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v5x no output / v4x works fine


dwhales

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Hi all,

Just upgraded my software to v5 the other day. But since then, I have not been able to get any of my fixtures to work. If I go back to a sequence in v4x, everything works fine.

A few things to note:

- CL is running
- CP is running
- all props and fixtures work fine in Visualizer (v4 and 5)

Using a LOR network on a USB to 485 adapter as well as using 4 universes on an ETC Net3 sACN Gateway and a Chauvet DMX splitter. The DMX splitter shows data (green lights on all outputs) but nothing outputs to the lights when I use the v5 sequencer software.

Thoughts?

Thanks for any help.

Cheers,
Darren

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Honest answer is that this is not the time to make a major software change - unless there is a huge requirement to do so.  There is a large learning curve with S5.  Start with it after your 2018 show is completed.

With that said, if all you did was to install the S5 software, and did nothing else, you SHOULD have been able to run all your S4 sequences and shows.  If you did more than that, let us know what you did.  Are you trying to control your lights from the show player, or from the S5 Sequencer?  If you are doing it from the Sequencer, did you check the box for Control Lights?

 

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Thanks, k6ccc

When I downloaded it, I was not aware that it had changed as much as it had. Also found that I cannot copy data (light on, light off) from v5 and paste it into v4. Oddly enough, LOR does not obey typical copy/paste rules across various platforms. Normally, on any computer (windows or mac) you can copy something from lets say a word doc, and paste it into a powerpoint doc. But in LOR, it just doesn't understand that at all. And of course, the whole clipboard thing works so different in LOR.

Anyway, back to my DMX issue. Turns out that after 3 days, I finally found out why it wasn't working. The entire software suite including CL and CP had to be shut down and then restarted (CP first then sequencer) to get any output. I can only assume it was related to the fact that I had v4 running with v5 to try to copy data back and forth.

And yes, you are right. The learning curve is much bigger than expected on the new software. But I had already built a set of singing christmas trees which I cannot now get into v4 because v5 doesn't even allow save as v4 let alone copy/paste.

Thanks for your help.

Darren

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It sounds like you did something odd to allow having both S4 and S5 loaded on the same computer at the same time.  LOR flat out says that will not work.  It sounds like you managed to make it work, but that is a un-supported and not recommended installation by LOR.  If I gathered that right, I would strongly recommend a complete uninstall, including deleting the entirety of the Program Files \ Light-O-Rama directory and then re-install.  With two versions loaded, there could be all kinds of left overs floating around on that computer.

With all that said, as far as S5, yes, it is a huge change from S4.  I had the advantage that I started playing with the S5 starting with the first day that the first Beta version came out in mid 2017.  However, I ran my 2017 show entirely in S4.  As soon as I switched back to my year round landscape lighting show in January 2018, my server (which runs the landscape show) was S5, and continued to be updated with the latest beta and then production versions of S5.  All my 2018 Christmas show work was done in S5.  So at this point, I have almost a year and a half with S5.

Copy and paste from one sequence to another or to another part of the same sequence works fine in either S4 or S5, but I would not expect any other program to know what to do with a copy from LOR.  I received a bunch of JR Dibble's singing face sequences which are in S4 format.  I had no problem opening them in S5, and then doing a copy & paste into my sequences. 

 

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1 hour ago, dwhales said:

Also found that I cannot copy data (light on, light off) from v5 and paste it into v4. Oddly enough, LOR does not obey typical copy/paste rules across various platforms. Normally, on any computer (windows or mac) you can copy something from lets say a word doc, and paste it into a powerpoint doc. But in LOR, it just doesn't understand that at all.

Darren,

This is not true. The issue you ran into is because S5 Sequences are not backwards compatible with S4 sequences. This point has been made many times perhaps you did not understand that. If you have want to use S5, then you have to fully commit to it.

S5 will convert your S4 sequences. Be sure to make a back up of all your S4 sequences before using S5.

LOR will copy everything you want it to, from S4 to S5 if you have setup the proper props with the correct channels, networks, Unit ID's ,etc.

This is how I made my S5 sequences, all the traditional props and smart RGB prop effects were all copied from my 2017 S4 version into a S5 sequence. Superstar is different, however *IF* the props are setup correctly, it's a simple task.

Alan...

copy%20paste.gif

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Hi Alan,

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, I think you misunderstood what I had originally said...or I was not clear in what I said.

I upgraded the software to S5 a few weeks ago. All my current sequences are in S4. I had already opened and saved all of them as S5 files (with backups of my S4 sequences).

I had recently built the singing trees portion of a new song in S5 and wanted to test them with the actual gear. However, I could not get output from S5. I could only see them in Visualizer. So after many days trying to solve this problem, I gave up and wanted to go back to S4 that has always worked for me (and still works to this day with my ouputs).

Since the sequences from S5 are not backwards compatible...THIS is why I was trying to COPY row data (little coloured blocks pertaining to lights on/off information) for this new song with singing trees that I only have in S5, from S5 to S4 which LOR WILL NOT do. I was not trying to open an S5 sequence in S4. I was simply trying to copy data, hence my comment about computer-wide copy/paste functions. And considering that both of these versions of software are constructed by the same company and programmers, I felt it odd that something as simple as copying some coloured blocks on my timeline from S5 to S4 would not be so difficult. Alas, it is.

Anyway...all this is moot anyway as I was able to solve the DMX output issue and have (since my original post) finished 2 more songs in S5.

Thanks again.

Darren

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2 hours ago, k6ccc said:

It sounds like you did something odd to allow having both S4 and S5 loaded on the same computer at the same time.  LOR flat out says that will not work.  It sounds like you managed to make it work, but that is a un-supported and not recommended installation by LOR.  If I gathered that right, I would strongly recommend a complete uninstall, including deleting the entirety of the Program Files \ Light-O-Rama directory and then re-install.  With two versions loaded, there could be all kinds of left overs floating around on that computer.

 

Hey Jim,

You are very correct. I did do something on purpose to try to solve my data issues I was having. With S5 installed on my D drive (in the program files folder etc) I was not able to get the output working properly. So I installed S4 again (after previously removing it) into its default C directory structure to see if it still worked (and it did). This is why I had both copies on the same machine.

But since solving the DMX issue, I am back to just S5 on my D drive.

And as I mentioned to Alan recently, I was only trying to copy data from the S5 to S4 timeline. Not open an S5 file in S4.

Cheers,
Darren

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