Beijer Electronics (formerly QSI Corporation)

If I follow a call to ::SetLocalTime() with a screen refresh, or ShowWindow(SW_SHOW), the screen redraws very slowly. If I comment out the call to SetLocalTime, the drawing is normal. Is the OS being bogged down by the SetLocalTime Call?

Just wanted to let you know that I can reproduce that delay on a unit by calling SetLocalTime before a displaying a dialog. It seems to happen when I set the time very quickly over and over again in a short period of time. The first time I set the time, it happens at an acceptable speed, but by the 7th time it's taking over a second. It seems like if I don't set the time for a around 30 seconds, then try again, I don't have a performance issue.



A couple things you might try.



1) Saving the time setting and starting a timer for 30 seconds. Do not allow any updates to the local time for these 30 seconds. Once the timer has timed out, allow an update to the time setting. So the most you will ever update the time is once every 30 seconds.



2) Create a thread running in the background to set the time. Have a thread periodically check for a new time setting, and call SetLocalTime if needed. Maybe the thread could check for a new time update every 10 seconds.



From what I can tell setting the real-time clock on a terminal is not the lightest operation and you wouldn't want to be doing that often as that could affect performance.

_________________
Ron L.

http://www.beijerelectronicsinc.com/

When I set the date/time using the control panel function. The same thing happens. (this is without my application running). Once I hit apply on the Date/Time Properties dialog, it hangs up. Ok, X, Apply become non functional. Other windows are functional but the graphics refresh becomes very sluggish. I have to power off and on again before I can do anything else. I will try this on another unit to see if it does the same thing, but I'm fairly certain this is why my app is freezing up when setting the local time.

Tom Roberts.

My other unit does not exhibit this behavior. In the field we have 13 of 27 units that are having the same issue.

Tom,
Can you check the Windows CE OS image version on both of these units?
Run \HardDisk\bin\WinVerCE.exe

The difference in behavior may be due to different software. In that case we can help you upgrade your units.

_________________
Brian Crofts

QSI Corporation

801-466-8770 x431

http://www.qsicorp.com

I installed the newest image, but it did not affect the issue. The bottom line is, anytime SetLocalTime is called, the os is unresponsive for 6 or more seconds, sometimes a lot longer, depending on what else is going on.