System Clock change causes Watchout Gui to Freeze

[Raoul]

Hello Everyone,

While running an external piece of software that created a virtual real time clock within Watchout (using inputs and goto commands), I observed some unexpected behaviour when changing the time of the clock.  Can anyone please confirm that if you change the computers system clock to an earlier time, the Production software Gui appears to "freeze".  With the length of the freeze seeming to correspond to the time difference you set the clock back by.

Please note, I have only tested this on two versions of Watchout v6.4.1 & v6.6.1 on two non-optimised machines running windows 7 , so it could possibly be a configuration issue.

Many thanks for your help.

 

Raoul

[jfk]

I am a bit baffled by your issue. I can not think of any reason software  developers would expect to deal with system clock changes during normal operation. Specially with software that includes millisecond timing accuracy.  If you feel you must change the system clock, quit WATCHOUT, make your system clock change, then restart WATCHOUT.

[Raoul]

Hello JFK,

Thank you so much for your response, and I am sorry I didn't reply sooner. 

You are of course absolutely right, there is no general reason why the system clock should be changed.  However, I regularly do events (as many of us probably do) in different countries.  Often in such cases the local time is different to the time on the show machines that have travelled with me.  More than once a client has commented on my machine having the "wrong time", which makes file copying timestamps out of sync with local time. So I rather naively adjust my clock to the local time, thinking nothing of it.  However, I look rather foolish when Watchout then appears to crash in front of me.  Had I known this was a limitation, I would have (as you so rightly point out) not have done this with Watchout open.

Just for fun, I tried this with Medialon, Ventuz and D3, none of which had any problem.  So, yes you are right, don't do it.  However, not all software with precision timing have such limitations.

Additionally, Daylight saving time clock adjustments on Windows 7 (Win8 & Win10) take place automatically twice a year unless explicitly disabled. So this has the (albeit unlikely to be noticed) chance of crashing the software twice a year. Also, if you are using a non-optimised machine to edit a show on, and it has an internet connection, if internet time sync is enabled, and your system clock resyncs with the internet time, then this could also lead to a crash.

Once again, Many Thanks for replying.

Raoul

PS. Hope everyone is enjoying the festive season!