WebSpy Soho Alpha- FAQs
- What do I do if Soho Alpha doesn't start on my computer or show no activity?
- I have followed your recommendations on restarting Soho Alpha, what do I do if it still doesn't work?
- Is this the final product?
- What will be installed on my computer?
- What will happen once installed?
- What other features will the full version of Soho have?
- What are the known Soho Alpha issues?
- Where does WebSpy Soho store information?
What do I do if Soho Alpha doesn't start on my computer or display no activity?
If the Soho user interface becomes unresponsive or does not show any activity, you can try the following:
1. Close the user interface. If this does not work, end the WebSpy.Soho.UI process.
- To do this on Windows:
- Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc at the same time to launch Task Manager.
- On the Processes tab, right-click the WebSpy.Soho.UI.exe process and select ‘End Process’
- To do this on Mac OS:
- Right-click (or control-click) the WebSpy Soho icon in the dock and select Force Quit.
- If that does not work, open Activity Monitor from /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, find and select the WebSpy Soho entry, click "Quit Process", and click "Force Quit" when asked for confirmation.
2. Restart the WebSpy Soho Agent.
- To do this on Windows:
- Start | Search (or Run)
- Type ‘services.msc’ (without the quotes). Press enter.
- Right-click the WebSpy Soho Agent service and select Restart.
- To do this on Mac OS:
- Open the terminal from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal
- Type sudo launchctl stop "WebSpy Soho Agent"
- Enter your user password if requested.
- Wait about 5 seconds.
- Type sudo launchctl start "WebSpy Soho Agent"
- Again, enter your user password if requested
3. Open the Soho user interface. Soho should now be responsive and showing activity.
I have followed your recommendations on restarting Soho Alpha, what do I do if it still doesn't work?
If problems persist, you can reset Soho to a ‘clean install’ state using this procedure:
- On each PC that Soho is running on, close the UI and stop the agent (see above procedures)
- Delete all folders and files in the data file locations listed above except for WebSpy.Soho.Agent.log. Note: If you do not do this on ALL computers running Soho, the old history data will be synchronized between all your Soho agents again. It only takes one agent to have the information in order to spread it across all agents.
- Once this has been done on each machine, restart the Agent and the UI on each machine.
- Tell us what happened! Click the feedback button and follow your nose, or send through the information, along with your Agent and UI log files (see below data file locations) to support@webspy.com.
Is this the final product?
Nooooo sir! This alpha version is a little rough and nowhere near feature complete. It is functional, but expect to encounter some issues and perhaps a crash every now and then. But don't let that freak you out. It certainly won't kill your computer or destroy the earth. It's also been running very nicely in our internal labs for quite a while, so don't be scared. Give it a go.
What will be installed on my computer?
This version will install three components on Windows, and two on Mac/Linux.
- The packet driver (Windows Only)
Soho uses a packet driver called 'WinPcap' on Windows and 'libpcap’on Mac and Linux to capture network activity. MacOS conveniently comes with this packet driver installed by default, but Windows and Linux unfortunately do not. The Soho Windows installer will launch the WinPcap installation if you do not have it installed already. For Linux, libpcap will need to be downloaded and installed manually from http://www.tcpdump.org/#latest - The Soho Agent
This is called WebSpy.Soho.Agent and runs as a background service. The Agent is responsible for collecting size statistics about your machine’s Internet usage. Don’t worry, it doesn’t record personal information or incriminating web browsing activity. Only the size of information sent and received outside of your network (to and from the Internet) is recorded. The Agent is also responsible for communicating with all other Soho Agents running in your network. - The Soho UI
This is called WebSpy.Soho.UI and presents the information collected by the Agent in pretty animated charts.
What will happen once installed?
Once installed, the Soho agent will start running and the Soho UI will launch showing you your local machine's current activity. As you install Soho on other machines on your network, they will start appearing in your charts too. Soho will look a little bare with only one computer being monitored, so please go ahead and install it on as many networked machines as you can. Soho will display the activity of up to 15 networked computers.
At this stage, only the very basic functionality has been written. The Agents capture and communicate statistics with each other, and the Current, Total and History Charts reflect the statistics.
What other features will the full version of Soho have?
The planned features that we have not yet implemented include:
- Alerts for unknown machines, quota limits and network saturation
- ISP quota usage charts (current UI is a place holder only)
- Configuration options for each chart
- Ability to view usage for certain date ranges
To get a better idea for what we have planned, take a look at these mockups http://www.webspy.com.au/products/soho/mockups.html
Do you have a great idea to add? Please let us know!
What are the known Soho Alpha issues?
Can't see other computers, or blank or frozen UI.
Sometimes Soho gets a little confused. If this happens, you may see nothing or very little happening in the Soho UI. Close and reopen the UI, and if this doesn't work, restart the Soho Agent (see "How to fix a broken Soho" below). We're currently working on a solution to this.
Crash after sleep or hibernation
The Soho Agent may crash when your computer wakes up from a sleep or hibernation. Either restart the Agent (see "How to fix a broken Soho" below), or restart your computer. We're currently working on a solution to this.
Mixed network voodoo
Each Soho agent communicates information about all other agents it has seen. One side effect of this is if you run Soho on a few machines at work, and a few machines at home, everyone's Soho will eventually end up with statistics for both your home and work computers. We're currently working on a solution to this.
Resize UI bug
If you resize the user interface until you can't see it anymore, the UI will crash. So don't do it. I bet you will though! And once again... We're currently working on a solution to this.
Where does WebSpy Soho store information?
WebSpy Soho uses the following locations to store information:
- Windows 7, Windows Vista:
History, Settings and Soho Agent debugging log:
C:\Users\All Users\WebSpy\Soho
Soho UI debugging log:
C:\Users\<your user profile>\AppData\Roaming\WebSpy\Soho - Windows XP, 2000
History, settings and Soho Agent debugging log:
C:\Documents and Settings\all users\Application Data\WebSpy\Soho
Soho UI debugging log:
C:\Documents and Settings\<your user profile>\Application Data\WebSpy\Soho - Mac OS:
History, settings and Soho Agent debugging log:
/Library/Application Support/WebSpy/Soho
Soho UI debugging log:
$HOME/Library/Application Support/WebSpy/Soho
(e.g. /Users/<your user profile>/Library/Application Support) - Linux:
History, settings and Soho Agent debugging log:
/opt/WebSpy/Soho
Soho UI debugging log:
$HOME/WebSpy/Soho
(e.g. /home/<your user profile>/WebSpy/Soho)
