Orville Posted October 17, 2021 Author Share Posted October 17, 2021 19 minutes ago, TheDucks said: You seem to be describing 2 different issues 1) self test (test pattern) does not run. You do not even need a network for this 2) fails to see the network From those 2, I would suspect there is a low level fault and the controller never finished initializing. 💡 Force a firmware update (with Only one controller connected: option) . I betcha the FW is corrupt If the HU can't find it, how can I "force" a firmware update? HU has to SEE it before it can upload the FW into it. Unless there is something I don't know, I see no way of forcing a FW update into it. If there is a way to do that, I'd sure like to know how! I know you don't need a network for the self test to run, but the LED starts flashing like the self test pattern IS running, but nothing lights on any port when it is in that state. The floodlights when connected just stay on at low intensity blue, the other RGB lights, 12V square nodes {3 strands of 100} and 7 CCR's do nothing at all, don't come on, no test pattern, no lights came on, disconnected the floods and tried again, still nothing on anything still connected. The floods were on the very last port, port 16. Tried plugging the square nodes and the CCR's into Port 16, no lights, no test pattern when the LED shows it should be running the test patterns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted October 17, 2021 Share Posted October 17, 2021 2 hours ago, Orville said: If the HU can't find it, how can I "force" a firmware update? HU has to SEE it before it can upload the FW into it. Unless there is something I don't know, I see no way of forcing a FW update into it. If there is a way to do that, I'd sure like to know how! I know you don't need a network for the self test to run, but the LED starts flashing like the self test pattern IS running, but nothing lights on any port when it is in that state. The floodlights when connected just stay on at low intensity blue, the other RGB lights, 12V square nodes {3 strands of 100} and 7 CCR's do nothing at all, don't come on, no test pattern, no lights came on, disconnected the floods and tried again, still nothing on anything still connected. The floods were on the very last port, port 16. Tried plugging the square nodes and the CCR's into Port 16, no lights, no test pattern when the LED shows it should be running the test patterns. That is why the ONLY one FW mode is there. It does not use an address. Been there, borked a Pixie4 update. Went out and disconnected the others and it ran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 17, 2021 Share Posted October 17, 2021 3 hours ago, Orville said: Yep, the 12V square nodes briefly flash pixel 1 red, and they stay off, but the controller still has a blinking red LED, it won't go steady no matter what RGB lights are on it. I tried the CCR ribbons {first set of 3 pixels flashed blue}, as well as the square nodes you sent with it, no go on anything. Pixie just won't reset, red LED just won't go on steady. Even tried various cat5 cables that I know are good, tested and verified with a cat5 tester, even opened a brand new cat5 cable and tried that, tried going straight to the connector jack inside the box via each side of the cat5 jack, disconnecting the one that was installed, although tested good when I used a good cat5 with the cat5 tester and each end plugged in to the tester, so showed data is getting through, but just not through to the board, apparently. I can find nothing wrong, nothing looks burned, scorched or melted in or on the PCB anywhere. So I'm not sure what to think, nor do I have any inkling of an idea what the issue is on why it won't reset. Send the controller board back to me. I can look at it. JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 17, 2021 Share Posted October 17, 2021 (edited) 23 minutes ago, TheDucks said: That is why the ONLY one FW mode is there. It does not use an address. Been there, borked a Pixie4 update. Went out and disconnected the others and it ran If the HU cannot find the unit , the FW cannot be updated. You have two choices 1- select he unit to be updated (from the list of found controllers) or 2- Update the only one connected, it must be discovered and in the found unit window The difference in your “borked” update is that the pixie4 would have had to be found. That is why it is recommended to only have one controller connected while updating. JR Edited October 17, 2021 by dibblejr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 17, 2021 Author Share Posted October 17, 2021 9 hours ago, dibblejr said: If the HU cannot find the unit , the FW cannot be updated. You have two choices 1- select he unit to be updated (from the list of found controllers) or 2- Update the only one connected, it must be discovered and in the found unit window The difference in your “borked” update is that the pixie4 would have had to be found. That is why it is recommended to only have one controller connected while updating. JR Any time I update FW, I only do it ONE Controller at a time, Same if I'm re-arranging unit ID numbers, I do them one at a time, and only one is connected during any FW updates or ID changes, learned that the hard way years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 17, 2021 Author Share Posted October 17, 2021 (edited) Just an update and an observation, I found my multimeter and checked the voltage at the board, both power supplies are sending 12.02VDC to the board, so that shouldn't be an issue. But I watched the RED Light blinking pattern while in "standby" mode, and from the way it is blinking, I think that blink pattern does mean the bootloader is not working or been somehow lost, it is blinking quickly, around 3-4 times a second, a normal controller usually blinks at around once per second. At least looking at my CCB100D's and G1V2 CTB16PC units blink at that rate in standby mode, then go steady when connected to the HU for testing, or to the MP3 Director when a sequence is playing from an SD Card with a test sequence on it. So I'm almost 100% sure The Ducks is correct, the FW is definitely hosed, I had this happen on one of my CTBPC controllers years ago, but I was able to recover that with a controller reset using the jumper method described in its manual. But the Pixie16D's reset button isn't doing anything to reset the controller. Now if there was another way to reset this beast, it might have been possible to recover and reload the FW into it. I did try The Ducks suggestion, but all the HU did was say "Searching for Controller", but never changed and never uploaded the FW. I tried doing it without selecting anything, but that wouldn't do anything at all, then I tried selecting the radio button for "only one controller connected", that's when it said it was searching, I let it run like that for a few hours, but nothing ever happened, and it never updated the FW back into the controller. Was still saying it was searching, but if it didn't find it after 3 hours or so, it wasn't going to. If there was a way I could force the FW back into the Pixie16D, I'm seriously thinking that would probably resolve the problem with it, as everything else looks to check out properly, so if the FW is corrupted and the bootloader is damaged, I have no idea how one would fix that in this particular controller model. I would hope there would be a way without having to take it all apart to send the Pixie 16D board to LOR for the FW to be fixed. What a pain this will be to do and really is something I'm not at all comfortable doing at this time. It's still mounted where I placed it for the time being, and will probably hang there until it gets a little cooler around here for me to take it down. It took 2 of us to mount it, so will have to find some help in taking it back down. Just too large, bulky, and heavy for me to handle by myself. Edited October 17, 2021 by Orville Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twiggy140 Posted October 17, 2021 Share Posted October 17, 2021 New to the forum, but I'm pretty sure that I have the same issue with a Pixie 16 V4 controller that I bought last year. I never got it deployed in 2020 and was hoping to have it running for the show this year. It worked great one night testing a show. Went to bed, came out the next morning and found a bunch of random pixels stuck on on different ports. All different colors, intensities, ports, and nodes. Rebooted the controller, found no network connection light blinking. I've tried everything listed above, and it seems I'm in the same boat. A controller that cannot be firmware reloaded, due to the HU never finding a place to push the firmware. Following this thread to see if you all find a solution. Hoping soon, since I've finished outlining the house and windows in pixels, and won't have much of a show without this controller working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 3 hours ago, Twiggy140 said: New to the forum, but I'm pretty sure that I have the same issue with a Pixie 16 V4 controller that I bought last year. I never got it deployed in 2020 and was hoping to have it running for the show this year. It worked great one night testing a show. Went to bed, came out the next morning and found a bunch of random pixels stuck on on different ports. All different colors, intensities, ports, and nodes. Rebooted the controller, found no network connection light blinking. I've tried everything listed above, and it seems I'm in the same boat. A controller that cannot be firmware reloaded, due to the HU never finding a place to push the firmware. Following this thread to see if you all find a solution. Hoping soon, since I've finished outlining the house and windows in pixels, and won't have much of a show without this controller working. I sent you a PM JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 18, 2021 Author Share Posted October 18, 2021 10 hours ago, Twiggy140 said: New to the forum, but I'm pretty sure that I have the same issue with a Pixie 16 V4 controller that I bought last year. I never got it deployed in 2020 and was hoping to have it running for the show this year. It worked great one night testing a show. Went to bed, came out the next morning and found a bunch of random pixels stuck on on different ports. All different colors, intensities, ports, and nodes. Rebooted the controller, found no network connection light blinking. I've tried everything listed above, and it seems I'm in the same boat. A controller that cannot be firmware reloaded, due to the HU never finding a place to push the firmware. Following this thread to see if you all find a solution. Hoping soon, since I've finished outlining the house and windows in pixels, and won't have much of a show without this controller working. Unfortunately, if it really is the FW has gotten corrupted in yours, and the HU can no longer find it, the ONLY folks I know that can correct this, would be the Light-O-Rama folks. They are the only ones that have the means to fix a FW issue. And that means sending either the entire controller or removing the circuit board to send to them for repair. Would be nice if these Controllers had a fail-safe that if they lost FW, they would still have a way to be found and re-instate or re-load the FW back into them at the end user level. Would sure save a lot of time if we had such a way. U'm 99.9% sure mine is definitely a FW issue, but it'd be nice if the controller still had a means to talk to the HU and tell you the FW has an issue and needs to be updated or re-installed from, again, the end user and not need to take it apart or send the entire unit back for correction. I see JR sent you a PM, so he might have other things for you to try, sometimes something that appears like a FW issue could be something else. And JR has been a great help to me and many others on this forum, but I'm afraid, if it does turn out to be a corrupt FW issue in yours, I truly believe the only solution left is to send it in to LOR for correction or repair. Was hoping a solution could have been found here too, so the HU would find my Pixie16, that way I could at least re-install the FW, and then see if that fixed the issues with mine😟, but I don't think there is.😟 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 3 hours ago, Orville said: Unfortunately, if it really is the FW has gotten corrupted in yours, and the HU can no longer find it, the ONLY folks I know that can correct this, would be the Light-O-Rama folks. They are the only ones that have the means to fix a FW issue. And that means sending either the entire controller or removing the circuit board to send to them for repair. Would be nice if these Controllers had a fail-safe that if they lost FW, they would still have a way to be found and re-instate or re-load the FW back into them at the end user level. Would sure save a lot of time if we had such a way. U'm 99.9% sure mine is definitely a FW issue, but it'd be nice if the controller still had a means to talk to the HU and tell you the FW has an issue and needs to be updated or re-installed from, again, the end user and not need to take it apart or send the entire unit back for correction. I see JR sent you a PM, so he might have other things for you to try, sometimes something that appears like a FW issue could be something else. And JR has been a great help to me and many others on this forum, but I'm afraid, if it does turn out to be a corrupt FW issue in yours, I truly believe the only solution left is to send it in to LOR for correction or repair. Was hoping a solution could have been found here too, so the HU would find my Pixie16, that way I could at least re-install the FW, and then see if that fixed the issues with mine😟, but I don't think there is.😟 Out of all of the 200+ or so that I have built, own and or repaired for others I have only had 1 and that was mine that had a FW problem. That was a V1 with the original fw that could not be updated. That one I had to send on to have engineers to resolve the issue. I have never seen or heard of a pixie16 "lose fw". I did have one friend who recently attempted to update his fw with multiple controllers connected and I received the emergency help call. It reset several of his controllers some how but that was an easy fix and we got everything back up in a short time. (his error, not the hardware or LOR's) If you take the board out and send it to me I will throw it on my bench. I do not need anything else. You have my address and I am closer than LOR. Or you can send the entire controller if you dont feel like you want to take it apart. JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 Orville That is what the Bootloader is. If you are at a Fast Flashing LED, there is no ID to find. Thus the need to do a blind (Isolated: only one on the cable) update. It may be that your Network chip in the controller is bad and the controller has become deaf to network traffic. You live in an area known for ESD (Lightning 😛) and you do not need a direct strike to get induced spikes from Ground (the soil) currents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 18, 2021 Author Share Posted October 18, 2021 5 hours ago, TheDucks said: Orville That is what the Bootloader is. If you are at a Fast Flashing LED, there is no ID to find. Thus the need to do a blind (Isolated: only one on the cable) update. It may be that your Network chip in the controller is bad and the controller has become deaf to network traffic. You live in an area known for ESD (Lightning 😛) and you do not need a direct strike to get induced spikes from Ground (the soil) currents. But trying to do a blind FW update doesn't work with the Pixie16 or any other controllers I have, if the HU can not see it, it literally is not there to send anything too. I let the FW update run the other day for 3, perhaps possibly 4+ hours, only ONE cat5 from Red HS Adapter to Pixie16, nothing, nada, was connected anywhere else. All the HU did was sit there for all those hours and show "Searching" in the box under Activity, no download ever commenced. So there is no way to do a blind FW update with this controller, tried it, and it just sat there and did nothing, never came back with controller not found or anything other than the word "Searching" in the box under Activity. I figured after 3 to 4+ hours, it's not going to send anything to the controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 (edited) I had the pleasure of speaking with Twiggy140 on the phone. After a brief discussion learned his license level was only Advanced so that is probably the reason his pixie16 is no longer discovered in HU. All settings are now correct so when he upgrades to Pro he should be good to go and if it is still undiscoverable it will be a com chip problem. If that is the case he will send it to me for repair but I am almost certain it will work once he has upgraded to the Pro license. Not sure why it worked the first time but it could be if he had assigned multiple IDs that it was lighting from that but that is just a hunch. JR Edited October 19, 2021 by dibblejr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 56 minutes ago, dibblejr said: After a brief discussion learned his license level was only Advanced so that is probably the reason his pixie16 is no longer discovered in HU. That fails my sanity check. Hardware Utility does not care about license level and ALWAYS operates non-Enhanced. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, k6ccc said: That fails my sanity check. Hardware Utility does not care about license level and ALWAYS operates non-Enhanced. Not to sure about that. I remember 1 other person a while back that could not locate a pixie due to not having a pro license, however I cannot recall if he had a basic or advanced license. Not in the case of the OP but remember a pixie controller will not be found in the HU if the HU is not 4.4.0 or above since the pixie was not added until 4.4.0 Have to attempt to rule it out since the OP will require a Pro license to use the pixie controller as required with the Enhanced net work. He understands my reasoning. If it doesn’t work it will more than Likely be a defective com chip in which case I can replace in a day turn around time. Just have to make all things equal before ruling out all possibilities. Troubleshooting 101. JR Edited October 19, 2021 by dibblejr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 JR I am not sure where you got the idea that Pixies REQUIRE enhanced. That IS TRUE for the Pixcon per https://www1.lightorama.com/network-speeds/ OTOH A Pixie 16 fully loaded could benefit the network by using enhanced Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibblejr Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 (edited) 10 minutes ago, TheDucks said: JR I am not sure where you got the idea that Pixies REQUIRE enhanced. That IS TRUE for the Pixcon per https://www1.lightorama.com/network-speeds/ OTOH A Pixie 16 fully loaded could benefit the network by using enhanced Enhanced is REQUIRED for a pixie16. (Pixie controller) Read the manual, do the research Manual page 5, second paragraph. Yes it sort of contradicts itself but typos do happen but the second part stateS “ ELOR network is required to run the pixie correctly”. ELOR is only included in the Pro version. Its been like that since beta Also note- a Pixie16 can be run at 1000k only if there are no other controllers other than pixies on the associated network. JR Edited October 19, 2021 by dibblejr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 5 hours ago, dibblejr said: Enhanced is REQUIRED for a pixie16. (Pixie controller) Read the manual, do the research Manual page 5, second paragraph. Yes it sort of contradicts itself but typos do happen but the second part stateS “ ELOR network is required to run the pixie correctly”. ELOR is only included in the Pro version. Its been like that since beta Also note- a Pixie16 can be run at 1000k only if there are no other controllers other than pixies on the associated network. JR I see what you mean about wording. There are a bunch of iffy (meaning open for alternate interpretation) ones on that page. Pixies do not require Ethernet. THEY CAN"T USE Ethernet. I can see how there might be confusion to a novice. Required ELOR to fully utilize, is not the same a Mandatory, which is what I interpreted your statement as.🙁 (I had not bothered to fully read the Gen2 (includes Pixie2) manual, as I already had a Xeroxed Gen 1 manual that came with my Pixie4's years ago. I had just looked at the jumper/configuration pages for my Gen2 Pixie4's and noted the changes: Termination, No accessory power on the RJ45.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 19, 2021 Author Share Posted October 19, 2021 4 hours ago, TheDucks said: I see what you mean about wording. There are a bunch of iffy (meaning open for alternate interpretation) ones on that page. Pixies do not require Ethernet. THEY CAN"T USE Ethernet. I can see how there might be confusion to a novice. Required ELOR to fully utilize, is not the same a Mandatory, which is what I interpreted your statement as.🙁 (I had not bothered to fully read the Gen2 (includes Pixie2) manual, as I already had a Xeroxed Gen 1 manual that came with my Pixie4's years ago. I had just looked at the jumper/configuration pages for my Gen2 Pixie4's and noted the changes: Termination, No accessory power on the RJ45.) Yep, wording and information that isn't crystal clear in a manual can lead to all sorts of issues, especially when typing a response here. I know, I got tossed into the hoosegow here {Mod Que} for posting misinformation on the N4-G4 MP3 Director, but what I posted I got from the manual, but the manual was incorrect, and the real info was in the documentation of the S5 software, which I never would have, and did not know at the time, as I wasn't even looking at S5 at the time. So I'd have never seen this info, someone posted a link way after my post, I believe it was Aubrey that did {or she sent it to in a PM}, and then I could see for certain what I had posted was, in fact, inaccurate. But I honestly did not know it was at the time of my writing my reply to that particular N4-G4 thread. And I sure would not have thought to look in the S5 Software documentation for that content, since, again, I was not using S5 at the time. Not only did that get me into trouble, which could have been avoided, providing that info in the manual had been updated or added. That info SHOULD be in the N2-G4/N4-G4 manual as well. Since it wasn't, I responded with something I truly believed to be accurate from the manual, but was not So RTFM does not always apply! Because you may read it, misinterpret it, or it just is not clearly worded that makes it crystal clear, so interpretation is open to the end user, and they might just get it wrong. And then post something inaccurately, but not realize it. I know it can happen, because it happened to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted October 19, 2021 Author Share Posted October 19, 2021 On 10/18/2021 at 9:31 AM, dibblejr said: Out of all of the 200+ or so that I have built, own and or repaired for others I have only had 1 and that was mine that had a FW problem. That was a V1 with the original fw that could not be updated. That one I had to send on to have engineers to resolve the issue. I have never seen or heard of a pixie16 "lose fw". I did have one friend who recently attempted to update his fw with multiple controllers connected and I received the emergency help call. It reset several of his controllers some how but that was an easy fix and we got everything back up in a short time. (his error, not the hardware or LOR's) If you take the board out and send it to me I will throw it on my bench. I do not need anything else. You have my address and I am closer than LOR. Or you can send the entire controller if you dont feel like you want to take it apart. JR Finally, got the Pixie16 down this morning {Tues. 10/19 in the early AM}, tried doing the "blind" FW update again, and just unplugged it, as the HU never did a thing with it, following with what The Ducks said to try. Been running with the HU attempting to upload the FW since 7am this morning, I just stopped everything around 3:30pm today. So if it's not the FW, it could very well be the com chip that's gone belly up. I'm going to see if I can remove the board and send it to you. May take me some time in doing that, since I'm going to have to find a way to the post office or UPS to get it sent off to you. Not having a car and unable to drive, and being miles away from these places makes it a bit more difficult for me to get things sent out. But will see what I can do. Not sure if I may have the proper size screwdriver to take the dangles off from the connectors. So will have to see if I may have something that'll fit, so I can unscrew the dangles from the board. I had an entire set of jewelers screwdrivers, but a couple of "former roommates" stole them. I know where I had them, and when they moved out, went to get them since I also use them on similar connectors on the Sound Boards in my G gauge trans, but when I went to get them, they were gone, and they were the only people in here moving stuff out. So now I've got to find some replacements because of them.😠 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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