Show Not Consistently Working (Writing Issue?)

[Griswold]

Hi,

I am new to the forum but had LOR for about 4-5 years now. I utilize it for my Christmas and Halloween displays. 
 

I run the show off of the G4-MP3 Director. I write the show each year as I do something different for Halloween. The last two years I have been running into an issue where my show is very hit or miss on working. I will write the same show that worked in the past and it will randomly cut off or shut off. So I go back to my computer and write it again and try and it may shut off at a different spot, or my tree might not work the next time or music won’t work. I basically have to keep rewriting until it finally decides that it likes that and will fully work. As you can imagine this is frustrating when changing items of the show. 
 

Any suggestions on why it may do this? Thanks!

More details:

-software is v5.3.8

-I always create with advanced settings as basic never works

-My show works perfectly once I get to the point that it works from rewriting 100 times (exaggeration). 
-I have a computer I built with an i7 8700 and 1080ti so there is enough processing power

edit: adding that I got a new sd card and reader to see if that was the issue but still have the same problem

Edited December 9, 2023 by Griswold

[k6ccc]

Can't help you with a Director issue as I have never used one.  However, where are you in California?

Also suggest that you edit your forum profile to show what software version you are using.  Many questions that come up have different answers depending on the software version.

 

[Griswold]

Thanks, I tried but didn’t have my version in the selection so I put it in the post. 

[Orville]

7 hours ago, Griswold said:

Thanks, I tried but didn’t have my version in the selection so I put it in the post. 

Are you using Kingston SD Cards and what capacity?   The N4G4 Directors can become very flaky with other brands of SD Cards, and won't go higher than 32GB capacity.

I use Kingston 16GB and 32GB SD Cards in my Director, I have other brands that I use in my Digital Camera and Cell Phones, but if I write a show to them, it writes it just fine, but the Director has issues with them, they are SanDisk, Samsung and some off brand I got somewhere, but my N4G4 doesn't like them, and have had issues like you describe when attempting to use them. 

Although, I did have one SD Card (Kingston 32GB) go bad this year.  Wouldn't know it, I could write a show to it, and sometimes after rewriting numerous times, the card would work for a little while  but would eventually fail while running a show, just as you describe.  So, your SD Card might be bad  mine was, and I could format it(quick format), write to it, copy from it, seemed to be fine until I tried to do a standard format, then it crashed and got a drive couldn't be formatted error, but, yet, I could still do a quick format on it.  That was weird.

Replaced with new Kingston 32GB SD card and no further issues.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Orville

[Griswold]

Thanks! My original is a Kingston but I got two more to test that are not. I will order another Kingston and try that as well. Appreciate the suggestion. 

[Mscannic]

I have same issue.  PNY disks used to work for me just fine.  But i did find some kingston 8 on amazon and will try those next time show crashes.  I did find that one of my shows had pixel power at 100% so i changed to 30% - not sure that was it but then i went down from 7 songs to 6 and it's holding for a few days now.  Just crashed today after working steadily for 3 days.  

[Orville]

4 hours ago, Mscannic said:

I have same issue.  PNY disks used to work for me just fine.  But i did find some kingston 8 on amazon and will try those next time show crashes.  I did find that one of my shows had pixel power at 100% so i changed to 30% - not sure that was it but then i went down from 7 songs to 6 and it's holding for a few days now.  Just crashed today after working steadily for 3 days.  

Similar issue when I used anything but a Kingston SD Card. 

I use the higher speed SD Cards used in cell phones and high end digital cameras, 16GB and 32GB(maximum size for N4G4 Directors) respectively.

No issues unless the SD Card wears out, which I had one go bad this past year, but it had been written to, lord knows how many times, as it was my test sequence card and some days I may have written to it over 30-40+ times a day when I'd make changes and run a test.  Wore that poor card down, lasted about 2.5 years before it wouldn't work properly.

I won't use anything but a Kingston SD Card, all others have been hit or miss, majority were a miss, and even those that appeared to work, developed problems within 3-5 days of being in the Director.  No thanks, Kingston works and is the recommended SD card, and in this case the recommended SD Card should be the one used in your Director.

[Griswold]

ISSUE SOLVED: Wanted to say thanks. Looks like the issue is solved (until we have another SD card issue). For anyone looking for the solution, I took Orville’s advice. I got a new KINGSTON sd card. The other brands I used had the same issues. First try with the new Kingston Industrial 16gb sd card and it has worked. Thanks Orville and everyone else for input. 

[Orville]

1 hour ago, Griswold said:

ISSUE SOLVED: Wanted to say thanks. Looks like the issue is solved (until we have another SD card issue). For anyone looking for the solution, I took Orville’s advice. I got a new KINGSTON sd card. The other brands I used had the same issues. First try with the new Kingston Industrial 16gb sd card and it has worked. Thanks Orville and everyone else for input. 

Glad that resolved your issue.  Hopefully that issue won't crop up again for the rest of the season. :)

This is why I won't use anything but KINGSTON SD Cards in my Director!

Edited December 13, 2023 by Orville
Darn, I can't type worth a ding dong tonight! Had to edit 3 or 4 times to fix bloopers/typos! LOL