G3-MP3 Director, WAIT and LOR Hub

[Orville]

8 hours ago, Michelle said:

Orville,

The G4-MP3 is all over the place!  Sometimes it stalls out at "init."  Sometimes it starts and then crashes.  Sometimes it does not even respond to the network connection and SD card.  More details above in this thread.

Basically, the director is set to the correct time and the SD card is written to play within the time that I'm testing it.  I am creating it with the correct network speed - 500k ELOR.  I have power run to the director, since it may not be getting enough juice from my first controller.  I am using the recommended Kingston SD card.  The only time I got it to play my show was when I was having network problems.  It began cycling through sequences and played audio, but because of the problem with one of my controllers, it did not control the lights.  Have you ever had these problems?  Any suggestions?

I'm seriously thinking that maybe due to that bad network connection where water got into the jacks may have possibly damaged your Director.   So you may need to open a help desk ticket and possibly have to send in your Director for repairs, if something has happened to it.  LOR would need to get it and test it to see if there may be something in need of repair.   But they may be able to troubleshoot it over the phone with you and possibly resolve the issue, if not, then they'll probably ask you to send the Director back for further testing and investigation to see what happened to it.

Otherwise, have no idea what could be causing your issues as I've never had any issues with mine.  My N4-G4 works fine and have yet to have any issues with it running  any shows I've thrown at it.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Orville

[Orville]

8 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Makes me glad I have never used a Director...

 

Directors are awesome and very easy to use for the most part.   You just have to make sure things are how they need to be for them to function correctly and to the best of their capabilities.

[Michelle]

My network issues were solved after some trial and error.  I have 9 controllers on one network.  #4 in the chain had some water in the cat 5 connection point that knocked out the entire network for some reason (don't know why I could not at least detect #s 1-3).  Once it dried out, it worked fine.  I have done some extra water proofing to avoid future problems.  

Regarding the G4 MP3 Director, I finally got a response on my helpdesk ticket.  They suggested resetting it.  That seemed to do the trick as it is working perfectly so far.  In an effort to help others in the future, here are the LOR helpdesk instructions for resetting.

• You can try resetting the MP3 director. To do this you hold the up and down buttons at the same time for a while and you should see a rset in the screen. Depending on the firmware you may need to hold the up down and select buttons.... If it does not reset at all then you may need to update the firmware in the director.

[k6ccc]

9 minutes ago, Michelle said:

#4 in the chain had some water in the cat 5 connection point that knocked out the entire network for some reason (don't know why I could not at least detect #s 1-3).

Glad you got it working.

Most likely it was shorting out the data line as opposed to simply being an open.

 

[hasslerk]

1 hour ago, Michelle said:

Regarding the G4 MP3 Director, I finally got a response on my helpdesk ticket.  They suggested resetting it.  That seemed to do the trick as it is working perfectly so far.  In an effort to help others in the future, here are the LOR helpdesk instructions for resetting.

• You can try resetting the MP3 director. To do this you hold the up and down buttons at the same time for a while and you should see a rset in the screen. Depending on the firmware you may need to hold the up down and select buttons.... If it does not reset at all then you may need to update the firmware in the director.

Michelle, glad you finally solved your multiple problems.  Thanks for sharing the G4 MP3 Director reset procedures.

[Orville]

9 hours ago, Michelle said:

My network issues were solved after some trial and error.  I have 9 controllers on one network.  #4 in the chain had some water in the cat 5 connection point that knocked out the entire network for some reason (don't know why I could not at least detect #s 1-3).  Once it dried out, it worked fine.  I have done some extra water proofing to avoid future problems.  

Regarding the G4 MP3 Director, I finally got a response on my helpdesk ticket.  They suggested resetting it.  That seemed to do the trick as it is working perfectly so far.  In an effort to help others in the future, here are the LOR helpdesk instructions for resetting.

• You can try resetting the MP3 director. To do this you hold the up and down buttons at the same time for a while and you should see a rset in the screen. Depending on the firmware you may need to hold the up down and select buttons.... If it does not reset at all then you may need to update the firmware in the director.

I found the "reset" quite by accident when I was trying to update the firmware in mine.   In my original DC-MP3 Director I could see the firmware that was in the Director, but the HU would not show me the firmware that was loaded in my N4-G4 MP3 Director, and I tried everything I could to see it before I opted to update the firmware to the latest on the LOR main website to the newest firmware revision.   Which I did because I didn't know what firmware was in the unit.   One thing I had to go through though is I had to start with the oldest firmware and work my may up to the latest version.   When I tried to load the latest version, the unit said "LOAd" on the display, but then a pop up error box kept opening one after another and kept on going and going.   Had to start Task Manager and end the process as the HU wouldn't close, I could not close all the windows that were popping up so fast, I'd close one and 3 more would open. 

It'd be nice if there was a way to VIEW what the firmware revision is in the N4-G4 MP3 Director, then I would have known WHICH revision I needed to start with.   As if you don't load them in order and you skip one, it seems to cause this crash in the HU when trying to update the firmware, and when it does, it scrambles the firmware file in the N4-G4 Director.   So I reset it, but it still wouldn't work until I loaded the first Firmware Revision into it, then it worked fine, loaded the next one in line, worked fine and kept loading each Firmware file until I got to the last and highest numbered Revision, loaded it and everything still worked.   But because I did not know what Firmware was in the N4-G4 Director, I loaded the FW out of sequence and it fouled the unit up, causing me to have to reload every FW revision available from the oldest until I got to the latest and newest revision.   Just something to be aware of.

Also glad to see you got everything worked out with your issues.

Now if LOR would just release a NEW MP3 Director Manual for the N4-G4 MP3 Director unit.  The one I have is dated December 6, 2012 and is for the dual port G3-MP3 Director{pictured on the manual cover}.  So I'm thinking a lot of additional criteria on how the N4-G3 and N4-G4 MP3 Directors function might be in a newer manual that covers them.  An addendum sheet I got with my N4-G4 MP3 Director gives a year of 2019. so I'm sort of surprised there isn't a manual for the newer 4 port units yet.   Sure would help a lot if there was.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Orville

[LOR Staff]

10 hours ago, Orville said:

It'd be nice if there was a way to VIEW what the firmware revision is in the N4-G4 MP3 Director,

Connect MP3 director to USB adapter and power on no SD card.

Goto MP3 tab of HWU

Version is shown in the bottom right.

Should be true for ALL directors.

[Orville]

On 11/5/2020 at 2:26 PM, DevMike said:

Connect MP3 director to USB adapter and power on no SD card.

Goto MP3 tab of HWU

Version is shown in the bottom right.

Should be true for ALL directors.

Exactly what I did DevMike.  But all I got was a blank box at that location, all boxes were empty, tried a refresh and still got nothing. 

Tried disconnecting and used the external LOR power adapter, still got nothing that showed me the firmware or even the MP3 was connected{this prior do doing any firmware updates}.  But I could send the Set Time from the PC to it.   There was no SD Card in the Director and I use the USB485B adapter, which always worked and supplied power for my original DC-MP3 Director and, again, did exactly as you stated, but when I connect the G4, i just get a blank box there from the MP3 tab in the HU.

Just tried it again, I thought it was in the box at the bottom right, but that's the set time box that shows the computers time clock and date, so even though I was looking at that area, all I saw was the gray color background and nothing anywhere in that lower right quadrant.

So the other day it didn't show me anything ABOVE that box, which it did just now, and showed me "MP3 Connected -V6.7", but prior to doing the FW updates, no MP3 Connected or firmware info was being shown there.   Yet, I could still send the set time from PC to the Director and it accepted it.  Thinking maybe I forgot to unplug the MP3 Director to power it off, then reconnect it after updating the firmware, and maybe that caused this particular issue.  But I don't really know.

But it's working like it's supposed to now.

p.s. hope my explanation wasn't too confusing.

Edited November 7, 2020 by Orville

[Veuzni]

Hello sorry for my english i m french debutant. I have 2 controller and g3 mp3 director. This year i insert dmx with enttec dongle usb. Enttec run perfectly with pc usb but i don t anderstand the cable i need to connect enttec at g3 mp3 or controller...