SleepyHead will not start

[Ragnar]

I am getting a little frustrated with SH. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a 64 bit Dell Laptop. I have tried both 32 and 64 bit versions of SH and have least problems with the 32 bit version of SleepyHead-BrokenGL.exe
But some days it will not start. I right-click the exe and select Run. I get the dialog about unknown publisher and click Run. The spinning circle spins for a while then disappears and nothing happens. When I open Task Manager I see no evidence of SleepyHead running. I am a programmer and have never experienced anything like this. The 64 bit version runs sometimes but often I get a message: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "windows". Initially the 64 bit version would not run because missing QtWebKitWidgets.dll. I fixed that by installing the C++ application development framework. I guess this is common when the app doesn't have a setup file.
Any suggestions about the plugin?

[Terry]

I am getting a little frustrated with SH. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a 64 bit Dell Laptop. I have tried both 32 and 64 bit versions of SH and have least problems with the 32 bit version of SleepyHead-BrokenGL.exe
But some days it will not start. I right-click the exe and select Run. I get the dialog about unknown publisher and click Run. The spinning circle spins for a while then disappears and nothing happens. When I open Task Manager I see no evidence of SleepyHead running. I am a programmer and have never experienced anything like this. The 64 bit version runs sometimes but often I get a message: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "windows". Initially the 64 bit version would not run because missing QtWebKitWidgets.dll. I fixed that by installing the C++ application development framework. I guess this is common when the app doesn't have a setup file.
Any suggestions about the plugin?

What version of Sleepyhead are you running?

Did you run the windows DLL installer listed on the download page?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/...x?id=40784

Are you running it from the compressed folder or did you extract it first? It won't run unless extracted.

[Ragnar]

I am getting a little frustrated with SH. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a 64 bit Dell Laptop. I have tried both 32 and 64 bit versions of SH and have least problems with the 32 bit version of SleepyHead-BrokenGL.exe
But some days it will not start. I right-click the exe and select Run. I get the dialog about unknown publisher and click Run. The spinning circle spins for a while then disappears and nothing happens. When I open Task Manager I see no evidence of SleepyHead running. I am a programmer and have never experienced anything like this. The 64 bit version runs sometimes but often I get a message: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "windows". Initially the 64 bit version would not run because missing QtWebKitWidgets.dll. I fixed that by installing the C++ application development framework. I guess this is common when the app doesn't have a setup file.
Any suggestions about the plugin?

What version of Sleepyhead are you running?

Did you run the windows DLL installer listed on the download page?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/...x?id=40784

Are you running it from the compressed folder or did you extract it first? It won't run unless extracted.

Thanks Terry,
I am running what is said to be the latest version of SH, 0.9.8-1 of both the 32 and 64 bit version.
If you are talking about the Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013, yes, both the 32 and 64 bit.
Yes, I am running the extracted files, you can't run anything in a ZIP file.
The strangest thing is that sometimes the program runs, other times not. Typically, software errors repeat, hardware errors are unpredictable. But I am not aware of any hardware problems on my computer.

[Terry]

Yes, I am running the extracted files, you can't run anything in a ZIP file.
The strangest thing is that sometimes the program runs, other times not. Typically, software errors repeat, hardware errors are unpredictable. But I am not aware of any hardware problems on my computer.

You can try rebooting and then run it and see if you can get the UAC message (Trust this program?") to reappear, then uncheck the "ask every time" button, which should make your PC trust the app.

It's also possible that you're running AV software that doesn't like it.

The app needs no special permissions and doesn't do anything but read and write it's files, or open some web pages if you click the "help" link, so it shouldn't be making anything very upset about it.

[macbob]

I right-click the exe and select Run. I get the dialog about unknown publisher and click Run. The spinning circle spins for a while then disappears and nothing happens.

I would recommend creating a shortcut on your desktop. That way you don't have to go find the exe files, can tell it to not display warnings about the publisher when you run SH, etc. It may (or may not) make it a little more stable, too, in that the shortcut will specify a starting folder, etc.

[archangle]

Be sure you are running the .exe file from within the folder, not within the zip file.

Unfortunately, Windows likes to hide the file types and will open a zip file without warning you, making it look like a folder. You cannot run SleepyHead from inside the zip file, only from the folder.

More info here.

A curse up on you, Bill Gates, for this kind of nonsense.

I suggest you go into "tools-Folder options-view" in Windows Explorer and uncheck "hide filetypes for known extensions."

You cannot copy the SleepyHead?.exe file to another location, but you can cut and "paste shortcut." The shortcut will work.

[Ragnar]

Thanks to all, I guess I will have to live with the flaky behavior of SH. I was hoping someone had stumbled across the same problem and found a solution.
If I could find the data format for RP System One I might write my own software.
does any one know where I can find this?

[Beans]

If you google "SleepyHead wiki PRS1 Data File Format" there's a sourceforge wiki page describing the file format.

Since SleepyHead is open source you could compile the latest code yourself and debug through it to see what the issue is. I'm a programmer too and I took a look at the code and it looks fairly clean considering Mark describes himself as a hacker.

It looks like there's a free version of Visual Studio called "Visual Studio Community 2013". I might try downloading that and see if I can get the code running myself.

[Ragnar]

If you google "SleepyHead wiki PRS1 Data File Format" there's a sourceforge wiki page describing the file format.

Since SleepyHead is open source you could compile the latest code yourself and debug through it to see what the issue is. I'm a programmer too and I took a look at the code and it looks fairly clean considering Mark describes himself as a hacker.

It looks like there's a free version of Visual Studio called "Visual Studio Community 2013". I might try downloading that and see if I can get the code running myself.

Thank you Beans,
I will look at that Wiki. I also might try that VS although I am most comfortable with VB. It is puzzling that it is so unpredictable though, makes me wonder if it is hardware related. Software errors usually repeat, but I can't think what hardware could cause these symptoms.

[storywizard]

Ragner wrote:
"I right-click the exe and select Run"

I have SH installed on Win 7 64 bit, when I extracted the file it placed a shortcut on the desktop...never had any issues of it crashing...

Now on my Apple laptop SH crashes when I try to install my oximeter data, but that is another story...:-)

I know you are a coder, but I feel the problem is at the beginning of the process....IMO

good luck..

Storywizard