Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

RadioSDR1
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Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#1

Unread post by RadioSDR1 »

After updating SDRUno for the heck of it, I noticed that the SDR Console waterfall would freeze but the radio still played. Stopping and starting SDR Console would not fix the frozen waterfall. You would have to close and reopen the SDR Console software to fix it.

Generally, this seemed to happen only if the computer got busy. For example, SDR Console might be running along swimmingly. And then I open a web browser. SDR Console waterfall starts to choke and then freeze. Before the update, this never happened. Of course resources running in the background like opening a web browser will cause some blips and blops and artifacts in the audio (at least with my hardware) but those are brief and do not cause any problems.

I rolled SDRUno back to 1.41.1 and then everything was fine again. I am under the impression that SDR Console depends on the API from SDRUno and the API was updated in the latest version of SDRUno. It seems likely that this is more of an API/SDRUno issue rather than a problem with SDR Console. There do seem to be some other known bugs reported with the current version of SDRUno.

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Simon G4ELI
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Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#2

Unread post by Simon G4ELI »

OK, sounds like a lack of resources. If you've enabled CUDA for the FFT then disable it.

You haven't told me much about your system. I don't really think it's much to do with the new SDRplay API but all things are possible. Web browsers can really eat up resources.
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RadioSDR1
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Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#3

Unread post by RadioSDR1 »

Hi Simon. Did a little more testing. Put SDRUno 1.42-0728 back on. And was able to crash the waterfall opening a few instances of FireFox. However, to correct my original post, when the waterfall freezes, the audio does too. There's a waterfall issue with SDRUno when I run the scanner function where it freezes under certain circumstances but the audio still plays so I think I was conflating that with the SDR Console issue.

Anyway, I did have the NVIDIA Cuda checked and I shut it off. That sort of seemed to make SDR Console more tolerant of background activity before it would crash but I'm not sure because it didn't seem always consistent. Also in the brief testing I just performed, SDR Console seemed more tolerant in general than the first time I had 1.42-0728 installed. So there might be some other contributing variable to this that I need to suss out.

So then I rolled back to 1.41.1 and tested again. And there was nothing that I could do that would break SDR Console. I tested up to the point of running a full AV scan and then rapid fire opening of Firefox to dozens of instances and SDR Console did not freeze or crash. Now, SDR Console was not happy in the slightest about all this commotion but it kept plugging away and did not stop or crash. So at least on my machine there definitely seems to be some kind of issue with the new SDRUno impacting SDR Console.

A tentatively better way to describe this problem may be to say that SDR Console is less tolerant of resource depletion from background processes when the new SDRUno is installed and as a workaround may be somewhat more tolerant, but not perfectly tolerant, if NVIDIA Cuda is unchecked.

I need to screw around with this some more to see if I can say something more about this that is a little less fuzzy. :)

In terms of my system, it's a crappy Dell Inspiron with an AMD processor, SSD drive, and 8GB of RAM. But it works and was relatively cheap. Like me. :)

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Simon G4ELI
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Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#4

Unread post by Simon G4ELI »

Hi,

I really do need to know what the CPU and GPU are.
Simon Brown :shock:
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Do not send me direct e-mail, thank-you!

RadioSDR1
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Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#5

Unread post by RadioSDR1 »

Hi Simon. Sorry for the delay in response. The CPU is an “AMD A12-9700P RADEON R7, 10 COMPUTE CORES 4C+6G 2.50 GHz”. The GPU is an “AMD Raedon R7”. If that’s not complete or you want to know additional and/or other details, just holler! :)

RadioSDR1
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Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2022 4:41 pm

Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#6

Unread post by RadioSDR1 »

Just an update. I installed the new SDRUno V1.42.0817 and still the same problem. HOWEVER, rather than roll back to 1.41.1 again, for giggles I rolled back just the API to 3.09 (it can be downloaded from SDRPlay's website) and that fixed the problem! So I can now run the latest SDRUno and not have it interfere with SDR Console.

I have not tested running the latest SDRUno with just the API rolled back 3.09. All I can say is that SDRUno starts and can tune a station. I'll post again on this if I observe any anomalies with the rolled back API.

RadioSDR1
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Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#7

Unread post by RadioSDR1 »

Another update. I just installed build 2711 and installed API 3.10 and tested crashing SDR Console by opening multiple instances of Firefox and it still crashes. Not sure if 2711 was intended to address this. So I rolled back to the 3.09 API and retested SDR Console and it was rock solid, could not break it.

RadioSDR1
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Re: Waterfall Freeze on SDR Console After SDRUno 1.42-0728 Update

#8

Unread post by RadioSDR1 »

@Simon. I just noticed that SDR Play released API 3.11 so I just installed it and did some brief testing.

Wow. This totally fixes the problem.

And not only that, some of the artifacts I might hear in the audio when the processor was taxed opening a program or whatever has nearly disappeared completely (with how I normally run SDR Console).

Then I really tried to break it. Instead of just opening FireFox in a rapid fire fashion, I started a full AV scan, changed my usual bandwidth from 500kHz to 10MHz, changed my waterfall speed from my usual 10 to 100, and the resolution from the usual /2 to X16. The audio was a little choppy at this point (to be expected) then I started rapid fire opening of FireFox. SDR Console was as stable as concrete. SDR Console actually yawned at me. :) Totally rock solid.

Bottom line, for SDR Play users (at least the RSP1A crowd which is what I have) that want the best performance and stability with SDR Console, try API 3.11. Who knows if it has some other problem but it definitely fixes this one.

FYI...the latest SDRUno as I type this is 1.42-0817 released August 17, 2022. Unless that download has been modified, it originally had the API 3.10 so one will need to scroll down to download just the API in order to get the latest version of that. Interestingly, API 3.10 is not available but 3.09 still is.

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