Has anyone been getting any issues with guardian linked excel refresh stalling on an unattended remote standalone machine?
I've been using excel to capture BA data for pretty much 2 years solid now without problems - until now.
The last 12 months i've been using Office 365 Excel on a dedicated Win 10 machine with 3 instances of Bet Angel Guardian running and 3 connected Spreadsheets running VB macros.
Other than setting up the machine each day usually by Remote Desktop I leave it pretty much running standalone and it has been problem free unless there is an internet outage etc.
My VB macros churns out flat file market data in a shared directory which I then process those flat files on another windows 10 machine to give me a constant stream of live market data.
Over the last week or so I've been getting a problem where the Excel VBA suddenly stops writing data. Mostly in the small hours but I've lost an hour of data today in the middle of the day until I noticed the stall. I looked at the shared directory and no files created for an hour. So I used remote desktop to connect to my standalone Win 10 Data Capture machine and even without actually doing anything other than connecting via RDP suddenly the data starts flowing again. Its as though the machine is sleeping until I Remote Desktop into it but that definitely isnt the case as sleep is turned off and I could also view a shared directory on the remote machine in file explorer before connecting via Remote Desktop.
My Office 365 annual subscription ends soon and i'm wondering if the Office 365 remote monitoring and reminders by Microsoft are screwing it up or if its something else completely?
A couple of screenshots below captured via Remote Desktop dont show much my set up on the remote machine where I literally just connected via Remote Desktop and hovered on the Excel and Bet Angel toolbar icons. This was enough to restart the Excel data refresh and my flat file generation macros. Weird. I'm at a loss as to where to even start on this one and its pretty annoying!
BA/Guardian/Excel 365 stalling on remote Win 10 machine
I did a bit more investigation which I will share in case anybody gets similar problems.
My issue does seems to be caused by using Windows Remote Desktop (RDP) to connect into a Win10 pro machine running Bet Angel/Guardian connected to the Office 365 version of Excel with a macro enabled Bet Angel workbook. I have been performing this exact action for around 12 months without problem until this last week or so. I renewed my Office 365 annual sub yesterday as it was actually due to expire today 5th Sept - renewal didnt make any difference to this issue.
My findings:
(1) Everything performs as expected when I am connected in via RDP to perform the Bet Angel and Excel setup or any tweaks.
(2) The problem occurs as soon as I close the RDP session then either the O365 excel macros or less likely the Bet Angel connection into Excel stops running.
(3) If I dont close the RDP session from the PC I am connecting from and I just minimise the RDP session instead then everything continues running as expected. This is a bit of a limitation if I wanted to use RDP to connect into my other PCs.
(4) If I reconnect via RDP (after closing an RDP session as per (2) and stalling excel) then the Excel macros immediately recommence running on reconnecting.
(5) If set up Bet Angel and Excel directly on the PC (i.e. I dont RDP into it to set it up) then O365 Excel and Bet Angel work fully as expected.
I think I installed an O365 update around about the time this issue started but I didnt immediately notice a problem. I think Microsoft have probably screwed up slightly and more than likely when enough people report a problem with RDP and O365 then they will quietly fix it and the problem will go away. In the meantime I will avoid using RDP into that machine. I might use Teamviewer instead or else I might actually walk over to the machine and work on it directly - fortunately it has a monitor and keyboard connected otherwise that would be a real pain in the backside.
My issue does seems to be caused by using Windows Remote Desktop (RDP) to connect into a Win10 pro machine running Bet Angel/Guardian connected to the Office 365 version of Excel with a macro enabled Bet Angel workbook. I have been performing this exact action for around 12 months without problem until this last week or so. I renewed my Office 365 annual sub yesterday as it was actually due to expire today 5th Sept - renewal didnt make any difference to this issue.
My findings:
(1) Everything performs as expected when I am connected in via RDP to perform the Bet Angel and Excel setup or any tweaks.
(2) The problem occurs as soon as I close the RDP session then either the O365 excel macros or less likely the Bet Angel connection into Excel stops running.
(3) If I dont close the RDP session from the PC I am connecting from and I just minimise the RDP session instead then everything continues running as expected. This is a bit of a limitation if I wanted to use RDP to connect into my other PCs.
(4) If I reconnect via RDP (after closing an RDP session as per (2) and stalling excel) then the Excel macros immediately recommence running on reconnecting.
(5) If set up Bet Angel and Excel directly on the PC (i.e. I dont RDP into it to set it up) then O365 Excel and Bet Angel work fully as expected.
I think I installed an O365 update around about the time this issue started but I didnt immediately notice a problem. I think Microsoft have probably screwed up slightly and more than likely when enough people report a problem with RDP and O365 then they will quietly fix it and the problem will go away. In the meantime I will avoid using RDP into that machine. I might use Teamviewer instead or else I might actually walk over to the machine and work on it directly - fortunately it has a monitor and keyboard connected otherwise that would be a real pain in the backside.