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JD's Auto Speed Tester Changelog

What's new in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.9

Mar 4, 2013
  • I have fix a problem with the use of the windows "auto hide" taskbar option. The blue testing pop-up windows now sit above your task bar's height whether it is hidden (in "auto hide" mode) or not.
  • I have added an option to record failures of the LAN or WAN test. So now you can log periods of no connectivity at all.
  • I have trimmed in the download and upload speed results in order to match the results better between the default measurement method and the adapter hooks. They were also slightly high so I have spent some time trimming them to be as precise as possible.
  • I have also done some more work on the upload test as there were some reports of odd results.
  • I have stopped Jdast from "hanging" when our server is offline due to maintenance or a problem. It may still hang slightly but no where near as long as it used to.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.8 (Oct 29, 2012)

  • JDast is now ready for Windows 8

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.7.6 Beta (Oct 1, 2012)

  • Fixed a bug reported in the test file URL scanner.
  • Some other minor GUI tidying and code alterations. Hopefully JDast should be ready for a stable release.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.7.5.3 Beta (Sep 19, 2012)

  • have done my best to add translations to the program for the following languages:
  • French
  • German
  • Russian
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Dutch
  • The translations may not be great as I just used google translate but if anyone wants to contact me with corrections then please do.
  • Also contact me If you would like me to add any other languages.
  • I have slightly altered the clipping. It used to start the clipping immediately after the download/upload command but I have changed it to start clipping as soon as the data starts flowing.
  • I have altered the X axis time line text.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.7.4.2 Beta (Jul 30, 2012)

  • General tweaks and bug fixes.
  • I've also moved the services control to the menu bar. This was because I wanted an easy way to be able to see if the service was running or not (the menu text changes if service is running etc)

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.7.4 Beta (Jul 16, 2012)

  • I have added the ability to run jdast as a service. (Option found on main "Menu" called "jdast service control").
  • I have added a method of having jdast "wake-up" a sleeping computer 1 minute before a scheduled test, you can also set it to go back to sleep directly after completing the test. You can also do this with Hibernation. (Option found on the "General" tab of the configurations).
  • Added ability to manually override the automatic ISP name resolution and set your ISP manually. This option i have put under the main "Menu" and called it "Manually set ISP name"
  • Please read the help file (not the online one) as I have added as much information as I can about the top 2 new abilities and a would suggest you read it before trying to use them (especially the Jdast service).

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.7.1 Beta (Jul 10, 2012)

  • Added ability to manually override the automatic ISP name resolution and set your ISP manually
  • This option i have put under the main "Menu" and called it "Manually set ISP name"

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.7 (Jul 6, 2012)

  • Some general bug fixes.
  • The ConsoleApplication1 error that has shown for a couple of users has been fixed.
  • I have added some remote functionality.
  • Remote Jdast :- found under the main windows toolbar "Menu" called "Remote Jdast configurations"
  • I have added some remote support functionality. By uploading certain data & pictures to your own FTP servers after every test you can have "live" access to a remotely running Jdast's information.
  • You can upload the CSV, the error log and a "Tag" picture.
  • The CSV and error logs give you real time access to the data of a remote Jdast, this can be of help if you have set it up to help another person or on one of your own remote systems.
  • The Tag is a mini version of the main graph and can be used to post to forums, emails, web sites etc, the benefit here is that the graph will be "live" ie it will update itself after each full test cycle.
  • My tag:
  • You can choose which of these 3 parts you want to upload and where these files should go, although the CSV and Error Log do go together to the same user set location.
  • To go with the ability to upload a remote CSV to your server there is also the ability to load it into a local JDast by using the menu "View other data-sets/Load remote data set".
  • This will download the remote CSV and load it into JDast so you can visualize it as if it was local.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.6.4 Beta (Jul 2, 2012)

  • I have added some more remote functionality , you can now have jdast upload to your own servers the livetag (the mini graph picture), a copy of the CSV file and also the error log.
  • I have slightly altered the live tag file name so if you were already using it from the last beta update you should check on that. I have also renamed it all to "Remote Jdast configurations" (in main menu)
  • To go with this ability to upload the csv to your servers I have also added a method of viewing remote csv's (see "view other data sets/view remote data set" on main window drop down menu.
  • You can now install Jdast to your own chosen location.
  • Some other bug fixes.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.6.2 Beta (Jun 21, 2012)

  • The ConsoleApplication1 error that has shown for a couple of users has been fixed.
  • Remote Jdast :- found under the main windows toolbar "Menu" called "Remote Jdast configurations"
  • I have added some remote support functionality. By uploading certain data & pictures to your own FTP servers after every test you can have "live" access to a remotely running Jdast's information.
  • You can upload the CSV, the error log and a "Tag" picture.
  • The CSV and error logs give you real time access to the data of a remote Jdast, this can be of help if you have set it up to help another person or on one of your own remote systems.
  • The Tag is a mini version of the main graph and can be used to post to forums, emails, web sites etc, the benefit here is that the graph will be "live" ie it will update itself after each full test cycle.
  • You can choose which of these 3 parts you want to upload and where these files should go, although the CSV and Error Log do go together to the same user set location.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.6 (Jun 14, 2012)

  • The main aim for this update is to fix the upload testing of faster upload connections ( >2Mb/s. )
  • There seemed to be problem "Maxing out" the upload using the winAPI FTP on faster upload connections so I have added a new method of doing the upload. I (we) have built an FTPupload.exe using C# which will saturate even the fastest of upload speeds. You will need the .NET framework V4 to use the new upload test but I'm sure most people will have this installed on there systems nowadays. If you do not have .NET v4 and do not want to install it then you can just turn off the upload testing.
  • I never did get to the bottom of why the winAPI seems to have this wearied limit of about 2 or 3Mb/s on a single thread, I have tested on a local FTP server and it works fine iv measured 100Mb/s but iv been getting feedback that when it was used on fibre connections it was hard to saturate the upload.
  • Hopefully this new method of uploading will remedy this problem.
  • For this reason I have forced the number of upload threads back to 1 for everyone . Mainly because I believe that with the new upload method 1 thread should be sufficient for just about everyone. Please adjust only if you think absolutely necessary after trying with a single thread first.
  • You may also need to slightly increase your upload clipping time because the upload may now take a fraction longer to start, I have set a new default of 5 seconds but have not forced this on people updating.
  • Everything bulleted below was by request.
  • Added a unique id column for each installation of JDast. This column does not show in the listview but does in the "display csv" and the csv itself.
  • Left clicking the graph results positions the listview.
  • Added a little context menu to both the listview and the results in the main graph. From this context menu you can :-
  • Delete single or multiple results (multiple selection is now switched on in the listview).
  • Add notes to single or multiple results.
  • I have removed the "manual test result gui" from being displayed after tests all together. You now create shots of the grey test result picture via the context menu of the individual results, it will display the result gui and offer the "save as" dialogue.
  • I have added a silent updater, you have to switch it on in the general tab of the configurations.
  • Added a persistent pause , the tray "pause testing" option will now be remembered (so don’t forget it you pause Jdast as it will remain that way even after a reset)
  • I have built a date/time format converter. There were one or two problems with people using Excel to edit the csv and Excel just loves to change the date format. So I have implemented a converter so JDast will now recognize either the old format or one of the standard excel formats (19/04/2012 13:14). Excel (and windows) do have many different date formats and I cant deal with them all but I think the 19/04/2012 13:14 one is pretty much the standard/default (maybe just in this country, I'm not sure) but it should help by allowing people to use other csv editors/ spread sheets etc.
  • I have had an attempt to display your ISP at the bottom of the results picture, I am not 100% sure it will be ok for everyone and every SP but iv tested on quite a lot, shall just have to see how this idea goes and if I get any feedback on this one.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.5 (May 4, 2012)

  • I had a request to make it so the Upload could be seen much easier when you have a relatively low upload speed. So iv added 2 new layouts for the graph.
  • I add a new GUI for all these options , this replaces the "Graph View Options" menu with a new toolbar button called "Display".
  • I have removed the "Axis Control" buttons from below each axis, all you have to do now is click on the axis itself to pop-up its axis control GUI.
  • I have also moved the switches for switching on & off the visibility of each of the Attributes (DL, UL, Ping, PKl, Jitter) , to switch there display on and off now just click on the legend bar itself.
  • I added a mini meter to the ping test, I have also returned to using the mean average instead of the mode average to calculate the final ping, this should not really affect anyone unless they have a very "jittery" latency in which case you may see your ping measurements increase slightly.
  • I have included upload averages in the hourly averages window. There is now a tick box to choose between up and download in the top right corner.
  • Obscure bug found here but is now fixed
  • I have had another look at the graph zoom capability. It now uses a second slider along the bottom.
  • I have tweaked the upload measurement a little to get it just that little bit more accurate so you might see a slight change to your measured upload speed.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.4 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • I found an odd anomaly that may have caused a problem with the graph display or even crash after running a test, hopefully no one was affected by this but just in case iv fixed it now.
  • Added a backup of the main Speed_test.csv file. I added a folder called "Backups" where there will be 10 backups of the current working dataset just in case the main file becomes corrupt.
  • Added a "refresh current data set" so if you edit the main csv file you can refresh the graph. This is under the "Main" menu.
  • I have re-done the testing mini-meter, I re-built it using GDIPlus so I can make graphical alterations much easier if needed and also to stop that darn flickering.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.3 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • I have finally been able to figure out why I had so many problems with the upload testing at high speeds when not using adapter hooks. This is a major breakthrough for jdast as it is pretty much the last piece of the puzzle.
  • I have changed the default testing method back to NOT using the adapter hooks so if you are updating then the "use adapter hook" setting will remain unchanged so you might want to UN-Tick it. Also just the 1 thread for upload testing should be fine for almost all upload speeds, so please put it back down to 1 if its not already.
  • I have added an option in the main menu to save the current data-set. This enables you to save the dataset to other locations with different filenames. The normal backup of the old datasets is still created as normal when Jdast starts a new dataset.
  • There seems to be an occasional problem with users getting double magnitude results for up and download when using the adapter hooks to measure the throughputs (quite often after an update). I have not been able to replicate this but from what I am being told it looks like there is somehow 2 sets of hooks passing data to the tame handle and so jdast is seeing double the speed that there actually is. Working from this assumption I have added some unload hook commands in key places. Hopefully we will not get any more reports of this happening but if anyone using this version (or above) does see it happen again then please do let me know so I can try to dig a little deeper on this one.
  • Found that the multi-threaded upload test would throw multiple error notifications if there was an upload error (one for each thread), now fixed.
  • The "throughput check" that checks if there was anything being downloaded or uploaded before a test starts was only being allowed if the "use adapter hooks" was ticked. This was not how I had intended it to be as you might not want to use the adapter hooks to measure the up and down tests but might still want to check the throughput before a test started. So now the "use adapter hooks" tickbox does not need to be ticked to be able to use the "throughput check" you just need to make sure that the correct adapter is selected in the drop down list.
  • Tinkered with the X axis text. I wanted to get it so you could still read the day, month and year along the bottom when the graph was zoomed out.
  • I found a couple of places where I had missed the change from kb/s to Mb/s , mainly the legend bar at the bottom of the main graph. I wouldn't be to surprised if there were more but I just cant see the wood for the trees, lol.
  • When a new data-set is started jdast will now create an "all data" csv file. The normal backup of the old dataset is still created but now there will be an extra backup csv that will contain all the previous data sets appended end to end. So when you go to "load previous data set" you will see a set called "SpeedTest_AllDates.csv". This will only accumulate data from this point onwards, it will not include any old data-sets you may already have.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.2 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • I have introduced a multi-threaded upload test to attempt to "max-out" the upload test for all types of internet service. I have set this function to a default of 3 threads which should be enough for most people but i am looking for more feedback on this subject. This function is only available when using the adapter hooks to measure the upload and download throughputs.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.1 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • I have changed all the values from kb/s to Mb/s, This is only for display purposes and the actual data is still stored as kb/s.
  • I have made some graphical changes to a lot of the GUI's , mainly removing any title bars from windows that did not really require them.
  • I have changed the manual results window to look a bit more presentable although im still not sure that im 100% happy with it but could go on for ever trying to get this bit looking right.
  • Added a transparency option to the testing GUI's (the mimimeter etc).
  • I have removed the Child_holder.exe process as it turned out that it was not required.
  • I Changed the upload to use passive ftp mode properly, this has enabled jdast to do upload testing through my VPN and also on VMWare with a NAT network connection.
  • Fixed the main graphs slider bug that was showing up on XP.
  • Fixed a bug in the threshold email when a new data set is started.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17.0.1 Beta (Mar 24, 2012)

  • A bug was found on XP with the slider bar at the bottom. If the list view on the left was hidden the slider was locking up jdast. Is a pain sometimes when commands act differently on different OS versions.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 17 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • By Request: I've added an easy way to export / import the configurations to a single zip file, this makes it easier to backup specific configuration sets and/or transport them. These options are found under the "Menu" on the toolbar.
  • There may have been some purposeful abuses of Jdast and our upload testing servers, So I have made a couple of changes to the code in all of the jdast processes
  • JDAutoSpeedTester.exe
  • Upload_child.exe
  • Child_holder.exe
  • Restart_jdast.exe
  • You may now find that some / all of these processes are being flagged by any security software you may use. Please re-whitelist them and allow the top 2 access to the net. I generally do not need to change these files (except JDAutoSpeedTester.exe) but on this occasion I have had to. I have send these files off to AVG and Symantec but it will take at least a week for them to complete the checks.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 16.8 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • These were emergency updates, there were problems with the upload connection not being disconnected properly.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 16.7 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • The main change is that iv finally got both the upload and the download tests to be monitored and measured by the adapter hooks. I have left in the ability to turn off the hook just in case any users have a problem with it. If the "load hooks" tickbox (configurations / general tab) is un-ticked then both the upload and download tests revert to the old method of gathering the throughput data.
  • I received a request to add the ability to have a remote system running JDast be able to send notification emails either on a regular basis or when the download or upload tests fall below a user defined level. Added this on a new tab in the configurations called "Communications".
  • Added a few different GUI background colours. A couple are ok and a couple look a bit rubbish (to me anyhow). These are found in the menu bar under "Graph view options/GUI colour".
  • Iv brought the help file up to date.
  • I have had a major restructuring of the core code, this should not be noticeable by the user but if i have "upset" anything then please let me know.
  • A few minor cosmetic alterations. Iv added an average level bar to the mini meter that shows when you run tests (you'll see it if you use the mini meter when testing). Iv also changed the box that shows when you hover over the main graph, mainly the colour but more importantly the alignment of the text.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 16.6 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • Added another location to retrieve the default upload server permission. This is just a redundancy. Also a few minor bug fixes and tweaks.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 16.5 (Mar 24, 2012)

  • I have completely redone the upload test function. It looks the same but now uses a child process to run the upload and uses a hook into your network adapters to measure the throughput. This give a much more accurate upload speed result especially for fast upload connections. You may have to allow the new process "Upload_child.exe" through your firewall. You can choose the network adapter to monitor on the front page of the configurations.
  • I have added the ability to use the multi url testing in a "multi-threaded" mode which allows you to download all of the test url's in your test list at the same time. It will calculate the quantity of data downloaded as the sum of the multiple files. This should be a helpful way to keep you download speed "maxed out" even if one (or more) of the test files is going slow. It should allow you to test from multiple servers without having to test each one separately and so reduce you bandwidth used for download testing.
  • I have added a couple of extra options in the main menu to give easy access to the MyDocuments\Speed_Test.CSV file and folder.
  • I have altered the invisible testing mode so that it does not show errors if it is running an automatic test although it will add the error info to the error logs. I also added more info to the error logs so you can see what it was doing and where it was trying to do it to/from.
  • I have also added a "stop test" option in the tray icon context menu so tests can be stopped when in invisible testing mode.

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 15.7.1 Beta (Jun 9, 2011)

  • Added a throughput check. You can now set up a check to test that you are not using the network (downloading/uploading something) before the test is started. The settings for this have been added under the last tab on the config’s (tab renamed to “No Testing”).

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 15.7 (Jun 6, 2011)

  • Added a little real time network monitor. This is a stand alone separate process that can be run from the start menu or from Jdast.
  • Changed the method used to measure upload speeds.
  • Changed the averages graph. Before this update the numbers on the averages represented how many data points were involved in each hours average. Now they represent the rounded average speed (Mb/s) for that hour.
  • I've changed the averages pop-up box’s content, it used to be that the averages for 02:00 were comprised of 01:31 to 02:30 (seemed like a logical idea at the time) but iv changed that to what you would expect it to be I.e. 02:00 comprises of 02:00 to 02:59.
  • Changed the averages graph pop-up boxes. The pop-up boxes that show all the data points that comprise that hours average value are now listed with the data point number rather than being sequentially numbered.
  • Speeding up of displaying and adding data to the graphs. Originally whenever the graph was displayed or data was added to the graphs the whole data set was re-calculated and re-drawn. I have changed this to append the data and graph info which speeds things up a lot when the data set starts to get quite big, of course it does all have to be calculated and drawn at least once the first time you display the main window.
  • The gathering of your public IP address has been changed.
  • I removed the striping from the data list (left hand list box), decided I didn’t like it.
  • Received a request for a user adjustable data set length so iv added that ability along with the option to have data sets of length 1 week or 1 month.
  • There is a requirement by a handful of people to be able to switch off the LAN & WAN detection at the beginning of the test cycle, so iv added the switches to do this under the Ping/PKT/Jitter/IP tab of the configurations.
  • Added more control to the Y axis's. You can fix the maximum of the Y scale on both sides of the graph, there is a tick box to turn on auto scaling & a slider to enable zooming of the Y axis’s. The buttons to control these functions is found on the main graph window directly beneath the two Y axis’s.
  • Also there has been a few occasions when erratic jitter results have been generated, I have fixed it so if a spurious negative jitter result is measured it will just return a -1 (no test).
  • Also added an update & auto update for beta releases (see first tab in config’s & Menu pulldown).
  • Added an “area” graph view. You can display the bars on the main graph as an area graph.
  • I decided to change the way ping is calculated. It used to be the lowest value of 100 single packet pings but I have changed it to the mode of the 100 pings (the most common value among the group) so this might slightly increase your ping value.
  • I have at long last brought the help file right up to date

New in JD's Auto Speed Tester 15.6 (Apr 8, 2011)

  • Bug fixes