnin for a few minutes, got memory-usage from abt. 33 to 21 mB
Did install it for another program, Subsonic, (doen't do anything on that program), which eats a lot of of mem when running for longer time, usually I reboot this PC once every 3 weeks.
Btw no problems overhere with freezing menu.
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Thanks for the comprehensive reply Chris,
A working set of 70MB or thereabouts seems good to me...certainly far less than the 200MB I have now or the 500MB I saw the other day!
Hard drive is formatted Basic NTFS under XP
Looks like you are using Vista? On XP here so no R&P Monitor I'm afraid.
Best I can do here looks like the attached screenshot.
I only have ANRB on to update my website but I will try turning it off. That did seem to help with busy pointer on menus previously.
Haven't got time to do much this week and am off to Brussels for a couple of days but should get some time when I get back.
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
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hello to all,
i also seem to have the memory leak problem: started yesterday 115MB, the next day in the morning i have 236MB. I am located center of Poland so not extremaly high traffic above (top would be some 60 planes observed) I use 4.03 with external antenna.
I have turned off polar diagram, maximum range and radar rings but memory is still leaking.
This must be application error - should be fixed.
If more advanced observation would be needed i may use the Wininternals software (highly recommended from my prevoius usage for other applications under tests).
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hellooooo!
the menu/memory problem is here all the time!
can not turn off network data
memory around 480MB
i have pressed many menu tabs and all pressed has been recorded by the software but not executed as i can see all pressed tabs WITH tab border around and the unpressed WITHOUT border line.
any ideas?
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Check a few things wojteksz.
1.) Backup your databases and try installing fresh and see whether your memory issues goes away. It may be a corrupted database causing the issue.
2.) Are you viewing the PC from a remote login crew?