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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Troubleshooting Starting RowPro |
  
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Troubleshooting Starting RowPro
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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Troubleshooting Starting RowPro |
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If RowPro shows the initial Splash Screen and then does nothing, particularly after your PC has just been started, possible causes are:
.Net Framework loading
RowPro runs on the Microsoft .Net Framework (".Net"). In Windows XP, .Net is not loaded until an application requires it. This means after you start or restart your PC, the first time you start RowPro, Windows needs to load .Net.
Loading .Net takes a long time, maybe up to 30 or 40 seconds if you don't have a Core 2 Duo Processor in your PC.
The effect you see is that RowPro shows the initial Splash Screen and then does nothing for a relatively long time, perhaps long enough for you to decide it's not loading and try again.
The result is that you may end up having more than one copy of RowPro running in your PC, and if that happens you will get problems when running RowPro, particularly related to your Concept2 Performance Monitor and Online Rowing.
There's nothing you can do about this apart from upgrading to Vista or a more powerful PC, which may or may not be an option for you.
Antivirus scan
If you have Antivirus (AV) software installed in your PC, the AV software usually has default settings whereby it scans every application for viruses.
These scans can take quite a while, say 30 to 60 seconds depending on how powerful your PC is, and the scans are typically done the first time each application starts after your PC is started or restarted.
The effect you see is that RowPro shows the initial Splash Screen and then does nothing for a relatively long time, long enough for you to decide it's not loading and try again.
The result is that you may end up having more than one copy of RowPro running in your PC, and if that happens you will get problems when running RowPro, particularly related to your Concept2 Performance Monitor and Online Rowing.
You can probably configure your AV software to add RowPro to a list of trusted applications that are not scanned on start-up. Please note if you do this, the application name to exempt from scanning is RPEngine.exe. Consult the Help of your AV software for steps to exempt an application from being scanned when it is started.
Process already running
Both the above problems may combine, resulting in extremely long delays starting RowPro.
If you see RowPro show the initial Splash Screen and then do nothing, you need to wait it out for several minutes until you're absolutely sure RowPro is not going to start. If RowPro still does not start after a lengthy wait:
| 1. | Open Windows Task Manager, click the Processes tab, check if an RPEngine.exe process is running, and if so, terminate the process and try starting RowPro again. |
| 2. | If you're not sure about using Windows Task Manager, or you don't see an RPEngine.exe process running there, you'll need to restart your PC. |
If you are still unable to start RowPro and need assistance, please contact assist@digitalrowing.com. Please tell us:
| 1. | The RowPro Build number under the moving line on the Splash Screen. |
| 2. | The Windows version you're using (Vista or XP), plus the Service Pack number. |
| 3. | What if any AV software you may be running in your PC. |
If you are unable to start RowPro and/or you get an error message, possible causes are:
Windows Service Pack
RowPro requires Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, or Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or later. If the necessary Windows Service Pack is not installed or is not up to date, the RowPro installer will install RowPro, but RowPro will then either not start or not run correctly.
To check which Service Pack is installed, open Windows Explorer and click Help / About Windows. To get the latest Service Pack, visit the Microsoft website www.microsoft.com.
Some Antivirus software blocks applications from starting based on internal rules. For example, in Panda there is a feature "protection of unknown threats" and one of the settings is "detection of unknown viruses and threats" and a sub-setting "behavioral analysis", and if you disable this setting, RowPro works.
To check if this is the cause, you can temporarily disable your antivirus software. If RowPro then starts normally, you'll need to work out how to configure your antivirus software to allow RowPro to run.
Windows Vista has a system called User Access Control (UAC) that controls who can do what in Windows. Depending on your UAC settings, you may need to run RowPro as an Administrator. To do this, right-click on the RowPro launch icon and click Run as Administrator.
If RowPro either does not start, or does start but the 3D graphics are missing, frozen, incorrect or highly erratic, the most likely cause is a problem with your PC graphics driver.
To prove/disprove this, you can temporarily set your Hardware acceleration to None and see if RowPro then starts. Please note that RowPro will run extremely slowly with Hardware acceleration set to None, so slowly it may even seem to be stalled, but the thing you're checking is whether it starts at all.
To do this in Windows XP, right-click the desktop, click Properties / Settings / Troubleshoot, and move the Hardware acceleration slider to None, then start RowPro.
To do this in Windows Vista, right-click the desktop, click Display Settings / Advanced Settings / Troubleshoot, and move the Hardware acceleration slider to None, then start RowPro.
| • | If this clears the error message, then a bug in your graphics driver is the cause, and your best bet is to see if there is an upgraded graphics driver you can download from your PC manufacturer. If so, that's likely to fix it. If not, then try another graphics setting on your existing driver, for example if you have Color set to 32-bit, try 16-bit, and experiment with other display area settings like 1024x768, as it's likely there's only one combination of driver settings that has the problem. To change these settings in Windows XP, right-click the desktop, click Properties / Settings. |
| • | If you still have problems, you may need to switch RowPro from using the OpenGL graphics system to using the DirectX graphics system. You can do this by installing the GLDirect utility from SciTech. This utility and instructions for using it with RowPro are at http://www.digitalrowing.com/downloads/Vista.htm. |
RowPro has been steadily improving in its ability to tolerate graphics driver issues and other PC challenges. If you don’t already have the latest version of RowPro, you should upgrade as this may fix the problem.
To check which version you have, look at the Build number under the moving line on the Splash Screen that shows every time you start RowPro.
You can upgrade free to newer versions with the same first digit in the version number, for example from 2.0 to 2.2. To do this, download and run RowProSetup.exe from www.digitalrowing.com/download.
Assistance
If you are still unable to start RowPro and need assistance, please contact assist@digitalrowing.com. Please tell us:
| 4. | The RowPro Build number under the moving line on the Splash Screen. |
| 5. | The Windows version you're using (Vista or XP), plus the Service Pack number. |
| 6. | What if any error message you may see. |