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From time to time, the computer running TrackingTools makes the sound indicating that a USB device has disconnected ("BA dup"), sometimes more than once, and then shortly after that the reconnection sound ("ba DUP"). A few seconds later, some number of cameras in the 3D perspective view move to the X-axis.

Sometimes after this happens I get an error from Windows, "USB device has failed" or similar.

It's not always the same cameras that "fail", and the first time it fails it's almost always 6 cameras -- but NOT all from the same hub.

This results, obviously, in greatly reduced tracking success and accuracy within my volume. (I run experiments with mobile robots.)

I have figured out that I can simply reload the Calibration file to get it working properly again (rather than restarting), but if this occurs during an experiment I then have bad (or missing) tracking data until I reload the cal.

My setup:
Dell Precision T5500
Dual Intel Xeon quad-core E5504 2.00GHz
24GB RAM
Win7 Pro 64 SP1

TrackingTools 2.3.3 for the last two years or so.
Just installed TrackingTools 2.3.4 Beta1 (my license expired 1 day before 2.4.0 Beta1 64) today, problem still occurs but possibly less frequently (can say that conclusively though)

22 x V100:R2 cameras
4 x OptiHubs
one hub w/ 4 cameras + hw key has powered 5m USB extension
other 3 hubs have 6 cameras
tracking volume is ~4m x 3.3m x 2.5m (W L H)

I will likely be re-upping my license and eventually migrating to Motive, but I am constrained to versions pre-2.4.0 for the time being (until I can get funding approved) and I need to get this round of experiments done.

Any help please? Thanks!!

I left TT running over night; the Windows error is "USB Device Not Recognized".

Hello Gkfricke,

Could you please submit a ticket with us at help.naturalpoint.com

I would like to troubleshoot this issue with you thoroughly. I look forward to your response.

Ticket submitted, looking forward to some resolution!

I believe this is now resolved.

After a suggestion by NaturalPoint's Dustin that my USB ports might be malfunctioning I did some Google searching, and turned up some results where intermittent behavior may be related to Windows power management, I inspected that option for each of the OptiHubs under Control Panel.

Sure enough, the option of "Allow Windows to turn off this device to save power" under the "Power Management" tab was selected. After unchecking those boxes for all of my OptiHubs, my system seems to once again be stable, and furthermore I can run at full rate 100Hz instead of the 50Hz I had been limited to for over a year.

Apparently some Windows Updates (and possibly re-installation of TrackingTools?) resets this setting to the default.

Hope this helps someone in the future!

Another note -- in Windows Task manager, the memory usage of TT is also much more steady after fixing this setting. I had previously observed the memory usage going from ~230MB at startup to much higher, up to 700MB over one day, whereas now (not a full day, but over an hour) it seems to be rock steady at under 230MB.

It has been a pleasure working with you. Thank you for submitting a response to the forums with how the issue was resolved. This information is invaluable and will surely help someone in the future.

For others reading this (or with similar problems), the final answer was that one of my OptiHubs had failed.
It would work sometimes, but not always. After swapping that hub out for another one we had, the problem has gone away.

Thank you, Dustin, for your help debugging this with me last month.