multiple instances of VA from command line start

[Gerry Abbott]

Hi all,

Just sorted a long standing concern i had with VA. 

I start VA along with other stuff and my game with a BAT file, and I was getting inconsistent operation of VA. it it was running and i ran the BAT file, I noted that a popup said that the software was already running, and i assumed that nothing further happened.  However using command line actually starts an instance of VA each time, as can be seen in the task manager, and multiple instances was causing the inconsistencies.

Its a small thing, but would be nice if only a single instance of VA was allowed, no matter how it was started (icon, shortcut, command line). 

Great software BTW. 

[Gary]

Do the instances KEEP running, or do they die off?  The should terminate once it detects another instance is running.  If you run another instance before the first one has a chance to start, the second instance is probably not going to see the first one and continue to run.  VA doesn't constantly poll to see if there is another instance (it's only on start).  Are you running VA instances in rapid succession?

Gary

[Pfeil]

I'd never gotten around to reporting it, but I've had a bug related to this for a while now, so I looked into it:

When starting VoiceAttack from a .bat(start "" "C:\Program Files\VoiceAttackBeta\VoiceAttack.exe" -profile "ProfileName"), the first instance starts properly. The subsequent instances run for a few seconds and die, but they open a new browser window in all open browsers when the process terminates.

It appears this strange behaviour is caused by the "-profile" command line parameter. When using "-stopcommands" for example, "Stop running commands" simply appears in the log as expected and the process terminates nearly instantly. It also occurs regardless of whether the profile specified is already selected or not, or even whether the profile exists.

I should note I did most of my testing in v1.5.8.16, though v1.5.8.18 exhibits the same behaviour from what I can tell.

[Gary]

Ok... yeah.  There's a thread block in there that's gumming things up.  Great catch on that.

Gary