Question

I am using TTimer in my software and it supposed to run forever 24/7. Nowhere in my software is that timer disabled or stopped from running. It’s main function is to update table’s value. It is started as soon as the software is run and from that point on TTimer should not stop. However, after running for over a month, that TTimer mysteriously stops running. The software is run on Windows 7 and the software is developed on Delphi 2010 XE. I’ve searched my code to see what might be causing it, but I can’t figure out what.

 Timer1.Enabled:=true;

That’s how the timer is started.

UPDATE:
After doing some investigation, I found out that the TTimer never stopped, but there is another issue. My TStringGrid table on a TForm just simply don’t show any values being updated. Further, I also found out that my TList List I am using to store list of data item is being destroyed somehow that the list becomes empty. But the data items in the list are not deleted anywhere in the code once they are loaded only when the program is started.

Everytime I update the TStringGrid on the form, I run through my TList items from 0 to count-1 location. So, if there is no item in the TList in the memory, my code simply skips
over the display part and thus nothing gets updated on the TStringGrid.

Something like:

If (List.count>0) then 
begin
//Display values in TStringGrid; 
end;

But while the software is still running, I was able to reload my list of items from a file
back into TList list and my software started to work like it supposed.

I hate to say the ugliest word programmers hate the most. I am afraid I may have a memory leak. Anyone think so?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

TTimer is just a wrapper around the Windows SetTimer() API which I believe will run forever.

I suspect that the timer still runs, but the event handler that it fires is failing to operate as desired.