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ryanvolz / radioconda

Software radio distribution and installer for conda
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Pausing the flowgraph freezes the app on Windows #64

Closed TheCrazyT closed 11 months ago

TheCrazyT commented 1 year ago

I'm using a windows environment.

I just noticed that you can't use a variable in the "Run" property under "Options" of your flowgraph. gnuradio

I normaly use a checkbox-variable to pause the flowgraph. This is useful for timesinks etc. (if you want to measure time differences). In GnuRadio version 3.9 this worked without a problem. But on latest 3.10 the whole window just freezes, without beeing able to do anything (looks like it does not react on any window event at all).

ryanvolz commented 1 year ago

This feels like it could be an upstream gnuradio bug, but I do know that the use case you're describing works for me with GR 3.10 on Linux. If I get some time I can try it on a Windows VM. But overall you might get more traction by filing this bug report directly with GNU Radio.

ryanvolz commented 11 months ago

I tried this out finally, and was able to pause and restart a simple flowgraph on Windows using the checkbox widget. Maybe some upgrade to Qt fixed this in the meantime? Or maybe there is a particular block in your flowgraph that doesn't like being paused with GR 3.10?

TheCrazyT commented 11 months ago

@ryanvolz

Sadly I'm not able to create a simple example that freezes.

But one thing i noticed on a simplier example is that I get alot of "aOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOaOa" at the output once the "run"-Option is set to "false" with the checkbox. It can be related, but I'm not shure. (file is here: https://gist.github.com/TheCrazyT/d7f5e31582e15e4b392a2455ebf19283) If run is disabled, it is not supposed to output anything I guess?

Will try your suggestion with the upgrade, but I didn't have the time yet.

ryanvolz commented 11 months ago

So the "aO" is audio overrun, which sounds to me like the audio device is still trying to send data to the GR audio source but can't because the flowgraph is paused. One thing that I know has changed with GR 3.9.1.0 is that the preferred audio source on Windows is now Portaudio instead of the (barely maintained) Windows native audio. It looks like GR's Portaudio backend doesn't handle pausing correctly, but the Windows native audio backend does. You can test this by editing C:\Users\<YOUR_USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\.gnuradio\config.conf (or creating it if it doesn't exist) and adding the following:

[audio]
audio_module = windows

For me, that gets rid of the "aO", and maybe it fixes your freezing too.

(If you don't have a C:\Users\<YOUR_USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\.gnuradio directory, it's possible that it should be something different on your system. Check what that would be by running gnuradio-config-info --userprefsdir.)

The fact that the Portaudio backend produces "aO" when paused might constitute an upstream GNU Radio bug, assuming that's not what was intended.

TheCrazyT commented 11 months ago 
audio_module = windows

Did not work for me because it does not seem to find the device and the graph does not even run. Guess I can blaim my exotic setup on that (I'm using "virtual audio cable" to get the signal from another app).

But thanks for the hint, atleast I now know what could be the reason for the problem.