Problem with Xap Switchboard

[nigelgiddings]

I have been hapily using Xap Switchboard for sometime, in fact so long I was still on version 1.1

Anyhow, just recently it has been stopping on me, when I try to restart I was getting a connection error.

Had a quick look this morning and searched on the error but nothing came up.

Decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Ver 5 Beta... Should probably have fixed the problem first eh?

Anyhow, removed ver 1.1 and installed 5 and appear to be getting the same errors.

I am also running xapTEL and the Homeseer plugin which seem OK.

I have attached the error message in a JPG...

any hints as to where I should be looking?

Thanks

Nigel

[Kevin]

Hi Nigel,

This forum is not used a lot by the xAP guys. It just got too difficult keeping track of the various offshoot xAP forums and so I'd encourage you to ask on the main xAP group where James should leap to your assistance ...

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xap_automation/

I have advised him of this post too.

It has been suggested that many people prefer a forum to a group list like Yahoo so we have thought of reviving the forum here but we had some comments that users weren't easily able to subscribe and were getting their 'membership rejected' which was a problem. We like to be able to manage who can participate on the xAP boards.

Kevin

[JamesT]

Hi,

It is not an error I've seen before, but as it survived the update I would suggest looking at the database. If you close switchboard, rename the database and then restart Switchboard it should create a new blank database. See if that works. If it does try opening up the old database in Access and see if it can fix it. Access databases do get corrupt sometimes but are usually repairable.

James

[Otto-Mate]

This forum is not used a lot by the xAP guys. It just got too difficult keeping track of the various offshoot xAP forums

It's a pity xAP "off-shot" UKHA_D in the first place

Looks like the xAP YahooGroup had 10 messages total last month. It woud benefit both UKHA_D and xAP if they were back in the one place.

M.

[Kevin]

Thanks Mark ;-)

xAP as you say was created as a UKHA project but immediately fragmented at launch by xPL and UKHA malaise of 'everything for nothing'. We didn't off-shoot deliberately at all but UKHA didn't adopt too easily either. Not a criticism but the reality that there are so many things to play with and a never ending todo list so it's bound to happen. But we're motoring along now terms of what we can offer , with ever wider and professional solutions, in the little free time we have.

We now have a great range of offerings but I agree we need to package and market them better for more general adoption. However I feel a milestone is approaching in that we're at a point where our solutions allow users to achieve integration of many different applications (commercial and free ones) as well as devices. This allows these vendors to truly add value extras to their own solutions eg touch screen control to Idratek or HomeSeer as discussed in the Idratek forum, or an HA engine to XLobby / MainLobby or 1-wire into HouseBot etc.

We have about 500 members of our Yahoo lists which is pretty good. In addition there are around a dozen different lists dedicated to xAP paired with an affiliated product like the xAP plugins for HomeSeer for example. I estimate we're getting around 150 posts per month overall which I'm pretty happy with. The HomeSeer BBS (our most popular plugin) is well over half of these.

We would love to reduce the number of the forums but the practicality is that HomeSeer users like the HS BBS, XLobby theirs, MisterHouse, Opnode, XLobby, MainLobby, Charmed Quark all their own etc etc.

Surprisingly, new entrants like Idratek tend not to use the forums but spend most of the time exchanging emails - which is fine too. We're happy to help in whatever ways suits the companies. It all helps to progress xAP adoption. There's a couple more of these in the wings....

One of the concerns we get voiced over xAP by commercial developers is that it just opens up their software too much - making it interact with other applications and support extra devices very easily. The more protective developers want to sell plugins ($$$) and not allow other applications to be integrated. Sad but realistic in a commercial world.

Anyway - sorry for hijacking your thread Nigel - I hope James' suggestions are useful and we got him 'over here' pretty quick once I saw your post. I haven't seen this issue with SB mentioned anywhere either so I'm hopeful it's easily fixable.

Kevin

[nigelgiddings]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the response.

I do actually subscribe to the Yahoo group... but traffic is so low I wasn't sure it was the best place...

As an ardent Homseer user I much prefer the forums, primarily because it is easier to learn from, search against, and generally get more information in a more controlled way... Personal preferance but I see everyones question being someone elses answer in the future...

I have to say that xAP is great... But I struggle getting the information I need to make sense of it. While I am no programmer I feel resonably competant to load s/w and get things generally working but I constantly struggle with xAP apps if they need any fine tuning...

I will use the Yahoo group to post my issues from now on. Somehow the issue I had has cleared but I have lost tts for incoming calls, something that had high WAF (reinforced now it is not available)...

Thanks again, and to you Mark for making this type of facilty available...

Nigel

[Kevin]

I know what you mean about the general availability of information and howto's on xAP. It's something that we had hoped users might contribute based on their own experiences, leaving the coders able to focus on the software. However we haven't created a nice way for them to contribute this either - although teh Wiki is open for contributions from everyone.

I too favour a forum rather than a list for all the reasons you mentioned. I'll bounce the idea around again but there were some very loyal Yahoo groups supporters too.

Re the TTS - I suspect this is simply that your new SB install is not configured to send the TTS xAP messages as it was before - or maybe that the xAP Speech application isn't running ? You should be able to use xAP viewer to see the request being originated by xAP Switchboard and xAP Speech should be listed as a running application. Check the target line in the TTS message too.

We'll get your speech working again....

EDIT: Just thought.. How was your speech achieved before - was it via HomeSeer and the HS Speaker application and possibly a script within HS ? Or was it initiated from xAP Switchboard itself ? Also which xAP HS plugin are you using. I think there were 4 different ones at the last count.

Kevin