ARC 2026.04.14.00 (Pro, Runtime And Free)

This update is one of those "you don’t realize how much better things feel until everything just works" releases. Packed with stability fixes, smarter behavior, and quality-of-life upgrades across the board, ARC just got a whole lot more reliable (and a bit more clever too).

Smarter Controls & Input Handling

• Joystick robot skill is now way more resilient

  • Proper disconnect/reconnect detection with clean logging
  • No more deadlocks - the loop always resets correctly
  • Improved bounds checking (no more weird early exits)

Audio Gets an Upgrade

• Adjust EZB audio volume live during playback

• Volume now safely clamps (no more zero-volume weirdness)

• Soundboard:

  • Toggle whether scripts run during playback directly from the UI

• Bing Speech Recognition:

  • Added pre-buffer audio recording option in config menu
  • Capture audio before the trigger fires (great for VAD wake-word scenarios)

Smarter Error Handling (and way better debugging)

• ControlCommand system now gives detailed, actionable errors:

  • Detects duplicate robot skills
  • Shows robot skill type
  • Points you to the manual when syntax is wrong

• Improved exception handling across UI events

• Speech recognition:

  • Gracefully handles systems with no recognizers installed
  • Less errors in logs - just clean fallback behavior

Camera & Vision Stability

• Fixed rare error in Camera Training popup

  • Safe handling of UI/thread timing race conditions

• Quietly ignores harmless disposal timing issues while still logging real errors

UI & WinForms Stability Fixes

• Fixed a nasty font autoscale error when dynamically adding controls
• Improved theme consistency when generating UI elements
• Eliminated PictureBox error caused by GDI+ edge cases
• General UI event handling is now more robust and fault-tolerant

Memory & Resource Fixes (Big Ones)

• Fixed GDI+ bitmap handle leak

  • Prevented eventual "out of memory" errors after long sessions

• Optimized large 3D model loading:

  • Dramatically reduced memory spikes
  • Eliminated errors when parsing large XAML meshes

Connectivity & Device Behavior

• Joystick device driver now:

  • Logs disconnect once (no spam)
  • Recovers cleanly on reconnect

• EZB audio improvements ensure smoother runtime control

General Improvements

• More consistent disposal patterns (no lingering event handlers)
• Better internal logging across multiple subsystems
• Numerous behind-the-scenes fixes that improve long-term stability

The Big Picture

This release focuses heavily on real-world reliability:

• Fewer errors logged
• Better recovery from edge cases
• More useful debugging info when something does go wrong

In short: ARC is now tougher, smarter, and more predictable - exactly what you want when building serious robots.

If you’ve ever had something "just randomly break" this update is for you.