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Troubles with Actidongle DMX and USB485 Dongle


johnson8ryley

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Apologies in advance for this being so long. 

I'm going to somewhat copy and paste what I sent to LOR support today, but given it's now the weekend I don't anticipate them replying till Monday. 

I've always had a combination of LOR, DMX, and E1.31 items. Nothing changed from last year besides the addition of a pixel mega tree which I added just fine to the network preferences. 

 

I'm having issues with the LOR USB485 dongle and mostly with an Actidongle (knockoff Enttec DMX dongle) from HolidayCoro.
I have tested the actidongle with xlights and am able to successfully test/control lights using the actidongle through xlights. So I know this issue lies somewhere with LOR.

Problem 1: Actidongle doesn't turn lights on/off despite being recognized by LOR
The actidongle has green and yellow lights on the ethernet port. Sometimes they light up when plugged into the PC, sometimes they don't. When they do come on, it shows up in device manager under COM4 (I have updated and reinstalled D2XX drivers from FTDI multiple times. I've also reinstalled the LOR USB485 drivers multiple times).
When I plug in the LOR USB485 dongle, it shows up under COM5 and LOR network preferences has it's regular network set to COM 5. But when I enable the show and it begins playing, I get a "A400145q: Cannot write ENTTEC header" followed with a repetitive "A400145q: Cannot open adapter" error in Comm Listener. However, the DMX USB adapter opened just fine beforehand in the comm listener. For this error, please see screenshot "Cannot Open Adapter"

Problem 2:
After problem #1, I close LOR. Unplug actidongle and plug it back in. I then open LOR and get the error "shows cannot be enable because the comm port is already open. If the LOR hardware utility is running, shut it down and then enable shows.". For the record, no, hardware utility is not open. I am unable to enable the show schedule as that error continually pops up. The solution? Unplugging the LOR USB485 adapter, closing LOR, plugging adapter back in and opening LOR.


Here's where things get a little sloppy. The tests performed in this were done on my main programming PC. I have a separate PC that runs the show. However, I still get both of the errors listed above on both machines. Both have same network config settings and such (show PC is on its own isolated network). The only errors that I notice on my show PC that I don't get on my main PC are: in the console I'll occasionally see a "A400145q: Cannot write dmx intensities". Also when plugging in the actidongle into my show PC I get a windows error message that says "USB Device Not Recognized. One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it". The PC is a little old so I'm wondering if it's just an issue with that PC itself as I don't get that error on my main PC. FYI main PC is on windows 10 up to date. Show PC is windows 7 up to date.
 

Thank you guys so much in advance!

Cannot Open Adapter.png

Comm Port is Already Open.png

Edited by johnson8ryley
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Edit: I think the 2nd problem was coming from me incorrectly choosing the wrong DMX adapter within network settings. I think I was may have actually been choosing the LOR adapter, hence the name "A400145q". I'm not sure how or why, but at times there are 2 adapters to choose from within DMX network preferences. Device A400145q and device AH5H1N1E. (ironically as I type this, device A400145q disappeared and now only AH5H1N1E is showing up while the actidongle so I assume that is the correct device)

However, even if I choose AH5H1N1E, I still get the same errors as before. But instead of comm listener referring to the device as A400145q, it's title adapter name is AH5H1N1E. It still throws all the same errors as before 

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7 hours ago, johnson8ryley said:

The actidongle has green and yellow lights on the ethernet port.

I assume this is a USB to DMX over RS-485 adapter with a RJ-45 connector for the DMX.  If that is the case, please get out of the habit of calling the DMX connector "ethernet".  It's RS-485 serial, not Ethernet.  If you think of it as "Ethernet", it increases the chance of plugging a cable into the wrong port which CAN result in the magic blue smoke leaking out of something.  Also, my standard advice for people using both RS-485 serial and Ethernet (E1.31) in their show.  Use different color cables.  Makes it harder to plug into the wrong device.  In my case, my LOR networks are purple cable and my E1.31 cables are green.

As far as identifying ports, my standard suggestion is to unplug all the USB adapters, and open the Windows Device Manager.  Expand the section on "Ports (COM & LPT)".  Note which if any comm port numbers are assigned.  Then plug in ONE of your LOR or DMX adapters, and watch for a new Comm port assignment to show up.  Note which comm port number goes with that adapter.  Repeat for each additional adapter - ONE at a time.  After doing this, you will KNOW (not think you know) which comm port is which.

 

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This issue can be closed. Since I have a alphapix RGB controller from Holidaycoro (makers of the Actidongle), they instructed me to wire my dumb RGB controller directly to my alphapix controller. This solved the issue by eliminating the actidongle altogether. 

For those curious how this was done, it did require some wiring but I'm fairly confident most people would be able to follow the instructions they sent me below:

https://www.holidaycoro.com/kb_results.asp?ID=128

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Thanks for the advice Jim. Yeah, I have a tendency to refer to DMX over RS485 with an RJ45 connector as "ethernet". I promise I know the difference but I clearly didn't convey that very well. And yes, the actidongle is a usb to dmx over rs485 with an rj45 device. 

I thought I mentioned it in the original post, but I had already used device manager to determine which COMM port was the LOR dongle and which COMM port was the actidongle. 

LOR weekend support staff has been in contact with me, they're not really sure what was causing the issue but they're going to have their engineers look at it on Monday. In the mean time, if anyone else is having this issue, what solved problem #2 for me in the original post was removing the dongle from LOR network preferences. Once I removed it from network preferences, I was able to start the show 

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Glad you got it working.  I would agree that using the DMX out from the E1.31 controller is likely the best answer.

Yes, I thought you had at least partially answered some of the things I asked about, but when troubleshooting, I tend to be very specific, because otherwise assumptions get made and problems don't get fixed...

 

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