Troubleshooting FAQ
The BeerBotz system depends on several third-party software packages during normal operations. As
these software packages get updated over time, bugs in the normal operation of the system emerge
and fixes may need to be applied. This page (Troubleshooting FAQ) lists these known issues and
other operational tips.
General:
If there is no gas or not enough to have the system work properly... you have a gas leak before
it gets to the bubbler!
Power Fluctuations Cause USB-disconnected State
If the power supply to the BeerBotz device is not steady (brown-out or over-voltage), the USB
connection may go into a "disconnected" state. The only way to fix this is to physically
unplug and reconnect the USB cable. If you have such power issues, consider getting a
battery backup for power supply to the BeerBotz device.
Operationally, the PC app is capable of suspending its operations and waiting for the USB
connection to be restored again. It checks for restoration at 5 second intervals. The PC app
will not respond to graph request emails during this waiting period, so you will know there is
a problem that has to be looked at. It will send an email to notify the user that a disconnection
has occurred, and another when the connection has been restored. After this "connection restored"
email, the batch will be back to normal operations.
Windows™:
Change to the following in Power options: turn off display: never, sleep: never.
Windows Updates: Because of the stategy of continual updates to Windows 10™, the PC owner is no
longer allowed to suppress the Windows™ update reboots. The user can configure what time of
day the reboots might occur. Also there is a functionality that will restart the application after
the updates reboots. These issues are demonstrated in the
Windows Update Reboots video. If the PC does not
boot with the BeerBotz device installed, try changing the following setting in the PC BIOS:
Legacy USB Storage Detect: Disabled.
Virtual Memory Settings: Check that Windows virtual memory is set to "Automatically manage paging file
size for all drives". On some tablet-type systems the paging file is set to manual. Presumably this is
done to preserve some addtional hard drive space for the user on the fixed-size hard drives of these
machines. If Windows is not allowed to manage this page file size, this may lead to program hangs
over the course of extended operation (days). On Windows 10 the setting is found at: System-->Advanced
System Settings-->Performance/Settings-->Advanced-->Virtual Memory/Change. Check the box for
"Automatically manage paging file size for all drives". Change requires a restart to enable new mode.
Excel™:
Disable sharing (it's disabled by default) Procedure: (In Excel 2013) --> Review - Share Workbook - Editing -
Uncheck "Allow changes by more than one user"
Disable AutoSave (it is enabled by default) Procedure: File - Options - Save - Uncheck Auto Recover
Opening a second workbook causes a running BeerBotz batch to skip a line in Excel™. This may cause
corruption! Do not open up a second Excel™ workbook while the BeerBotz is saving to the first
workbook. This because Windows™ by default opens up a second workbook using the same app instance
as as the first one. The desired behavior would be to open up the second workbook in a new instance of
the Excel™ app. This can be done with the following procedure: Need to run: excel.exe /x to get
a new instance of the Excel app or Atl/right click the Excel taskbar icon and select Excel. It's
best to leave the PC alone when the BeerBotz is in the middle of a batch.
Gmail™ Email Account:
The BeerBotz system can use two different ways to authenticate to the Gmail™ server. If "Use Gmail Native
Access" is checked (preferred), then the authentication happens when the BeerBotz app is first started.
If this setting is unchecked, the BeerBot will authenticate every time it accesses the Gmail™ server using
POP. POP is an old email protocol that Google™ is trying to depreciate. They make you specifically turn
this Protocol on in your email account settings.
These settings are demonstrated in the
Email Operation video. Also shown in the video is the
setting to enable POP access. Oddly, I have also found that POP access gets changed back to
"disallow" if the email account is unused for a couple of months.
Intel Compute Stick™:
If you are planning to use a Intel Compute Stick™ to make a graph viewer from an HDTV, here are my experiences
with this device. I have the "Bay Trail" version of the device which was the first iteration. It works fine, but I
would suggest getting the newer version (Cherry Trail™ quad-core x5-Z8300) which hopefully irons out the
graphics bugs I had encountered.
I did a clean install of Windows 10 32-bit. You may not need to do this.
Under power-plan, the default (Balanced) under "Hibernation" is four hours (and can't disable). Change to
"High Perfomance" plan, then go to "Hibernation" and set to "never".
The Intel graphics driver for the Z3000 (Bay Trail) chipset does not correct for overscan on a 720p HDTV. This
device is designed to work with a 1080p HDTV. This is a limitation of the Intel™ driver that I am using,
and may be fixed in a future driver release.
Adobe Acrobat Reader™ (for Viewer app):
The BeerBotz Viewer PC app needs Adobe Acrobat Reader™ installed to display the graphs as they come in.
By default, these newer versions of the reader uses a "Sandboxing" mode that is supposed to enhance security when
opening .pdf's from unknown sources. With regard to the BeerBotz app, this has the effect of locking up the app
after a couple days of operation. This setting needs to disabled. Procedure:
Disable "Protected Mode" in Adobe Reader with Adobe Reader (in "Security(Enchanced)). BeerBotz and Reader
applications need to be restarted after this change.
The software disk included with the BeerBotz system includes a version of Reader 11 with this change applied
already. The newer Reader DC was found to be too buggy to use with the BeerBotz Viewer app.
Saving to Microsoft Access™:
When you have Microsoft Access™ installed (included with the Microsoft Office Pro™ versions),
the "Save to Access" option will be available in the "Storage" tab. This is not enough to get this to
work however. You also must install the "database engine" (included with BeerBotz software). This is
middleware that allows the BeerBotz application to communicate with the Access™ application. As
of this writing, the file to use is: 2010 engine (version 12). File name: AccessDatabaseEngine.exe.
You need the x86 version of the 2010 engine (version 12) regardless of whether the Office installation
is x64 or x86. There are newer versions, but they don't work with the BeerBotz application.