rmturner54 Posted December 17, 2023 Share Posted December 17, 2023 Here is my setup Show 1 Mon/Wed, Show 2 Tues/Thur, Show 3 Friday, Show 4 Sat, Show 5 Sun, Show 6 After show animation for all 7 days. Everything was running perfect until a few nights ago , then I noticed the After show lights were not working. The director was qued up to show 6 based on the display. Re-booting and cycling the SD did not fix it. I let it go for 3 days to see if it was a glitch. Swapped out the SD card with my spare copy of the shows. Same results. That next morning I reformatted both SD cards(deep format not quick) Created a single show with my After hour lights seq. Set a test time and the director would que show but nothng would played(both SD cards). Also tried my testing with one of my music seq's, same thing. All 4 controllers had power and a healthy network. Hoodked computer and ran HU. Everything tested perfect. So at this point Iam running my show from the computer. I started a trouble ticket also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 18, 2023 Author Share Posted December 18, 2023 I performed the FM upgrade. Will test it tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 18, 2023 Author Share Posted December 18, 2023 I did a test seq using several different SD cards. I tried checking the box , Using Gen 3 or higher director and tried it unchecked. I tried a timed start and a start when director has power. Nothing worked. The director goes from wait to init and that s where it stays. Waiting on the help desk to give me direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hasslerk Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Hmmm...this problem seems familiar to me. You did not make any changes to anything when you noticed it stopped working (and you are positive it was working)? Does it have audio or is it just an animation? In my early days, I found that if the audio was corrupt, or not sampled correctly it would send my director into an INIT state. But we have come a long way since then. I currently have an N4G4 and even though upgraded to current firmware I still observe glitches from time-to-time. For the record, I have given up on non-audio animations with my current director because they just do not seem to work; I use music behind everything. I also ran into issues in the past having a show stop at midnight. I now set it to 11:59PM. I reformat my card (fast) every time before writing a show. I never edit a show; everything is written fresh every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 18, 2023 Author Share Posted December 18, 2023 (edited) 100% postive on the no audio.No changes were made, all last years stuff. I also reformat-quick and start fresh when revising a show or adding. Its a pain that way, but has always worked. But this year is the same as last year. I am even using the same cat5 connector on the board for power and the same to connetor to run the show from the PC, so I know its not a connector issue either Edited December 18, 2023 by rmturner54 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgander Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 I don't think this is your issue but I will say for the directors, you really have to use the Kingston SD cards (nothing above 32gb) and make sure your audio is at 128kbps constant bit rate. Not sure what it is about the directors but they get flakey with anything but. My first year it went fine, the 2nd year I had issues similar as yours and making these changes fixed it. I now have a stash of Kingston SD cards just for this and make sure everything is at 128. Some have said they can export to a higher setting but 128 works fine for my FM Transmitter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 Thanks for the reply. My SD cards are KIngston 16GB. As far as the bit rate it hasnt changed since I started w the Dir at 192bps. This started with my animation seq ( after hours lights). And tehn slowly degraded to what it is now. My shows running from the computer work great with 192bps. I will continue to play with this. THe help desk has not responded yet. For now its computer till the holidays are done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hasslerk Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 As I said earlier, I have had nothing but problems with animations on a director. Just pick a song for after hours that you expect no one to listen to, and copy/paste your animation into a sequence and you should be able to move on while investigating the animation problem another time. All my pre-show/after-show/after season lighting are sequences with music and not animations. Just turn off your tune-to sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 (edited) i hear what your saying, but I have never had an issue playing either one last year and this year up till recently. The help desk suggested another cat 5 cable from controller to Dir, I tested mine and it was good but to satify the masses I tried another cable. I did notice that a test seq with music acted different that just an animation. With music the dir did reconize the start time of the seq and played the music but no lights. Animation no lights obviously Edited December 19, 2023 by rmturner54 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 THe help desk just will not even admit that there is a posisibility that the dir might be bad. The test I just performed was. used my exsisting computer cat5 to the usb adapter and connect the possible bad cat5 cable that I have been using all this time, plug it into the(same board connector), agaim, same connector I use for my show from the computer and see if the HU will find all controllers. Which is does and thats what I expected. SO, no bad board connector or bad cable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 Humor me. What firmware version? What brand of SD card? What happens when you load these files onto the SD card? https://share.donteague.com/y2e7tr0g (Unzip to computer FIRST, then copy to SD card.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 34 minutes ago, rmturner54 said: THe help desk just will not even admit that there is a posisibility that the dir might be bad. One of the other local light shows that uses a N4G4 director is having issues on two songs. Kinda the same thing, the Help Desk refused to believe it was the Director. After A LOT of back and forth, the Help Desk is finally admitting that the problem is not in the sequencing. They want him to do a firmware update, but understandably not something he wants to do a week before Christmas! He said he will likely try that next week. As a sanity check, we're trying to come up with enough USB to RS-485 adapters in order to run the show from a computer for a night (but between the two of us, we're short one adapter). Checking with another local guy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 20 minutes ago, Don said: Humor me. What firmware version? What brand of SD card? What happens when you load these files onto the SD card? https://share.donteague.com/y2e7tr0g (Unzip to computer FIRST, then copy to SD card.) Kingston 16gd, firmware ver...what ever the latest is on the website(sorry not home rt now). SD card writes normal. . I willtry the file later, tks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 17 minutes ago, k6ccc said: One of the other local light shows that uses a N4G4 director is having issues on two songs. Kinda the same thing, the Help Desk refused to believe it was the Director. After A LOT of back and forth, the Help Desk is finally admitting that the problem is not in the sequencing. They want him to do a firmware update, but understandably not something he wants to do a week before Christmas! He said he will likely try that next week. As a sanity check, we're trying to come up with enough USB to RS-485 adapters in order to run the show from a computer for a night (but between the two of us, we're short one adapter). Checking with another local guy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 Now they want me to rewrite the SD card using N2, instead of N1. Ugh!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 (edited) 7 hours ago, dgander said: I don't think this is your issue but I will say for the directors, you really have to use the Kingston SD cards (nothing above 32gb) and make sure your audio is at 128kbps constant bit rate. Not sure what it is about the directors but they get flakey with anything but. My first year it went fine, the 2nd year I had issues similar as yours and making these changes fixed it. I now have a stash of Kingston SD cards just for this and make sure everything is at 128. Some have said they can export to a higher setting but 128 works fine for my FM Transmitter. The newer Directors (N4G4) work fine with 320K bit rate MP3 files, even though they aren't the recommended bit rate of 128k, I've been using 320K for over 2+ years and haven't had a single issue with them. They also work with my FM Transmitter(s) I've tested them with (I have 3 FM transmitters, but only use one in my display of course.) And I only use the higher speed Kingston SD Cards in my N4G4 Director(16GB or 32GB, like used in high end digital cameras, security cameras or cell phones). Anything less, and my Director seems to choke on them. I also use animations with my Director, never any issues with animations, and I have them from 10 minutes, and up to 4 hours in length. BTW: I also updated my Director to the latest Firmware, and no issues in doing so. I just updated it about 3-4 days ago and it operates 24/7 running off hours music, show files and overnight animation files. Edited December 19, 2023 by Orville 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 15 hours ago, rmturner54 said: I willtry the file later, tks Were you able to try the file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 20, 2023 Author Share Posted December 20, 2023 (edited) I will this morning. Was at a event last night. Iam assuming its a sequence? Edited December 20, 2023 by rmturner54 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 20, 2023 Author Share Posted December 20, 2023 1 hour ago, Don said: Were you able to try the file? I did and it worked perfect, THANK YOU. Then......I noticed the strangest thing. This all started with the after lights show not working, then I guess things compounded from there redoing SD cards etc....troubleshooting. Some how during all of that testing redoing etc the network/parameters selection when creating the sd card and been changed from LOR to LOR/ELOR. So everytime I would try a different seq is would default to the previous parameters Just by accident I noticed it on one of my seq files openong the SD. I tested now 4 different seq's for my show and we are back in business 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmturner54 Posted December 21, 2023 Author Share Posted December 21, 2023 Show started on que.....I am a happy camper😃😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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