Lights Stop at places in a song

[EmmienLightFan]

I just finished a sequence, so I connected 4 sets of lights to my CTB16PC and watched it back. They work perfectly, until the Chorus of the song, where they just stay on the point they were at before. It is different every time, so it can't be in the sequence. The same happens to the visualizer. It is quite a big sequence, with a lot going on. My matrix runs fine in the choruses, but lags behind on other bits.

They just stop, and may change a couple of times in the chorus, but it s really wierd and annoying.

[Darryl Lambert]

Most of time when people have this problem it semed to be network congestion. How many channels/ netwoks are you using?

When you say big sequence how big? I had one last year that was 325 megs.

[EmmienLightFan]

1560 channels. Only 450 channels of lights connected. The file is 27 meg. Biggest one so far is 46 and it played fine. It only has 450 channels more (1500 channels of the lights are pixels). Only 16 channels on the LOR network, the other 450 are on DMX.

[Darryl Lambert]

The number of channels connected should not make a difference because the sequence will still try to output to lights even if they are not connected.

Are you running wireless for any of it ?

Heres a thread with similar issues here

[k6ccc]

ELF, your answer is kinda hard to follow because of mixing 2 configurations and does not give details.  Leave out the stuff about the different sequences.  However, for configuration what we're looking for is something like this:

500 WS2811 pixels on an E682 via E1.31 in 3 universes using multicast,

300 DMX channels in 2 universes each using a XYZ USB to DMX converter,

45 LOR channels on 4 controllers using a LOR USB adapter (non high speed) at 115K speed.

The E1.31 is on a shared LAN with the rest of the house which is all over an old 802.11b WiFi.

 

That lets us really know what you are running and makes it much easier to troubleshoot.

[EmmienLightFan]

150 pixels, on 450 channels, connected to a RS485 USB adapter

And 16 channels (CTB16PC), connected to an RS485 adapter with LOR

[Darryl Lambert]

Which DMX usb adapter?

I seem to recall some people with the "DMX king" having issues.

[k6ccc]

In your post #3, you said there are 1560 channels, but here you are describing less than 500.  I'm not trying to be a pain here, but you really need to give the details.  Lights that are in the sequence count for this discussion whether the actual lights are connected or not.  The SE or show player is sending commands to the lights whether the lights are there or not.

 

Are the pixels on DMX, and if so what adapter or are they CCPs on a LOR network, and if so, same network as the CTB16 or a separate LOR network?

 

If you are running 500 pixels (also mentioned in post #3) on a single LOR network you are going to have problems with network congestion unless it's running at 500K speed.

 

Please look at the sample for network description I gave in post #5 and include a full description of whats in the sequence.  You can tell us that some particular set of lights is not connected, but it needs to be listed if it's in the sequence.

 

We really are trying to help, but in order to troubleshoot this remotely we need as accurate a description as possible.  As Darryl said in post #2, the problem you are describing is very likely network congestion which is why I'm being so picky about your network configuration.

 

As an alternative, you could upload the sequence to something like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft Skydrive (now called OneDrive) and make it available to us.

[zman]

The DMX King works fine, there have been problems with other knock off "Enttec" compatible dongles.

 

Somethings to check:

 

Ensure you are outputting, then using compressed sequences.

 

The disadvantage to something like the DMX King Micro or Enttec Open, is the computer has to do all the conversions. You have less than one universe you said was hooked up. If there is a lot going on simultaneously, ramps, fades etc... I am not sure how much that may have in affecting things.

 

The LOR side is an on demand protocol. What channels are lagging or remaining "on"

 

Some argue that you should split your networks up. Have a dedicated LAN for your show and keep your house wireless separate

 

Have you installed the 4gb Patch on the computer for LOR?

[EmmienLightFan]

Oh sorry.

I am using the USB485 from LOR running DMX. 450 channels are coming through that, to 150 pixels which are  connected.

There is a second LOR USB485, running LOR, connected to a CTB16PC, with 4/16 lights connected, but the other channels are still being instructed by the computer.

300 more channels are being controlled, but the adapter is not connected. The remaining channels are all not configured. It just says (None) in the device type.

 

The matrix stops at times, then jumps to the part in the song the sequence editor is at, and the CTB16PC stops on whatever position it was on at the start of the chorus, and may update a few times in it, then comes back to life a few seconds after.

 

I was just reading about the 4GB patch. I will try it, but I don't think I need it as I have a lot of RAM and it is only at 40% used.

Edited March 21, 2015 by EmmienLightFan

[Darryl Lambert]

It's not how much RAM you have but how much LOR uses. The patch is so that LOR will use 4GB currently it only uses 2GB.

[ebrown1972]

This sounds kind of like an issue I had a while back testing out some of my pixels. My sequences consist of 3 networks and while testing I only had one network actually hooked up to my machine with one ccp controller. The lights were very random with the sequence with lagging and such and staying on at times. I then decided to hook up my other 2 usb485's even though I had no lights hooked up to them. When I did this for whatever reason the ccp's played perfectly with the sequence. I have no idea if this would help you at all with your problems but its an easy way to see if maybe it would help by hooking up all of your 485's while running a sequence. Try connecting all of your adapters while running the sequence. It worked for me.

[Dennis Laff]

You should swap the usb485 for a dmx dongle

[EmmienLightFan]

It will be running on the RS485 output of a PixLite4 when I get that, but that shouldn't be the cause of the problem.

[bbayjohn]

Hey ELF,

If the same thing happens in the visualizer as when the lights are playing, then it might have something to do with the program being corrupted.

What happens when you make a new sequence and copy and paste your old sequence into the new sequence?

Maybe back up your work and re download SE. It does sound like a data issue. At the chorus I would think you are using more channels ( more data ).

 

If you like I could have a look at your sequence for you and see if the same issue happens on my machine

golbach.john@gmail.com 

[EmmienLightFan]

Thanks. 

Copying it to a new sequence was a good idea. I thought it was working but about 15 seconds later than usual it stopped.

I have sent you the sequence + the visualizer file. 

I am not sure what I should hope for. If it works on your PC, then there's something wrong with mine, if it doesn't then I have to do the sequence again.