Realtime Coach :: Technical Help

Realtime Coach™ Technical Help

Common Issues...

I have a technical issue. Is it my CAT setup or Realtime Coach™?

My text is not appearing in the Practice Window while I write.

Words randomly stick together in the Practice Window.

Nothing happens when I click "Check".

My accuracy is not being recorded.

My time is not being recorded.

Most questions about time recording can be resolved with a proper understanding of how practice time is recorded in Realtime Coach™. Here are some important things to keep in mind:

Time is recorded only during active use of a practice exercise (excludes speed and theory tests and virtual class sessions). In other words, if you are interacting with an open exercise window, time will accumulate to be recorded. Simply being logged into your account does not accumulate practice time.
After a period of inactivity, accumulation of time is paused until activity resumes. This inactivity threshold is typically five minutes (if you access Realtime Coach™ through a school, it may be different), and is signaled by a pop-up message. Since the exercise is not being used during the inactivity period, that time is not included with the practice time being recorded.
Accumulated practice time is recorded at a number of event-based automatic save points. For example, if the inactivity threshold is reached and the time-out message pops up, accumulated practice time is recorded (again, the time-out period is not included). Likewise, when the exercise window is closed, any practice time accumulated since the last save point is recorded. There are a number of other usage events that will trigger automatic saving of practice time.
Cumulative time recorded for a particular exercise is displayed to the right of the exercise title with the label "Time Spent:". Total practice time is also displayed in calendar format on your My Practice Time report.
Be sure you are using a supported internet browser to ensure proper functionality of all Realtime Coach™ features, including time recording. See the Minimum System Requirements section of our Setup & Configuration page for a list of compatible browsers.

If you are concerned that active practice time is not being properly recorded, please do the following:

Take note of the setting and circumstances (e.g. the date, time, exercise title, Mode, Coaching Preference used, et cetera).
Write down exactly what you did in the practice session leading up to the suspected failure of time to record.
Take note of the time, and using the steps you created above, try to reproduce the failure of time to record.
If you can successfully reproduce the issue, please e-mail the details and re-creation steps to Realtime Coach™ Customer Care for assistance.

Other Issues...

I see doubled words in my Practice Window text.

The Exercise Window is blank when I launch an exercise.

When you open a Realtime Coach™ exercise, it may take a few seconds to load, depending on your connection speed. If the window remains blank and never loads the exercise, there are two solutions that usually do the trick:

Clear the Browser Cache

Internet Explorer 7
1. From your browser, click Tools --> Delete Browsing History...
2. Click Delete Files... to the right of the Temporary Internet Files section.
3. Click Yes when prompted to confirm the action to delete the files.
4. Click Close.
  
  * You will need to perform a 'hard' refresh of the Exercise Window by pressing Control+F5.
Internet Explorer 6
1. From your browser, click Tools --> Internet Options
2. On the General tab, click Delete Files...
3. Checkmark the Delete all offline content option, and click OK.
4. Click OK again to close the Internet Options dialogue box.
  
  * You will need to perform a 'hard' refresh of the Exercise Window by pressing Control+F5.
Firefox
1. From your browser, click Tools --> Options
2. Click the Advanced icon at the top of the Options dialogue box.
3. In the Cache section of the Network tab, click Clear Now.
4. Click OK to close the Options dialogue box.
  
  * You will need to perform a 'hard' refresh of the Exercise Window by pressing Control+F5.

Uninstall/Reinstall Flash™

Uninstall
1. Download the uninstaller from Adobe™
2. Run the uninstaller by clicking Run if prompted or by double-clicking the file once it is downloaded.
Reinstall
1. Download the latest version of Flash™ from Adobe™.
2. Follow the instructions provided to complete the installation.
* If using Firefox, you'll need to close all open Firefox windows (including the download box) to complete the installation. If prompted to retry the installation, click Firefox to highlight it, and click Try Again.

Other Options...

If clearing the cache and reinstalling Flash™ doesn't resolve the issue, and the exercise window just stays blank when you launch an exercise, it may be the result of some malicious software infecting the system. There are numerous flavors of spyware and adware that reside in or operate from your browser's cache that can cause this issue. We recommend the following:

If you have anti-virus software, run its Update procedure, and fully scan your system for viruses. Take the course of action recommended by the software if any infections are found. If you don’t have an anti-virus program, get one as soon as possible. There are several high-quality free programs out there -- just do your homework before you select one.
Scan your entire system with one or two reputable anti-spyware programs. Be sure to run the Update procedure before scanning so that the software can detect the latest threats.After scanning, perform the recommended actions if anything is found.

My text suddenly stops feeding into the Practice Window.

To receive the text stream from your CAT software, the Realtime Coach™ Practice Window needs to be the application with focus. If the text feeds in properly for a portion of the exercise and then suddenly stops, it is likely that another program has 'stolen focus' from that window, interrupting the communication between your CAT software and Realtime Coach™.

Test

The next time it happens, immediately click your mouse pointer in the text area of the Realtime Coach™ Practice Window and resume keying from your writer. This will restore focus to the exercise, repairing the connection with your CAT software.

Resolution

If a loss of focus is the issue, it will have been caused by a program or process running in the background. The most common culprit is anti-virus software or some other program performing a periodic scan or update. Occasionally, anti-spyware programs have been found to cause a loss of focus as they monitor and scan your internet activity including interactions with Realtime Coach™.

To prevent a program from stealing focus, we suggest you identify and disable the process(es) at fault. If you are unfamiliar or not comfortable with identifying and disabling background processes, we suggest you ask someone appropriately knowledgeable and qualified to assist you. Once a process is identified and disabled, be sure to remove it from startup so it does not load again the next time your computer boots up.

Identifying the program or process that’s stealing focus can be tricky. Quite often, the process has finished its business by the time you notice. If loss of focus has been an issue, pay special attention to anything that might be running or anything that briefly pops up such as automatic update alerts or messages from your security software. Generally, auto-updating and security programs such as anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall programs can steal focus. Instant messaging programs are also high on the list of applications that can steal focus.

If you suspect that a program is stealing focus, but you haven’t been able to resolve the issue, please send an e-mail to Realtime Coach™ Customer Care for additional assistance.

There’s a lag in the text feeding into the Practice Window.

It's normal to experience some lag in the time it takes your text to feed into the Practice Window, depending on your CAT software. Below are some typical delay times:

Total Eclipse™ from Advantage Software™: With the Flush Delay (on the Realtime Tab in User Settings) set at 2000ms, you should expect at least a 2-second lag between the time you stroke a word and when it feeds into the Practice Window. The flow of text should be continuous once it starts.
Case CATalyst™ from Stenograph™: Lag time will depend on the value entered for the "Hold for ____ seconds" setting on the Output to StenoKeys tab of the Options window. By default, this is usually 1 second, but is set to 0 in our setup instructions. Whatever the value is, that will be the delay in seconds between the time you stroke a word and when it should feed into the Practice Window. The flow of text should be continuous once it starts.
DigitalCAT™ from Stenovations™: You should expect a delay of up to 30 seconds for your text to start feeding into the Practice Window from the time you start writing. You may encounter this delay multiple times during an exercise as the software fills and then purges its buffer.

If the lag you experience is significantly longer than expected (particularly with a lag on every word), it is almost always the result of an overloaded computer processor. Here's a quick way to check:

Start a realtime translation, and launch a Realtime Coach™ exercise as you normally do for practice.
Before you click Play, press Control+Shift+Escape to open the Windows Task Manager.
Move the Task Manager window to the side so both it and the exercise window are visible (the Task Manager will always stay on top of other windows).
Click the Performance Tab on the Task Manager. You will see a CPU Usage meter on the left that displays the current load on the processor as a proportion of its capacity.
Click Play on the exercise, and begin writing as you normally do during practice.
While you write, observe the CPU Usage meter in the Task Manager.

If the CPU Usage meter reaches 90-100% while you practice, your computer's processor is simply unable to keep up with everything it's being asked to do. This would explain the lag in the text input.

Even if your computer meets or exceeds our minimum system requirements, system performance is governed by how efficiently the software makes use of available hardware resources. We suggest you consult with a computer professional for assistance or advice for resolving performance-related issues.

The audio/video stutters during playback in Realtime Coach™.

Stuttering or choppy audio or video playback is most often a computer performance issue, but it can be any one of the following:

Poor Internet Connection Speed

Your internet connection should be at least DSL/Cable or equivalent. It might be helpful to test your connection speed at a website that provides this service such as www.speedtest.net. You might also test the playback when no other programs are running.
Computer Performance

Even if your computer meets or exceeds our minimum system requirements, it’s still possible that the choppy playback is the result of poor computer performance. While capable hardware is required, performance is governed by how efficiently the software makes use of hardware’s resources.

Having multiple applications or processes running simultaneously will consume your system resources (particularly CPU and RAM usage), sometimes to the point of degrading overall performance. Most computers will have dozens of processes running silently in the background that each consume available memory and processing power.

To view the impact of running processes, begin playing an exercise and press Control+Shift+Escape to open the Windows Task Manager. On the Processes tab, you will see everything currently running with the percentage of CPU power being consumed by each process at any given time. If you suspect that your computer’s performance is being degraded by running processes, you’ll want to disable all unnecessary or unwanted processes, and remove them from Startup when your computer boots up.

If you are unfamiliar or not comfortable with identifying and disabling background processes, we suggest you ask someone appropriately knowledgeable and qualified to assist you. Once a process is identified and disabled, be sure to remove it from startup so it does not load the next time your computer boots up.
Exercise Media File

While the least likely of the possible causes of poor playback quality, it is possible that the media file being served up by Realtime Coach™ is at issue. If you suspect this to be the case, and you’ve ruled out connection speed and performance issues, first try to reproduce it on another computer and/or from another location. If you are able to reproduce the playback issues, please send an e-mail immediately to Realtime Coach™ Customer Care with the name of the exercise in question and a description of the issue.

I use StenoCAT32™ and can’t get it to work with Realtime Coach™.

There’s a discrepancy between the media and the master transcript.