ARC 2026.05.24.00 (Pro, Runtime And Free)

This update focuses on improving ARC reliability, better error handling, and expanding Soundboard control commands for more flexible robot programming.

Highlights

Improved Soundboard Control Commands

The Soundboard PC and Soundboard EZB robot skills now include new ControlCommand support for working with audio items by index.

You can now:

• Return the number of audio items in the soundboard list
• Play an audio file by passing its list index as a ControlCommand parameter

This makes it easier to dynamically trigger sounds from scripts, buttons, automation logic, or other robot skills without needing to reference each sound by name.

Robot Skill Fixes

Ultrasonic Ping Reliability Fix

Fixed a rare startup error in the Ultrasonic Ping robot skill where the timer could load before the UI handle was ready.

This improves startup reliability and prevents timing-related initialization errors.

Add robot skill Menu Fix

Fixed an issue where the Add Robot Skill menu could display:

Error loading Add Control form

The issue was caused by shared image icons being disposed unexpectedly. ARC now creates cloned image copies instead of attempting to reuse shared image instances.

Speech Recognition Improvements

Bing Speech Recognition Wake Word Handling

Bing Speech Recognition will no longer raise an error when attempting to use wake word mode without an available input sound device or speech recognizer.

This makes speech recognition behavior more graceful on systems with missing, disabled, or unavailable audio input hardware.

Interface Builder Improvements

Back Button Navigation Fix

The Interface Builder back button will no longer allow navigation beyond the main form.

This prevents invalid navigation states and keeps the Interface Builder workflow more stable.

Rendering Stability

WPF Software Rendering Fallback

ARC will now default to WPF software rendering if hardware GPU rendering fails.

This fallback is not persistent and only happens after a hardware rendering failure is detected. This behavior helps users who experience GPU-related rendering issues while keeping hardware acceleration available for everyone else by default.

If this becomes a larger issue for users, please let us know. Otherwise, this behavior will remain in place for the small number of systems that require it.

Installation and Startup Error Handling

Missing CEF Browser Library Detection

ARC will now display a clear error message if required CEF browser libraries are missing during startup.

The message will prompt the user to view a support page with the recommended solution, which is to repair the ARC installation.

This should make installation-related startup problems easier to understand and resolve.

Printer Error Handling

Default Printer Check

ARC will now show a clear error message if no default printer is available instead of throwing an exception.

This improves stability when printing features are used on systems without a configured printer.

Exception Handling Improvements

Safer Nested Exception Display

The exception window now limits how far it walks through inner exceptions.

Some deeply nested errors could previously cause excessive memory usage, including potential out-of-memory errors. This update prevents ARC from endlessly walking through nested exception chains and improves crash-reporting stability.

Summary

ARC v2026.06.13.00 improves stability across robot skills, startup behavior, rendering, printing, speech recognition, subscription handling, and error reporting. This release also adds more flexible Soundboard automation, making it easier to control audio playback from scripts and robot behaviors.