Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Assuming that you’re seeing this on a Windows IOC I believe the fix for that was in GitHub PR 131 https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base/pull/131 which was merged into the 3.15 branch (released in 3.15.9). The 3.15 branch was then merged into the 7.0 branch prior to the release of 7.0.6 last July.

The release notes for it unfortunately don’t describe the problem very clearly or refer to the issue or pull request numbers, and because the fix came up from 3.15 they’re buried in the middle of the file, but they can be found in the 7.0 branch file at https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base/blob/7.0/documentation/RELEASE_NOTES.md#use-waitable-timers-on-microsoft-windows



Hi Freddie,

 

Thanks for pointing out that issue.

 

That issue was closed on March 12, 2021, saying there has been a pull request.

 

7.0.6 was release on July 3, 2021, and 7.0.6.1 on October 6, 2021.  But I don't see anything about this issue in the release notes for either of these.

 

Is there a release of base that fixes this fairly serious issue?

 

Mark

 

---

From: Freddie Akeroyd - STFC UKRI <freddie.akeroyd at stfc.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2022 7:54 PM
To: Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu>
Subject: RE: Timing in seq record

 

Hi Mark,

 

This might be related to Timers expire early · Issue #106 · epics-base/epics-base (github.com) as I think it may use timers for the delay

 

Freddie

 

From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> On Behalf Of Mark Rivers via Tech-talk
Sent: 03 March 2022 00:35
To: Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu>
Cc: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: RE: Timing in seq record

 

I see the same thing with base 7.0.5.

 

 

From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> On Behalf Of Mark Rivers via Tech-talk
Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2022 6:31 PM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Timing in seq record

 

I have the following simple database with a seq record which just writes 1 and 0 to the Shutter record.  There is a delay of $(DELAY) before writing 1 and before writing 0.

 

record(seq,"$(P)OpenCloseShutter") {

    field(PINI, "YES")

    field(DLY0,"$(DELAY)")

    field(DOL0,"1")

    field(LNK0,"$(P)Shutter PP MS")

    field(DLY1,"$(DELAY)")

    field(DOL1,"0")

    field(LNK1,"$(P)Shutter PP MS")

    field(FLNK,"$(P)OpenCloseShutter.PROC CA")

}

 

record(bo, "$(P)Shutter") {

    field(ZNAM, "Done")

    field(ONAM, "Moving")

}

 

If DELAY is 0.1 I see the following with camonitor on Shutter:

 

 

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:24.997849 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.092984 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.188102 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.283205 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.378332 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.473436 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.568547 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.663681 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.758885 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.854026 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:22:25.949228 Moving

 

The period is about 190 ms rather than the expected 200 ms, but not too far off.

 

However, if I set DELAY=0.01 then I see this:

 

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.341923 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.347055 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.352186 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.357367 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.362523 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.367682 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.372816 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.377965 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.383104 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.388263 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.393372 Done

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.398496 Moving

Test:Shutter                   2022-03-02 18:25:44.403633 Done

 

The period is 10 ms when it should be 20 ms.  The DELAY appears to be 5 ms, not 10 ms.

 

If I set DELAY=.005 then the Shutter PV has no monitor events.

 

Something seems wrong here, since I know that epicsThreadSleep on Linux is capable of good accuracy down to 100 microseconds or so.

 

This is base 7.0.4 on Centos 7.  Is this expected?

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

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