Tech Note 101
This tech note describes the process to diagnose RapidHub software that becomes unresponsive or closes on its own after a period of time when several Rapidlogger units are connected simultaneously (see Tech Note 52 for initial RapidHub setup, which supports up to 16 units).
Symptom
RapidHub connects successfully to all units at startup, but after a few minutes of running with a higher number of units connected (customers have reported the issue starting at 6 units when 5 or fewer ran fine), the software becomes unresponsive or closes without an error message.
Likely Causes
- Duplicate or conflicting static IP addresses among the connected units (see Tech Notes #5/#6/#9 for static IP setup).
- Network switch limitations -- an unmanaged or low-quality switch/hub can drop packets or introduce broadcast storms once several units are polling at once.
- PC resource limits (CPU, RAM, or Ethernet adapter buffer) being exceeded on an older or lower-spec laptop running RapidHub alongside RapidVu or other software.
- Windows Firewall or antivirus software interrupting the connection after some number of open sockets is reached.
- Running an outdated version of RapidHub that has a known scaling issue fixed in a later release.
Diagnostic Steps
- Confirm the RapidHub version in use and check rapidlogger.com/pages/support-downloads.html for a newer release.
- Verify every connected unit has a unique static IP address and that none conflict with the PC or router itself.
- If using an unmanaged switch, temporarily connect through a known-good managed switch to rule out network hardware.
- Open Windows Task Manager while reconnecting units one at a time (rather than all at once) and watch CPU/RAM usage on the RapidHub process as each unit is added, to identify the point at which resources spike.
- Temporarily disable Windows Firewall/antivirus (on a test basis only) to see if the crash still occurs, then re-enable and add a specific exception for RapidHub.exe if that resolves it.
- If the crash still occurs after the steps above, gather: number of units connected, exact time-to-failure, RapidHub version, PC OS version/specs, and whether Task Manager showed a resource spike, then escalate to support/engineering with this information.