ProppFrexx ONAIR User-Forum

Hello everyone, this is my first time on this forum and I'd like to ask a question.
I'm trying out the demo version of the program, and I've also read on the forum that this is an error that other users are experimenting with the paid version too.
The question is that when you use the scheduler program and then run, when open more than 11 programs (or playlists), the program crashes and closes.

I knew this from the error log which told me "Inner Exception: The current process has used the maximum number of handles allowed by the system for Windows manager objects", And I don't know if this is due to the program or Windows.

Can this be fixed?
Thank you, and I look forward to your response.

The error message you receive is not a program error, but a limitation of the Windows Operating system!
But you are right, that this error might occur.

The Windows operating system limits the number of USER and GDI objects (which are represented by handles) that can be created by a process. I.e. every UI element (a button, a label, an input field, every graphic etc.) creates a handle. So does every playlist have quite a lot of UI elements of course.
Specifically, a process can typically create a maximum of 10,000 USER objects. While there's a theoretical limit of 65,536 GDI handles per session, the practical limit is usually lower, often influenced by available memory.

When a process approaches or exceeds the handle limits, it can lead to issues like the "The current process has used all of its system allowance of handles for Window Manager objects" error. This error can prevent applications from displaying UI elements, creating new windows, or opening dialogs.

There is no real solution to this issue, as it is a simply a limit of the Operating System - as said, depending on your available main memory. No system has unlimited resources - even today
The effective solution is: Do not create that many playlist windows in parallel.
In no standard program scheduler operations there is the need to create and run 11 or more playlists in parallel.

I like to understand, why you need 11 or more playlist windows in parallel?

As the handle limit is per process: you might think of using a 2nd instance of ProppFrexx (note, that this would require a 2nd license)?!
And I might think of adding a warning when you create more than 10 playlist windows in parallel...

Thanks for the supportn and quick response.
Well, first of all, this is the first time I've worked with this program, and to test it, we had scheduled a different playlist at different times this weekend.
For example:
Friday 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM pop music, 8:00 PM - midnight dance music, and so on until Monday 5:00 AM - 8:00 AM, which is the 12th one, that caused the crash. The problem is that when a playlist ends, it doesn't close, and the playlists keep piling up until it reaches the limit. I don't know if it's possible to autoclose playlists or there's another way to do this, but like I said, this is the first time I've tried this program.
Thanks.

In the instruction manual I can read:

ProppFrexx ONAIR

AUTOMATION
ProppFrexx uses scheduling a bit different than other systems, as it has a complete 'Outlook
like' scheduler build in. In this scheduler you can define so called 'Programs'.
A 'Program' is a scheduler entry, which defines when (at what time and recurrence) a certain
'Script' should be executed.
When a 'Program' executes (because the scheduler is running and the defined start time of it
is reached, and as such you are in automation mode), then the 'Program' always automatically
opens a new playlist window and closes any other open (older) playlist windows
automatically. The scheduler then executes the 'Script' associated with the 'Program' in this
newly opened playlist window. This ensures much more precise scheduling to the second
and also decouples the playlists - so that only have to care of one program within one playlist
window.

But the old playlist doesn't close, they accumulate and the program closes.

The computer is a latest-generation i7 with 12 cores and Windows 11, with 16GB of RAM.
We've tested it with an older i3 computer with 4 cores and 4GB of RAM, and this doesn't happen.
at least to the 12th playlist

I can NOT reproduce that issue. Only manual opened playlists do stay open. But any playlist scheduled via the scheduler should close automatically. In all my tests it does. Else, the software would not be usable for hundreds of users of course…

Can you post me your program scheduler configuration as well as your Scheduker/Script settings deon the general settings - there must be some strange conflict.

I have recorded some tests for you, so that you can maybe adjust things:

1) The Program Scheduler Entry as an example: I ran four hourly recurring program every 15 Minutes (for testing) in Soft mode - it runs a sample script which looks like this: 2) I left the general settings all as default: 3) And then I started to Run the Scheduler - all empty before, just press the Run button.
So it generates every 15 Minutes a new playlist to run the related program scheduler entry with it.
You can see in the two example videos, that at the beginning a new playlist (next to the existing [currently running] playlist) is created and waiting until is due to play it. So once the time is reached resp. the soft delay time is reached, the current program/playlist stops and the new progam/playlist is started.
Once this transition is done, the old program/playlist is closed! If this is not happening with you, we have to investigate why!

Example 1 Video: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ert7qoij ... v2qgf&dl=0
Example 2 Video: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7ekjv851 ... owbx6&dl=0

Oh, thank you so much for the information and the visuals.
I've tried it as you showed me, and it works perfectly. Old playlists are closed. The problem was that I was programming in "FIXED" mode and not in "SOFT" as you showed me. I thought this mode would work without delays, but I tried it in "SOFT" and it works great.
I'm sharing the settings I programmed in "FIXED" and the screen where the playlists accumulated when programming in this mode.
The settings are the default ones, they have not been changed.

No, not really - FIXED also works fine.

But your issue is, that you defined the program entries as "Overlay: Overlay End Time Fixed" -
so please define all your regular program entries as "Overlay: No Overlay"!

You only get these overlay types proposed, if your program entries timely overlap with each other and are not starting and ending consecutive (i.e. the previous ends at e.g. 18:00 and the next starts at 18:00).
(else the programs are not started as regular programs, but as overlays over the underlying root program; and an overlay only gets closed when this root is closed - which didn't happen in your case)

Hello, and sorry for not answering sooner. We're trying out several ways to do the program, but we haven't found a way to do anything specific. That would be to completely stop the program at a specific time. For example, we're scheduling a show from 12:00 AM to 5:00 AM, followed by another from 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM. At 8:00 AM, we'd like to stop everything so we can do a live show. But we can't get it to stop at 8:00 AM. Does the program continue or does it stop and resume the previous show from 12:00 AM to 5:00 AM. How could we make it stop at a specific time and not play anything else? Thank you.

This is because by default the scheduler is set in Continuous Mode. In continuous mode a program runs until a next program starts (where effectively the end time of a program is ignored).

You need to disable this mode (aka Isolated Mode), so that a program only runs from its defined start til the end time. Hoover of the checkbox to see its tooltip - or click on the ? icon at the very top right of each dialog to get help about each options...