Major Show Problem (FIXED)

[Robin]

Well things are not looking good for the show.

I usually take a couple of days to debug my stuff before lights come on. Last night ran the show for first time and there were a lot of problems that I needed correct. So thought I caught most of them and ran the show tonight.

First, thing is I went into the show editor to add the voice over in a second place. When I looked at the show there were two songs that were repeated. I thought heck I am dead tired so maybe I did it the day before. Take them out and put in the voiceover.

Show starts on time but that is about the only thing it did right. More songs repeated. Items flashing off and on that should not be. Other channels stuck in on position. The spongebob and gary flashed off and on real fast for three songs and nothing else on that unit worked.

Some sections of my coros were not on when they should be.

So then while I am taking notes and all the family is talking it starts again. This time some of the problems were not there at all.

So went into shop and turned off system. Started checking sequeces and every single problem was not in the sequence.

For instance I have pink panther on the roof. One song he was on all the time and was not suppose to be but still was on. Next song worked fine and all the others too.

So when I think it is my mistake and I check the sequence and he is not on during that song. Same with spongebob he blinked but then the second time around seemed ok.

Oh and when I go back to show editor there are repeat songs again plus one was not there. I am POSITIVE that I did not enter double shows.

Sad thing is unless this is correct I will not show these lights this year.

Any help would be great.

[Guest wbottomley]

Robin... are you using a MP3 director card or a pc?

I'm seeing the same problems on my director card.

[Robin]

PC and all songs are wav as I do not use MP3

This is no doubt in the show as I have checked all sequences and these problems do not exist.

[Guest wbottomley]

Same here, but I have to use mp3's.

Try at your OWN RISK: try flashing your firmware if you do not have version 4.01. You'll find that in the hardware utility when you search for network.

I did flash my firmware and still getting some channels left on when they suppose to be off.

[Robin]

By "flashing" do you mean each individual controller. One at a time? Do you have to bring them in to the laptop or take laptop to controller?

Also, now one channel is stuck on. Could be a triac and I can work around that. I have almost 400 wireframes and this is not a good thing.

[Guest wbottomley]

"Flashing" each controller means downloading new firmware in each one.

Before doing anything like that, lets see what version you have.

In the hardware utility, click refresh to see if all units come up and the window beside it will tell what verson. It should be 4.01 for 16 channel units.

[LightORamaDan]

Robin wrote:

Well things are not looking good for the show.

I usually take a couple of days to debug my stuff before lights come on. Last night ran the show for first time and there were a lot of problems that I needed correct. So thought I caught most of them and ran the show tonight.

First, thing is I went into the show editor to add the voice over in a second place. When I looked at the show there were two songs that were repeated. I thought heck I am dead tired so maybe I did it the day before. Take them out and put in the voiceover.

Show starts on time but that is about the only thing it did right. More songs repeated. Items flashing off and on that should not be. Other channels stuck in on position. The spongebob and gary flashed off and on real fast for three songs and nothing else on that unit worked.

Some sections of my coros were not on when they should be.

So then while I am taking notes and all the family is talking it starts again. This time some of the problems were not there at all.

So went into shop and turned off system. Started checking sequeces and every single problem was not in the sequence.

For instance I have pink panther on the roof. One song he was on all the time and was not suppose to be but still was on. Next song worked fine and all the others too.

So when I think it is my mistake and I check the sequence and he is not on during that song. Same with spongebob he blinked but then the second time around seemed ok.

Oh and when I go back to show editor there are repeat songs again plus one was not there. I am POSITIVE that I did not enter double shows.

Sad thing is unless this is correct I will not show these lights this year.

Any help would be great.

Robin,

Lets try to determine if this is problem with the network. Split the network in half and see if the first half works. When you split it make sure that you do not have a cable end dangling (disconnect on the output of a controller).

If the First Half still has a problem split it in half and see if there is a problem in the first quarter. Again make sure sure to disconnect at the output of a controller so that there is not a cable dangling with nothing plugged into it.

Dan

[Robin]

Thanks Dan, here is an interesting update.

If I enable the show mannually after the start time there are no problems (except for one coro project at the very end). When it runs through as second time no problems.

The same is true if it is automatic. There does not seem to be any issues the second go round.

So I guess the only way to check it is to wait till tomorrow and have it come on auto or maybe I can try to reset start time and check it then.

[Robin]

UPDATE

Dan,
Reset show to come on and then enabled the show.

Unplugged about half. Three controllers that had a problem did not have the problem.

HOWEVER, when I plugged the the cable back into the controller the other controllers (more than one) had items doing a shimmer.

These were the same items that did it early this evening when the show started automaticlly but did not do it when I enabled after the show start time if that makes sense.

I have checked all sequences again and there is not an issue with my sequencing or when they are played individually through sequence editor.

Only on start up of show as far as I can tell.

[LightORamaDan]

Robin wrote:

UPDATE

Dan,
Reset show to come on and then enabled the show.

Unplugged about half. Three controllers that had a problem did not have the problem.

HOWEVER, when I plugged the the cable back into the controller the other controllers (more than one) had items doing a shimmer.

These were the same items that did it early this evening when the show started automaticlly but did not do it when I enabled after the show start time if that makes sense.

I have checked all sequences again and there is not an issue with my sequencing or when they are played individually through sequence editor.

Only on start up of show as far as I can tell.

Robin,

Are the problems happening all the time during the show?

Things always work OK when you run via the Sequence Editor?

Dan

[Robin]

Dan,
The problems only seem to occur when the show turns itself on. I ran it through two times by manually enabling the show "after" the start time and no problems except for a glitch at the end but when it rolled over to the begining again there still was no problem.

I am lost with this. At first I thought it was my sequencing but it is not. Then when I did it manually and nothing happend did not know what to think. Then knew there was a problem when I reset the time and let it turn itself on.

Imagine watching Porky Pig sing Blue Christmas with only his mouth turning off and on and the body never coming on. That happened one time whe it started on it's own.

Also, had two deer talking with no bodies just mouth moving. But when I did it manually and enabled the show they worked fine.

Yes things always work fine in sequence editor.

[robert cox]

robin,

i have sort of the same problem on my last controller in line, number 6

i have some channels that aren't coming on

i have noticed if i reimport the channel config twice, it will fix the problem,

the only thing i can think of is that i created my channel config with lor 1, and am now using it in lor 2?

try reimporting the config twice then saving



bob

[Larry Hazeltine]

I was going to post a new topic, but I think it may fit here instead.

I installed LOR2.0.4 today on my show PC. I edited my sequences on another PC and copied them over first. When I run a musical sequence in the sequence editor, everything comes out fine. I opened last year's show editor and removed all of the shows then added all of my new musical sequences (they are are named differently than last year's so I can tell them apart). I checked the schedule editor and the correct show was set to come on at the right time.

I thought everything was running fine when the show came on, but someone told me the mega tree wasn't coming on, only my strobes. I went out to the show PC and could hear one of last year's songs playing. This was a song that I am not using this year as I haven't converted it from 32 channels to 64. The strobes were flashing because that particular channel was used for something else last year.

I opened the show editor, and only the musical sequences for this year were in there (and I don't have anything in any of the other tabs). To fix the problem, I went to the sequences folder in My Documents/Light-O-Rama and removed all of the sequences I am not using this year. I did the same in the sequences folder in Program Files/Light-O-Rama. I enabled the show again, rebooted the computer, and everything started up fine.

Somehow it appears that LOR wsa looking at my old show and not the one I saved. Perhaps this could be the problem with the OP, if not feel free to make this its own topic/bug report. If you need more information about this, please ask.

[Robin]

Larry,
My laptop never had a sequence in it till I copied all the sequences to it. So no old shows. But funny thing it decided to put two sequences in there twice. I know I did not do this cause I checked the order I wanted them to go in and then saved them.

[Robin]

Robert,
I did create the channels on my desktop and transfered all files from my external hard drive to my laptop. Everything was created in LORII BETA. However, I do not think I can reimport the files as TRACKS are different and it would mess them up.

Also, have thought about the firmware idea but Dan does not seem to think that is a problem. I have not updated my firmware on the controllers for some time but am not to comfortable doing this process on 25 controllers. Plus it has been so long that am a little leary.

[Guest wbottomley]

Robin... has any mentioned to check your data cables?

[dcarrier]

This is weird.

We opened our program last night and are having some major problems that seem to fit right in here.

The same as Robin. We used LOR II to create all of our sequences. Are using 5 sequences in the Show Editor. When the Show opened we had one sequence that did not play correctly. It was the third sequence. Everything bad happened to occur on controller # 6. Some channels would not come on, some would shimmer erratically, and then several channels stayed lit for approximately 3-4 seconds after sequence ended. The rest of the sequences played normally.

On the second go round it did not occur. We shut the show down and changed the show editor time and ran again. Same thing occurred. Same sequence messed up on the first go round. On second time through it was ok.

Went through the offending sequence and checked all the channel configurations and could not find a problem. We reimported a known good channel config anyway. We then ran it from the Sequence Editor and it ran just fine. Checked this Several times.

So we created a new Show Editor file and reimported everything again. Ran from Show Editor and had the same problem again. Sounds to me like it is the SAME thing everyone else is having. I'm going to leave this up to you guys to figure this out. It's gone past what I am capable of doing.

OK guys, go get the bug or find a workaround please!

Other than this LORII has worked fine for me.

[Larry Hazeltine]

Robin wrote:

Larry,
My laptop never had a sequence in it till I copied all the sequences to it. So no old shows. But funny thing it decided to put two sequences in there twice. I know I did not do this cause I checked the order I wanted them to go in and then saved them.

Yes, but your *.lss (show/schedule) file resides in your Sequences folder. If you copied an old show/schedule along with your sequences, it could be reading that. Once I removed everything from my Sequences folder and created a new show/schedule everything was fine.

Of course, my bug may also have been that I accidentally copied my old .lss file and replaced the show/schedule I created for this year.

[Robin]

I did not copy an old show editor. Everything is new. All new sequences, all new show. Nothing from last year.

All data cables are fine. I make my own and have a tester. Besides that would not account for why show messes up first time through on start up.

Mine is a little different in that several controllers are showing these problems not just one. However, all of the controllers that do have a problem are from the past two years and not the new ones purchased this year. NOTE: Not all older controllers have a problem.

NOTE:
Just performed a quick check on the versions. I do not think that is the problem.
I have some version 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.01 and 4.02 but the problems occur in newer versions as well as a couple of 3.0 versions. None in the 2.0 versions.

If it were data cables you would have a problem all the time and it would seem to me it would be the same problem for each song. This is not the case.

I know this is strange but the only problem I have ever had during the show was a bad data cable not seeing a controller and that was before I purchased my tester. The computer sees and communicates with all controllers.

[LightORamaDan]

Robin,

I do have an idea what may be causing it. When the show first starts and the sequence is being loaded the controllers may be loosing sync. When the show starts the controllers are out of sync and in the network and the commands sent to them may be miss-interpereted.... If that is the case, the LED will start to blink when the show first starts.

We will run some tests and if that is the case there is a way we can prevent that from happening.

Dan