Energytrace data disappears, collection never ends or terminates unexpectedly.

Mike,

What version of CCS are you using? I couldn't reproduce what you mentioned. 

On a side note, as you running EnergyTrace++ mode, it is recommended that you run the application normally to allow the debugger to be active to capture the application state. Now, the only time you would want to use Free Run mode is when you are in EnergyTrace mode to strictly just accurately capture Energy.

Could you provide a detailed to reproduce it?

Regards,

William

Verison is  6.1.0.00104 , no updates are available. I understand that is the best way to avoid the high debugger overhead. 

It's odd but I cannot reliably get EnergyTrace++ to run, the button is almost always greyed out. If I go into preferences, and the debugger is active, selecting it is enabled, but otherwise it is disabled. That seems like another UI bug. If I start the freerun without debug, EnergyTrace++ is never enabled. 

The reason I posted here is that I don't know where to look to see why the EnergyTrace is failing. It either hangs in collection or terminates early, and usually deletes what little data I collected. I am using my own target, but it seems to operate fine otherwise, so I can only conclude it is the software's fault. Perhaps there is an out of scale value? My board does have a significant draw once per second. Is there a debug mode and or log file I should reply with?

Mike,

Mike Mitchell1 said:

If I start the freerun without debug, EnergyTrace++ is never enabled

This to me makes sense cause EnergyTrace++ would require you to be in Debug more to function. When I launch EnergyTrace without a debug session (pressing the blue button left of the hammer), it switches my CCS Perspective from CCS Edit to CCS Debug view. Now, when you switch back to CCS Edit perspective, you may see the EnergyTrace button grey out cause you have already launched it in CCS Debug view. 

One thing that I found reliable in ensuring EnergyTrace++ works and launches all the time during my debug session is to force enable it every time you launch a debug session. You can do so by going to Window --> Preferences --> Code Composer Studio --> Advanced Tools --> EnergyTrace Technology. 

Once there, check the box "Enable Auto-Launch on target connect" and select EnergyTrace++.

If you have a consistent step that you can document for us, it would really help in reproducing it from our end which I can help filing it as a bug. I'll also find out from our CCS team to see if there is a report file that we could get on this and get back to you.

Regards,

William

William,

My preferences are already set how you said.  

I think you misunderstood, when I said " If I start the freerun without debug, EnergyTrace++ is never enabled. " I meant just the ++ mode the button at the far right of the Energy Trace window with the toolhelp "Switch to EnergyTrace++".  I assert then when I start a Freerun session, this button should be depressed and enabled. Instead it is not depressed and not enabled.   

I can only get an ++ mode(with the state display) when the debugger is actively engaged.  It will not capture in ++ mode by just pressing the EnergyTrace++ button from the Edit Perspective which is what I thought you recommended to me. 

But this is just a side effect of my larger problem. I can never get any reasonably consistent capture. I only get any data when collecting for 1 second and usually not then. The consistent behaviour I  have is that anytime I collect much data, Energytrace resets and clears the data.  I have described this problem as best I can, it is completely repeatable for me.  Therefore the whole Energytrace feature is basically useless so far. 

I need to know what configuration files or logs you need to troubleshoot further. 

Thanks.

Mike,

Mike Mitchell1 said:

I think you misunderstood, when I said " If I start the freerun without debug, EnergyTrace++ is never enabled. " I meant just the ++ mode the button at the far right of the Energy Trace window with the toolhelp "Switch to EnergyTrace++".  I assert then when I start a Freerun session, this button should be depressed and enabled. Instead it is not depressed and not enabled.   

I can only get an ++ mode(with the state display) when the debugger is actively engaged.  It will not capture in ++ mode by just pressing the EnergyTrace++ button from the Edit Perspective which is what I thought you recommended to me. 

I think I see what you are doing now. If you just press the EnergyTrace button from CCS, this launches just the EnergyTrace mode only where you can measure current and energy. It does grey out the "Switch to EnergyTrace++ mode" button because there is no active debug session.

To use EnergyTrace++ mode, you need to be in an active debug session. Then, you can click on the EnergyTrace button. Then, you can click on "Switch to EnergyTrace++ mode" which is now available. 

Mike Mitchell1 said:

But this is just a side effect of my larger problem. I can never get any reasonably consistent capture. I only get any data when collecting for 1 second and usually not then. The consistent behaviour I  have is that anytime I collect much data, Energytrace resets and clears the data.  I have described this problem as best I can, it is completely repeatable for me.  Therefore the whole Energytrace feature is basically useless so far. 

This to me sounds like there is memory usage here with CCS or the local disk space... hmm... Check your Private Message in the E2E forum also.

Regards,

William

I was having this problem in a VM using Virtualbox, but when I installed CCS 6.1 on the host system, it went away. I am not sure that virtualization is the issue but it might be. The debugger otherwise worked fine, it was only the energy trace that failed.