Show Player Stuck at "Checking"

[dgrant]

S5, latest version as of today, 10/18. I'm having an serious problem with the control panel/show player. It plays the first sequence without issue then stops with a message "Checking" and showing the next sequence in the show. It never goes further. Ideas?

[PhilMassey]

Did you create all the playback files first time through the show. How long did you give it before you pulled the plug.

[dgrant]

All the playback files were supposedly created when each sequence was saved after editing. The show editor listed the newest sequence to play. First sequence plays fine but then at the start of the second, it just stops before it plays anything. I allowed it to sit there about 5 minutes

[PhilMassey]

In 5.3 and higher, you have to play a show to create the playback files, which get created in the LORinternal folder. It takes a long time to create them the first time. Took 2.5 hours for my 50 sequences. Unfortunately after all that I still see 30s to more than a minute between songs.

No word from LOR about it, except to use load all sequences before any are played option. Doesn't work either. Still delays..

The only way I know to fix it is to use 5.2.4 for playback, plays perfectly.

[dgrant]

Ok. Thanks 

[Rockhammer53]

From the Help Desk...if you are using Windows 7;

 

[A Light-O-Rama help desk staff member has replied to your request, #47XXXX with the following response:

We have recently fixed a bug that only occurs with the 5.3 series of LOR software and Windows 7. The fix will be included with the next LOR software release... but I currently don't have an ETA of how soon that will be.

So.... the current workarounds include:

Update Windows 7 to Windows 10
or
roll back the LOR software to version 5.2.4 found at http://www1.lightorama.com/sequencing-software-download/

Sorry for the hassle.

We hope this has sufficiently answered your questions. If not, please login to your account at the address below for a complete archive of all your help desk requests and responses.]

 

Hope this may be of help. I should note that my issue was with LOR Hub not loading or running my sequences.

Jim
 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Rockhammer53

[PhilMassey]

Only one problem. I'm on W10.

[dgrant]

Same here, Windows 10. This is supposedly a production release and in this case, it will not play a show! I have no desire to sit inside on Halloween and run each sequence manually. I'll run it this morning and let it sit and hope it can figure things out but this was unexpected for sure and we're two weeks from Halloween.

[PhilMassey]

I reported this in July.

 

I plan to downgrade to 5.2.4 when my sequencing is complete and manually create the playback file, I tested that method in July and it worked just like always. 

There is at least one other user with the same exact issue, who has a ticket open. Deafening silence so far.

[dgrant]

Hey Phil, Per your suggestion, I'm allowing it to sit right now. It is slowly progressing. Its creating playback files as needed so my assumption that they did this during the editing process was incorrect. I'll have to wait and see if it'll work faster, once it gets through the list of sequences in the show. My Christmas show has 40 sequences so now I expect that process will take a long time as what happened to you. I'll start that set on my next day off.

[default]

dgrant,

While this is not necessarily directed at you, it may help to put some perspective on what you are experiencing.

Phil is right, the silence has been deafening.

In reading thru these comments, Phil is also right about some sequences taking longer to process than others. As I remember Phil's sequences contained a lot of fades and ramps, plus he has over 50 or so that will also increase the time to process. The good news is that *if* the songs are processed correctly, you only have to go through this once. After they shows files are created (correctly) they *should* play one after another with no delay between songs. If you see a delay longer than a few seconds, open the LOR staus window and look to see what if any sequence(s) are being recreated. That was an issue I had, in that certain songs, would have to be recreated each time, even though they already had a playback created for them. Matt fixed that issue (at least for me in 5.36 or 5.38).

As far as I understand the whole issue, this all started to happen when LOR removed the option to "Create Playback Files" located under the "File" heading from the S5 Sequencer on the editing pc. If you use Superstar (which can create a lot of files) or a lot of pictures or movies this means that they ALL have to be moved to the show pc, no matter where they are located on your editing pc. If you miss one picture, movie, SS file, this means it will not be present in the playback file and thus the effect will not play. When I did this it was over 5gb I had to move, and I still missed some.

/Rant On
This happened after 5.3.4. Now with 5.36 and later. As I understand it Playback Files are now created on the fly when the show is played. In order for this to happen you are supposed to move *ALL* files (SS files, movies, gifs, pictures etc..) to your show pc so that show player can collect them all and create the playback files on the fly.

This makes absoultely no sense to me. To me, this akin to me sending you a animated gif, but I would also have to send you every paint brush, color palette, frame, etc associated with the creation of this gif just for you to play it on another machine. It's duplicating what's already been done and is prone to mistakes in the case of missed files, etc... The end results can be frustration or crappy shows, or even worse is if you make a change to your sequence, you have to move the new files to the show pc to make sure they get included, then wait for the show  player to be recreate the new playback files while your audience wanders away because the show player is busy processing the sequences rather than playing them. The show player is just that, a player. Leave the the procressing of files to the editing pc (where all the files are already located) which usually has more horsepower than a show player pc.

My guess is that is happening to make it easier for new users to easily create files for use with a director. If that's the case I understand that, but it has made it harder and more confusing for those of us who use a seperate pc to control the show. My wish is that LOR go back to allowing users to Create Payback files from the menu of Sequencer, if need be make it an "Advanced Option" so the default would be as it is now, but pc users would have more control over how shows are created. If this is done, I'll volunteer my time to make a tutorial of the new prcedure.
/Rant Off

I run my shows during the summer months and had plenty of time to sort all this out to make it easier (somewhat less confusing) for a pc user to run a show. The video belows shows what I did and how I did it. It worked flawlessly. No excess time between sequences because everything is setup in advance not on the fly, like it used to be before 5.3.6.

@ Matt and LOR,
If I am wrong about the current procedures in 5.3.6 or later with having to move all the files to the show pc, and letting Show Player create playback files on the fly please correct me. As Phil has said the silence on this issue has been deafening and with the lack of documentation on this issue, my feeling is that we have been left to figure all this out on are own.

@ Anyone using a seperate pc to control your show
TEST EARLY, TEST OFTEN, do not wait until opening night and assume all is going to work as it has in the past. Avoid the disapointment and frustration.

Alan...

This issue has been discussed in another thread, take a look at it for more info.

This is how I setup in advance my shows, so that the editing pc is creating the shows, then transfering the files to the show pc.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by default

[Daroyaci]

Hey guys I will jump in on this as well. Same issues as above. Running windows 10....S5 pro 5.3.8.. and having 30 secs to 1 minute of lag time between a few songs but not all. Tried running just those few in a show,less than 1gb but that didn't work either. Have a help ticket open for a week now and still no fix. Was told to try a few things....did them and still same issue. They then turned my ticket over to Matt but still nothing so far. Hope they come up with a fix soon. Good luck.

[Rockhammer53]

I'm running everything from one PC Win7 with the same issues...as my post above... still no joy down grading.Now in retrograde mode... grrrr ...trying to run my Halloween show manually sucks with over 40 sequences.

[dgrant]

I had people coming over last night to view my show even though I'm not totally set up. Really hard to explain why it took 5 minutes or so for the first sequence to play when it was complaining about it being out of date by 13.3 hours. The second sequence took 20 minutes!!!!! They left long before, with me apologizing too them. My show computer is a former server with dual Xeon 6-core 64 bit CPU's (24-logical CPU's), 72Gb of ram and high end video card. There's no way this machine has to process files this slow. Yes, the day before, I followed Phil's suggestion to let it run the show during the day so that these files would be created. I also did the Christmas show yesterday which took 7 hours. 

CPU usage showed %6 and memory usage showed %4. Seriously, we need a separate program that will allow us to manually process these files and stop this "Checking S5 sequence:" Just play it!!!!

[PhilMassey]

Maybe we should all put tickets in. Nothing seems to be happening here.

[dgrant]

I just now messaged Matt. Will see if he can update us

[default]

This post is a follow up to the video above that explains how to create playback files in LOR S5.

If you have seen that video, then you have seen how I go about creating playback files my editing pc, then transfer files to the show pc.

Show Player now seems to have 2 distinct functions, 1 is to create playback files on the fly (new function) and 2 is to play the playback files. It is important to understand at which function you are running into issues.

If you are able to create error-free playback files on your editing pc and then transfer them to your show pc, show player on the show pc should not have to process them again.

If issues still exist that would tell me that show player on the show pc has the issue. Since the show pc does not have to process the playback files again, because they were already tested and played on the editing pc and show player on the show pc should only be trying to play them and it is doing something it shouldn't such as trying recreate the playback files.

If you are posting about this issue in the forums, please tell us what version of LOR S5 you are using on both pc's, also please tell us what version OS (Operating System) you are using on your editing pc and what version OS (Operating System) you are using on your show pc.

If you are running S5 this year, I would encourage to TEST EARLY and TEST OFTEN with all controllers and lights hooked up. Don't wait for opening night.

The video below show more visually and offers proof of concept that creating playback files on the editing pc and then transfering them to the show pc does work.

If you still cannot get things to work, please post where your issues are, during the creation of playback files on your edting pc or during the playback on your show pc.

Hope this helps.

Alan...