Scheduled task, error prompt upon reboot

[Fr0stX]

Hi Unclewebb,

Been a long time user of Throttlestop. Was using V 9.4.2 beta for a while and everything was buttersmooth with my 10700K and MB. Thanks for this gem of a software!

Now I just upgraded to 9.5 and again as far as program usage everything is still working flawlessly. The issue I have is with the scheduled task upon reboot.

FYI, my task is as per this Post. The task is working as expected on the fist boot. The problem is when I reboot, I get this:

I looked into the ini, and from testing, when I "kill" the task by clicking on "end task" in task scheduler, it seems that the line "StartFailed=1" does not get reset to 0 like it use to with 9.4.

So when I reboot, I think the same thing is happening where the StartFailed=1 forces this prompt as it was not reset to 0 upon shutdown of windows.

For the time being I have rolled back to 9.4.2, but is there an option or something that will fix this that I havent figured out?

Thanks!

Edit, my bad, StartFailed=1 did not happen with 9.4.2, so I guess ill have to figure out what is causing this StartFailed=1

Is there any way I could troubleshoot this?

 

[unclewebb]

Thanks for reporting the issues you are having with this safety feature.

The purpose of this feature is to prevent any BSOD loops when a user accidentally sets their offset voltage too low. ThrottleStop initially assumes that something has gone wrong and sets the StartFailed flag to 1. If ThrottleStop runs successfully for 4 seconds, this flag is automatically cleared. If your computer has not crashed during the first 4 seconds, ThrottleStop assumes that your voltages and other settings must be OK.

If you exit ThrottleStop during the first 4 seconds, it should automatically clear this flag.

After thinking about this some more, here are a couple of things that could go wrong.

I looked into the ini

If you have the ThrottleStop.INI file open on the desktop when ThrottleStop is trying to clear this flag at the 4 second mark, this flag might not get cleared properly. It is impossible for ThrottleStop to write data to an open INI file.

when I "kill" the task by clicking on "end task" in task scheduler

Using the Task Scheduler kill feature is rarely a good idea. When you use ThrottleStop to close ThrottleStop, the StartFailed flag always gets reset. If you use Kill Task during the first 4 seconds, the StartFailed flag will not get reset.

Now that you understand how this feature works, are you still having problems with it? On my computer I can boot up or reboot or resume from sleep and I can start and stop ThrottleStop 101 times a day like I normally do when working on it and I never, ever see that warning message.

If you are still having issues, let me know. I will consider adding an option to ThrottleStop so you can completely disable this safety feature. If something causes more problems than it solves then I need to include an easy way to disable this.

 

[Fr0stX]

Ok I did some more testing by deleting the ini file and it seems like this will happen as soon as I turn off data monitoring by hitting "stop data"

So throttlestop will flag StartFailed=1 if "stop data" is not on upon starting... Is this expected?

I just saw your post. Let me do some more testing

Edit: Ok, so waiting 4 seconds while the ini file is not opened will not change the behaviour. Still getting the prompt.

As for not being a good idea to end the task, I have no other way to quickly replicate a reboot of the task. I normally do not do this.

The issue seeems to be pointing at StartFailed=1 not being changed to 0 after 4 seconds if "stop data" is not turned on. I had turned it off to avoid using CPU cycles, but I guess I could live with turning it on as I can think it does not use that much CPU power...

 

[unclewebb]

Is this expected?

The Stop Data feature could prevent the StartFailed flag from being cleared. I never use the Stop Data feature so I have never done any testing of this.

If you exit ThrottleStop, the StartFailed flag should be cleared whether you are using the Stop Data feature or not. It is possible that this is not happening depending on how you or on how Windows kills ThrottleStop during a reboot.

I will do some more testing with Stop Data enabled. If Stop Data is interfering with this safety feature, I will need to do something to prevent this from happening. I will likely clear the StartFailed flag when Stop Data is being used.

Thanks for your troubleshooting efforts. That makes my job fixing this much easier.

 

[Fr0stX]

If you exit ThrottleStop, the StartFailed flag should be cleared whether you are using the Stop Data feature or not.

Correct. Exiting the program normally will reset the flag to 0 regardless the state of data readout. The issue only arise if Throttlestop has been killed by windows (either thru task manager, task scheduler or a reboot) while data readout is turned off.

For the record, looking at task manager, CPU usage of Throttlestop from having Data read off vs on is not any different. On a 10700K at least, maybe older CPUs would have a bigger impact.

I do not mind letting it on. Just a good top know if other users end up with the same prompt.

Thanks for your assistance and glad I could help!

 

[unclewebb]

CPU usage of ThrottleStop from having Data read off vs on is not any different

When minimized to the system tray, ThrottleStop is very efficient whether the monitoring data is being constantly updated or not.

I have already fixed the problem you reported. I will send you a download link if you are interested in doing any testing. The new version should reset the StartFailed flag very quickly if Stop Data is being used.

 

[Fr0stX]

Yep, I see that!

The new version indeed fixed the "issue".

Solved