Show Stopper

[MooCows]

Several issues caused me to dump version 2 (updated to 2.0.4) and revert back to version 1. As a good gamma user I had full backups. These might be related to Robin's problems, but have a few different twists.

When show started, everything looked great. While checking things out I noticed a song had repeated 3 times, the next song repeated several times, during one of the repeats several channels on at least two controllers quit working, then the next song played through about 20% and jumped to the next song. It repeated this way several times as I checked channel assignments, reflashed firmware, changed CAT5 cables, switched from shuffle to play in order, opened all sequences (on 2nd PC) toggled one cel, resaved as LOR-II file. I noticed another song early, and moved on. 2 of my lowly 7 songs did not play at all (I think they quit playing before changing from shuffle but hard to tell) but they did play through the first time. When the synched light show ended, I have a second one that just plays music with the lights off and 6 of my 9 controllers kept the lights on. I unplugged the CAT5 from the LOR USB-CAT5 converter and the rest of the lights went off. In the wee hours, I purged LOR-II, reinstalled LOR-I, copied my backup LOR-I sequences back, pointed the scheduler at the LOR-I shows, and everything worked GREAT for one full 24 hour cycle (and more I suspect but it's only been 24 hours)

My show has both wav and mp3s. One of each was stopping early then skipped entirely. I'm using only CTB16D controllers, 6 green, 3 blue (although I substituted a 4th blue controller for green while trying to figure out the channel not working thing - no difference) All boards had been flashed version 4.01 with LOW-II hardware, nothing reflashed when reverting to LOR-I.

Just wanted to pass this along, but since my new PC parts won't be here until next week (too cheap to expedite) I'm staying with LOR-I. I did save the LOR-II files so I could quickly retry if the program is patched and the 2nd PC is assembled but that is a few weeks off. Time to help put up lights in the neighbors yard across the street, and oh yeah, hook them up to to my network through the wireless connection.

Sorry about the ramblings, hope it helps.

[Robin]

Thanks MooCow.
Those were and are some of the problems. Except I never shuffle my shows. I like going in a particular order.

I am at a little of a disadvantage. Since I was a BETA tester and all my songs are new with no repeats from last year. And since I went from almost 300 channels to a little over 400. I did all of my sequencing on LORII. I have no songs for this year on the LORI version. I kept LORI on my show computer until about a week prior to the Gamma release then downloaded II on top of the old software.

But I have faith that this fix will work. In fact, I have a feeling that this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened and would bet that in the early years of LORI the same issues may have happened. Dan, sure knew quick what it was and stated that it could be fixed. So am pretty sure he has seen it before.

[MooCows]

Got my new computer built, so I have one with LOR 1 and one upgraded to LOR 2.0.12. Still having same behavior. Show starts OK, after a song or three or four, it plays several seconds, jumps to another song, plays a few seconds, back to another song, repeats the same song (play in order selected). I do not have any X10, Only CTB16D boards all flashed andworking great in LOR 1. No backgrounds, startup, shutdowns, etc. ONLY musical sequences. No two controllers are addressed alike. Looks like my LOR 2 Show Stopper is still there. Back to LOR 1, but I can easily switch computers and try any updates to LOR 2.

[LightORamaDan]

MooCows wrote:

Got my new computer built, so I have one with LOR 1 and one upgraded to LOR 2.0.12. Still having same behavior. Show starts OK, after a song or three or four, it plays several seconds, jumps to another song, plays a few seconds, back to another song, repeats the same song (play in order selected). I do not have any X10, Only CTB16D boards all flashed andworking great in LOR 1. No backgrounds, startup, shutdowns, etc. ONLY musical sequences. No two controllers are addressed alike. Looks like my LOR 2 Show Stopper is still there. Back to LOR 1, but I can easily switch computers and try any updates to LOR 2.

Has anyone else had this type of issue where songs stop after a few seconds? Only a tiny fraction of LOR users (200-300) are using the Gamma but I have not heard of this particular issue.

[MooCows]

Since it sounds like I might be the one who messed up (fairly typical), I thought I'd take my LOR 1 sequences, open in 2.0.12, like I had done in 2.0.4 and save them in the latest format. I need to search through the other posts, but it would not let me resave with same filename. New file name and it was OK. One BIG difference I noticed from last time is all my intensities are gone. All of the set intensities are st 100% and ramps to and from various percentages all go from 0-100 and back to 0. Not a good feature but this did not happen in 2.0.4.

[MooCows]

Write it up to operator error. Once I resaved all my LOR 1 sequences as LOR 2.0.12 using new file names, re-did the show for the new names, It's been running fine for over an hour (testing it this morning). I tried this with 2.04 and it didn't solve the problem, but 2.0.12 has it right!!!

The intensities are all correct when played, the display is just whacked, which I guess goes to the change in base code. Oh, well, the new sequences done in LOR 2 show the ramps correctly. Maybe I'll redo my LOR1 songs over the summer, that's right, I was going to do that anyway to take advantage of ramped twinkle and shimmer (I can hardly wait!!!)

I'll see if I can update the SHOW Stopper title,

THANKS for all you effort!!!

Now I can get to rechecking solder connections on 1 controller that's out of the show due to losing it's communications.