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Machinehead Software Bug List
Contents
Not many software houses have the bottle to show the bug list to the general public. But I pride my self on how short the list is!
"Gear calculator doesn't cater for the new Campag 10 cog cassettes"
In v1.4 of GearCalc pro the maximum number of rear cogs has been increased to eleven, thus providing users with a degree of future proofing against the day some idiot decides this number of cogs is necessary.
"Gear calculator crashes with 'illegal function call' message!
Can happen when 'Test all rear cog values for current chain rings' is selected. As far as I know this only happens with Windows ME, which helpfully(????) appends AM or PM to the 24 hour formatted time portion of the datetime returned by a call to 'now', causing VB's timevalue() function to fail because it doesn't recognise this as a valid datetime format. This has been fixed in version 1.51
1. If all the cogs are the same size. A division by zero error was generated causing the program to crash. This has been trapped.
2. If an enormous wheel size was entered the assessment took a long time and Windows appeared to be hung. A progress indicator has been added, with a cancel button, also the program now releases to processor to allow other applications to be used.
I have had no complaints from the users about these "bugs" and I don't expect to get any:
In #1 What is the point of a multi-gear bike where every gear is identical?
In #2 A wheel this size will foul low bridges! Problems only occur when the bike is geared to do at least 100 mph in first.
Any existing users insisting on an upgrade please send me £2.50 to cover costs. My recommendation is don't bother because these are " testers bugs" that will not cause problems with normal usage.
The only other complaint was from a gentleman who tried to install GearCalc with other Windows applications running. Sometimes you can get away with this, but generally speaking re-start the machine with no applications running before installing any Windows software.
Spelling Mistake: effects all versions of the heart rate calculator up to v2.1.3. Corrected in 2.1.4 onwards. Normally I wouldn't worry about this but its a serious error that has gone unnoticed for rather a long time! The heart rate formula TargetHR = RestingHR + {(MaximumHR - RestingHR) × (PercentageEffort ÷ 100)} is Karvonen's formula not "Karnovans formula" as shown in the program and help file.
I would like to thank Hartsell Koivunen for alerting me to the mistake.
"PowerCalc installed ok, but I click on the icon - and (suddenly) nothing happens!"
The problem can occur on Win95 and later
The cause was another 'power.exe' which does some smart-arse power management stuff was preventing, my program from running.
I have uploaded a modified installation set, so its only a problem with downloads before 17 October 1998
If you have got an old copy - just right click on 'power.exe' then rename it - it will now run when you click its icon.
"Double click on graph fails to produce graph options dialogue"
Occurs on Windows 95
This is a bug in some Microsoft library code.
I don't have access to the source for this - So don't bother e-mailing me for a fix!
The graph options can also be found on the graph menu - so what the heck.
Version 1.01 has the has been modified to do this with the right mouse button instead.
Error in gravity calculations
All versions of PowerCalc earlier than v1.1 were calculating power to
overcome gravity as follows:
p = mv(c/100)
| Where: | |
| p = | Power (watts) |
| m = | mass of bike and rider (newtons) |
| c = | Climb percentage |
| v = | Velocity of bike (metres per second) |
| I should have used: |
"Protein requirements quoted are barely enough for a coach potato"
This is more of an oversight than a bug. The quoted figure was a minimum amount to sustain life, and was being calculated correctly and in accordance with the reference as explained in the help file. I have never claimed to be any kind of expert on nutrition, and this was the best information available to me at the time. PowerCalc v1.4 now offers two additional ranges of protein requirement values, for endurance athletes, and sprinters / body builders respectively.
I would like to extend my thanks to Mr Ramin Minovi at Coaching News for showing me where to find some better information, more in keeping with the needs of the riders who actually use the cyclists power calculator.
"Power to overcome head wind is too high"
All versions of PowerCalc with additional boxes for speed of wind relative to the road would give unrealistically high values for power to overcome wind resistance in a head wind. This is because after calculating the drag force correctly using the wind speed relative to the rider, the same speed was being used to calculate the power requirement (power = force * velocity), where the bikes road speed should have been used instead. This problem has been fixed in version 1.5101.
I would like to thank Mr. Tim Ceyssens in Belgum for spotting this error
"Sidewind Allowances Incorrect in v1.5101"
The allowances for sidewinds that were added in v1.5101 were being calculated incorrectly and claiming no extra resistance for a sidewind at 90 degrees.
This has been corrected, and the help file updated to detail the new method of calculation in v1.52
I would like to thank Mr. Dave Lehnen in Phoenix Arizona for alerting me to this problem
Power Calculator crashes with 'illegal function call' message
Only seen this with Windows ME and it was due to an assignment not an illegal function call!
Happens when you attempt to open the altitude adjustment window.
Problem was due to 'ME' not liking values being assigned to objects in a form that has not been loaded yet. With older operating systems Win 3.1x, 9x, NT this wasnt a problem because the form would be loaded automatically - I guess this is progress...
Anyhow the problem has been fixed in version 1.53
No reported problems.
I have not won the lottery yet!
Printed output a bit messy. But I don't care - its free so don't hassle me!
No reported problems.
No reported bugs.
The following only applies to the 16 bit versions on my Windows programs - The later 32 bit versions do not need this work around.
Thanks to a lovely guy called Heikki in Finland for letting me know that they use commas as decimal separators in his country. Apparently they also do this in France and Germany. I'm afraid I can't translate my text into any of these languages, but GearCalc v1.5 PowerCalc v1.5 wheelcalc v0.3 and levelcalc v1.23 now pick up the appropriate setting from your win.ini file and use it instead of looking seriously broken (doh!) ;-)
If you are running Windows 3.1x, or '95 these will work straight away. If you are using one of the later versions of Windows such as Windows 2000, you could still get problems because somewhere between '95 and 2000 Microsoft dropped backwards support for 16 bit programs 8(
The problem can still be worked around however by creating/modifying your win.ini file (in your windows directory). You can do this quite easily with notepad. The win.ini file needs to contain the following two lines:-
|
[intl] sDecimal=, |
Alternatively you can download a program that automates this process from here (4kb). If you have run the setup program for any of the above programs you can simply copy this to your hard drive and run it streight away.
Most English speaking countries use the full stop and will have no need to worry about this. If the cyclist programs can't find this setting they will use the full stop as a default.
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