Interruptions to the computer while scoring
I know this problem gets discussed here again and again, and I've raised it on this forum before, but if you have any patience please bear with me. At my local club the scoring of afternoon games has had to be abandoned because the scoring computer shut down during the game, we think because Windows gets a sudden urge to update its software at inappropriate times. They are using ScoreBridge and bridgemates.
I have changed the times it's allowed to download updates to exclude the afternoons as well as evenings, and that might solve the problem, be I'd like to know how to advise our TDs to fix it if it happens again.
Using EBUScore I'm sure I could restart the scoring programme without resetting the server, click on "read all results" or go round the bridgemates and resend the results until they were all registered. When I try to restart Scorebridge (I never use ScoreBridge) I get this option:
Does anyone know which (if any) of these two options will not reset the server?
Am I on the right lines?
I also understood that if power to the scoring computer is interrupted, the bridgemates will continue to work and bridgemate control software will continue to accept the results, so they should be retrievable even if the computer is shut down and not restarted. I only got to this after the server and bridgemates had been reset for another game, but when I tried to recover the event into EBUScore from the BCS file, many of the scores were missing. When I checked the log textfile for the event not all the scores had been recorded. Is there any reason for this? (It's not the batteries in the server!)
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I remember getting this to work by unpluggin,g the server, restarting scorebridge and allow it to attempt to reset the server, plug the server in and then recover/synchronise the database to match the server and then reread results, or perhaps resend results from each bridgemate individually.
I think my understanding is correct but there are other people on this forum who can put me right if I am wrong.
When a score is entered in a Bridgemate it is recorded in 5 places:
1. It is held in the individual Bridgemate
2. It is held in the Bridgemate server, the rectangular box connected to the computer which communicates with the Bridgemates
3. The BCS database
4. The Bridgemate log
5. The scoring program's database.
3,4 and 5 are normally located on the hard disk of the scoring computer but they can be on some virtual location such as Dropbox, Sync or Google Drive. However wherever they are they rely on the scoring computer being up and running. Therefore 3,4 and 5 stopped being updated when the scoring computer stopped functioning. They would all have been updated with what they had missed if the computer and the scoting program are restarted while the Bridgemate server is still attached. I can only see one ScoreBridge message in your post (the one about 'the event is not complete') clicking OK on this will not reset the server and result collection can continue.
2 relies (as I think you recognise) on the Bridgemate sever having power. This normally comes from the USB connection to the scoring computer but if that is shut down it will continue to run if it has batteries with charge in it.
The crucial factor is that 3,4 and 5 will be kept as until they are explicitly deleted or the hard disk fails. 1 and 2 are only retained until a new event is started. If the case of the Bridgemate server this is when BCS is started for a new event. However for the Bridgemates this is not until some data is entered for the new event. I have been able to recover an event by creating a brand new event in ScoreBridgewhich mirrored the original event and starting BCS. I then from each individual Bridgemate used the TD menu to send all the results to the Bridgemate server and thence to the BCS database and ScoreBridge. There may be be an easier way of doing this but I have not risked it.
So as 3,4,5 do not have the data from the time when the scoring computer was down and 1 and 2 do not have the data because it has been overwritten by the subsequent event there is no way of recovering the event concerned.
Basically recovery has to be done before the Bridgemates and Bridgemate server are used for another event. The best way is if the computer and scoring program can be connected to the Bridgemate server as soon as the computer comes back up.
Thanks, Paul, for a very clear explanation. Perhaps what wasn't clear to me was when the data in the server (which would be complete if the game was finished, even with the computer down) gets saved to the BCS database. It would seem sensible if that were made to happen automatically when the computer was next switched on.
I'm trying to write instructions for my club TDs and this will be very useful. I did see Robin's suggestion when I went back through the topics on this forum, and while I might try that myself, I don't think I'll recommend anyone else do it.