How do I report a bug?

[Noelb]

I am not sure how to report a bug - yet I am sure Dan does not have time to read every forum message either.

I discovered a new (to me) bug tonight. Sorry if this is already FAQ'ed somewhere, but I was unable to find it. I will give details here in case someone else is experiencing it - or one of the Beta guys can file the bug for me.

I am running v3.1.4

Last night, everything was working fine. But tonight I made some channel changes. In these changes, one of my "groups" has an inactive channel in it now. This might even be two unique bugs now that I think about it.

1. If you delete the channel from the group, export the channel configuration, then import it into a new sequence -- the deleted channel is back in the group again. I think it should remain deleted/removed in the new sequence?

OK, so I can work around that (or so I thought)

2. I changed the channel - instead of deleting it. I removed it from having a controller assigned to it. I needed to do this as I suddenly needed the channel for something else instead (for my radio sign). I figured if I had to keep the channel, I would just un-assign it. This fixed the export/import issue for my purposes.

But now instead, about half of my controllers stopped working when the show was enabled -- even some controllers not related to the unused channels were failing to turn on lights.

After a few hours in testing to find out what was wrong - I found that playing the sequence in Sequence Editor with "control lights" enabled worked fine -- it was only when the show was enabled that it had the problem. So it is definitely the show module that has the issue with the channel config.

So reading through the forums tonight - I saw other issues with "groups". So on a whim I "degrouped" this particular channel set. This fixed the issue. I suspected that it would work - as I have always had "beat" and "tapper" channels for years that do not have assignments. The problem only happens when groups have channels without assignment. Again - the sequence editor->control lights works fine -- only the show->enable schedule process reveals the bug.

Thanks - let me know if you need more details or if the above is not clear.

Noel

[Amie]

I don't understand the second issue you described, but I do understand the first issue. First of all, I assume you already know that track 1 is sacred...you never want to change it in anyway except to add new channels at the very bottom of the track. When you export a channel configuration file, and import it back, it imports everything back in, in the exact order that track 1 was in, when you exported.

So, if you exported, say,
channel 1
channel 2
channel 3
channel 4
Then you delete channel 2, so you have
channel 1
channel 3
channel 4
when you import the channel configuration file back in, you will have
channel 1 <- channel 1 data
channel 2 <- channel 3 data
channel 3 <- channel 4 data
channel 4 <- blank


If you create a group in track 1, then copy that group to a different track and do not degroup the group in track 1, you can cause some major problems. You don't want to delete, move, change, add, or remove any channels from the group that is in the group in the other tracks. If you do, that change will be reflected in track 1. So if you delete a channel from the group, the channel will be completely removed from your sequence.

[Noelb]

I understand what you are saying....but that is not what I am experiencing. And yes, in prior years I have had issues with the way import brought everything back in a specific order, possibly confusing your channels for you. So what you are saying is very true...it is just not what is happening here.

To be more specific, here is my setup:

channel 1.1
channel 1.2
channel 1.3
channel 1.4
.
.
.
.
channel 5.16

on controllers 6-10 (0A) I have groups enabled

group 1
..channel 6.1
..channel 6.2
..channel 6.3
.
.
..channel 6.16
group 2
..channel 7.1
..channel 7.2
..channel 7.3
.
.
..channel 7.16
group3
.
.
.

until finally controller 0A
..channel 0A.1
..channel 0A.2
.
.
..channel 0A.16


I had channel 0A.16 as my radio sign. This is the very last channel in my sequence and in my numbering scheme.
I deleted 0A.16 from the configuration. Then and only then (after deletion) do I export the config. Then I imported the config to my other sequences. 0A.16 always comes back if it was part of a "group" when it was deleted. If it was degrouped before deletion - then it does not come back.

Additional data:
- in this particular sequence, there are no other tracks.
- there are no other channels below 0A.16 - so no other data gets "moved up" to the higher track.
- this is not a problem of data in the wrong place, it is just a channel that won't stay deleted.




For # 2 above - you can run a simple test. Create a new test sequence that has a group in it. Does not matter what the sequence is. It can even be an animation instead of a musical. In this new sequence, create a group (due to my mega tree, all but one of my groups have 16 channels, although I do not think this is important). In the group, make one channel not assigned to any controller. To do this, click the channel button and change "Device Type" to "(no device type selected)". Connect to the LOR network and in the sequence - play the sequence with "Play -> Control Lights" enabled. Everything works. Now put this single sequence into a show of its own. You do not need any other sequences added for this test. Create a schedule for the show (or maybe show on demand will work for the test? I have not tried this). Then Enable the show - notice that only some controllers work in the show mode....it will not be the same as when you did play sequence.


Thanks