RobotStudio Stability

shurd

Hi there,

 

I am having some issues with the stability of RobotStudio when the number of paths and targets gets large (e.g. 100 paths and 10,000 targets).  When I synchronise these paths to the virtual controller, RobotStudio can become unstable, meaning that the program could freeze, or won't close properly (RobotStudio.exe has to be shutdown from the Task Manager), or the graphics stop refreshing (the ribbon controls and tool-windows become white boxes with red diagonal crosses).  Occasionally I will get a message saying "Exception: Insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program."

 

The memory usage for RobotStudio.exe goes from about 595,000 KB before synchronisation to about 603,000 KB after synchronisation for this station, while RobVC.exe is about 58,000 KB both before and after.  My machine has plenty of available memory (I have 16GB RAM), and neither of these memory usages are close to the 2GB limit for an emulated 32-bit application (I am running 64-bit Windows 7).

 

I am using an AddIn that I have developed to creat and configure the paths (path creation is done using the Machining PowerPac) and synchronise these paths to the VC, but I don't think the problem lies with this code, as I have replicated the problems without using my AddIn and just using the built-in functionality of RobotStudio.

I have read before that there can be issues with RobotStudio when there are a large number of targets in a station.

 

Are there any pointers that anyone could give me to help me improve this performance, without reducing the number of paths and targets?  (I need all of these targets, and in fact I really need more of them if possible!)

 

Is there anything I can do in my AddIn to clean up the memory that is used by RobotStudio?  (I am trying to "Dispose()" or "null" objects when I have finished with them...)

 

Is there any chance that this performance with large stations will improve in upcoming releases of RobotStudio?

Niklas Skoglund

Do you think the problem in this post is related?

http://forums.robotstudio.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=6878&PID=19966#19966

http://forums.robotstudio.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=6786&KW=leak&PID=19780#19780

But as you have reproduced the problem without your Add-In I'm not sure... 

Niklas Skoglund2012-08-15 09:51:01

shurd

Hi Niklas,

 

The link that you posted is showing me the same forum topic that I posted.  Did you mean to link to another post?

 

Thanks,

Shaun.

Niklas Skoglund

Hi Shaun,

I have updated the link. I mixed up the two posts.

Your user name is shurd, and the user who made the other post has the user name Shaun 

shurd

Hi Niklas,

 

Yes, sorry for the confusion, the other post is from me as well - I'd lost my login details so setup another account, but have found my original account details again! 

 

My gut feeling is that I don't think the issues that I'm having with the larger stations are related to the memory leakage I was seeing with the CommandBarPopup event handler.  There is certainly no sign of the memory usage running away either during or after synchronisation to the VC.  Having said that, both problems only seem to manifest themselves after synchronisation, so maybe they are related?

 

Cheers,

Shaun.

shurd

Bump.

 

Any advice for handling larger stations and the stability issues that I'm seeing?

 

Is the next version of RS likely to be any better at handling larger stations?

 

Cheers,

Shaun.

AndersJ

Hello Shaun,

 

Yes, next version (RS5.15) will have a 64 bit version, meaning that you will be able to beneit from your 16Gb RAM. The release is planned for October later this year.

 

But,  a general recommendation is to avoid syncing all paths/targets at the same time. Only check those you have made changes in. That would make things better.

 

John Wiberg

To concur with Anders, if you have an Add-in that creates a lot of paths and targets, then do them in batches as in

create batch 1 - sync to vc - delete in RS

create batch 2 - sync to vc - delete in RS

 

Same thing backwards, don't sync everything from the VC to RS at once, only the paths you want to edit at the moment. This since the whole thing will always be in the VC anyway, so that when you hit simulate, it will execute whatever is in the VC.

 

And agreed that 5.15 will be a huge improvement performance wise.

shurd

Thanks for the feedback Anders and John.  I've been trying to do exactly what you suggest, in terms of batch-processing the paths; I'd already noticed that for every path I synch to the VC, that the synch gets slower and slower, so I've been trying to restrict what I synch as much as possible.

Looking forward to seeing RS 5.15, and great to hear that it's going to be a 64-bit version too!