Copied from BridgePal Forum:

Message sent by a new user:
"Hi, We had our first trial session at ... Bridge Club yesterday.
Everything was fine and at the end the tablets were showing the full
results and score cards etc however not all of the results and names
were on EBUScore only some. Fortunately we completed paper travellers so
all was not lost. Any idea where we went wrong? Many thanks."

Reply sent to the user:
"The likely reason is that you did not leave EBUScore on the BridgePal
Scoring screen, for example you might have gone to a different screen to
look at travellers and left it there. EBUScore will only retrieve
results from the wireless database while it's on the BridgePal Scoring
screen. You can still recover the data as it will all be in the wireless
database on the PC. Start EBUScore, retrieve the event, go the
BridgePal scoring screen, click on the "Restart" button, then on "Create
Database" and then on the button "Resume Existing Session...". If you
then click on the "Read Names" and "Read All Results" buttons EBUScore
will retrieve all the data for that session from the wireless database."

If there is a power cut while you are running a BridgePal session, your BridgePals and laptop will continue to work on batteries, but the router will probably stop working. The power cut backup strategy could be to use a mobile hotspot instead of the failed router.

A mobile hotspot can be used in smaller clubs. Hotspots generally have a limit on the number of devices supported, e.g. 5 or 10, and a more limited range than a wireless router, so may not be suitable for larger clubs.

Any iOS or android phone can be used as a hotspot in this way.

• In Settings on the phone set Personal Hotspot ON (Mobile data must be ON) and set a password for Personal Hotspot
• From visible wireless networks on the laptop choose the hotspot and use the password defined above to connect. The hotspot wifi should be set to "metered connection" to avoid any big downloads like windows update
• From visible wireless networks on all BridgePal phones choose the same hotspot and login with the same password
• If you wish, you can turn off the phone's mobile data connection to prevent internet access by conencted devices.

A message from a user that used this solution for power cuts: This hotspot solution worked very well for them. - Here is their reply:

"Great success - I've used a mobile hotspot on my phone to act as a router, connecting five table-top tablets and the scoring laptop to run an event with BridgePal..
Further, I've trialled starting an event with the Club's "usual" router, simulating it breaking down  (pulled its mains plug out!) and then using my mobile hotspot to take over - again, this was successful.  So, in future, I will have a back-up strategy against the case where there is a power cut or if the router fails."

However, the situation is not so brilliant if you are using a browser based BridgePal. If there is a power cut, you need to re-scan the QR code if you are using the Personal Hotspot as the IP address will change. Unfortunately this is not all - you will also have to do the director's function Replace Failed Unit to get you to the same place you were when the power cut started. This is something to do with cookies - don't worry about it.

Copied from BridgePal Forum:-

"Player IDs and Names entered on BridgePal tablets are now recorded in the file C:/BridgePal/xlogs/names.txt and contracts/results are recorded in C:/BridgePal/xlogs/scores.txt. These files would not normally be required but would assist in manually re-scoring an event in the case of a failure or misoperation that causes the loss of the event data."

So - if something catastrophic happens - like an operator accidentally deletes the event from the scoring program (it did happen to somebody!!), you can continue scoring manually - enter scores on paper travellers or even scorecards and later score the whole event manually using the scoring program, combining the scores from the file scores.txt (before the failure) and your paper travellers / scorecards (after the failure).

An alternative is to recreate and start the event and reposition / restore it to the point of disaster. (see BridgePal Server Actions Menu).  Later use the data from the files above to enter the missing scores in the scoring program.