Asked
— Edited
I have a really weird thing with the EZ:1 robot and the v4
I have a large robot script doing lots of cool stuff, but recently I am seeing SayEZBwait phrases that randomly speak twice and sometimes more and Soundboard waves that repeat or stop halfway through the wave and start again?
Has anyone seen this, or have any ideas? I wondering if its the v4, but taking it out and now replacing it from the robot is a big job as you can see from the photo below - if there is an easy fix then I would prefer to try that before pulling the robot apart!
if you are using a recent ARC version, i would try an older version from last year 2015.
The ARC code has been improved several times to support the new hardware (IoT Tiny), and a better scheduler task.
Sometimes new improvements introduces new bugs
To test it, add a variable that increments each time the phrase is spoken and see if the variable changes. For example ...
Code:
Lastly, there's a chance the audio buffer is causing a repeat due to extremely high cpu usage on the ARC PC. This is because the way audio is streamed has a start and stop command - if the stop command is sent late, then the audio buffer may have enough time to repeat.
The audio buffer is circular, so if there ever is a network congestion issue, the audio will repeat the rather than stop.
If this is a network problem, then maybe the improved v4x/2 is solving this particular issue?
Tony Ellis profile at: https://branded.me/tony_ellis
I must have a fault on the onboard standard v4 as it never carries out the speech/waves properly - it goes wrong every time? Going back to the v4x/2 (not on the robot) then the problem never happens so it cannot be on the PC, ARC side.
DJ, I tried your count increment idea but it did not work when the phrase was spoken 2 or more times the count stayed at one - I guessed we would need a multi-line command with the cnt++ on the start of the line followed by the Sayezbwait phrase to see if the variable would change, but as cnt++ is on the prior line then its never going to increment if the Sayezbwait line starts again.
I will get some time this week to strip the robot down and swap over the v4 controllers.
Tony Ellis profile at: https://branded.me/tony_ellis
I have extracted the v4 gear tray from the robot and it is now sitting on the bench not connected with anything I/O etc except for the external speakers. The problem is still there with speech/wave problems every time the script(s) are run. If I then run the same scripts on the v4x/2 it works fine every time.
I am sure that the original v4 just went faulty it has been in the robot for over a year with no problems whatsoever? So I do not think there is anything wrong with the original v4 controllers, I probably just had an unlucky fault appear on this original unit, not sure what else it can be?
Alan
It is a very strange fault as DJ said Windows at the PC end generates the TTS and wave output so logically it would need to be the cause of re-triggering - but then if windows is re-triggering then surely it that would also happen with v4x/2 (as well) but it does not? It has to be in the streaming mechanism their must be a buffer in there that maybe restarts? If I can get some spare time later I will do a video of both v4 controllers audio output (to the same script) to show whats happening.
Tony
Tony
I'm glad the new version of EZB has solved your problem. I know you want to find the ultimate cause because you're going to sell this robot but you may have already found it. A broken older EZB. Sh** happenes in the robot world as you already know. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Tony
The ALTAIR robots also impersonate B9, C3PO, Hal 9000, Robbie (Forbidden Planet), Marvin (Hitchhikers) and others.
Glad it made you laugh!
Tony