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SD Card Plays First Song Over Over


Theresa Severson

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Can someone help me? I am currently setting up my Christmas display and will be using the MP3 Show Director to run my musical sequences. When I hooked up the box and inserted the SD Card (built using Simple Show Builder) I noticed the first song keeps looping and the SD Card doesn't play any of the other songs. I popped onto LOR's website to sign onto their forum (enrolled yesterday) and saw a posting from someone saying they were having that problem with their Halloween display. I didn't have the time to read it through and can't find it now.

Can someone help me fix my problem or point me in the direction of that posting so I can see if it is also my problem?

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What version of LOR are you running?

The problem you are thinking of was known to occur in versions of LOR2 prior to 2.5.6. (This issue was fixed in 2.5.6.) It would happen when a show was scheduled to start on a Saturday, and end on Sunday. See this http://lightorama.com/help/index.html?whats_new.htm for more information.

I simply don't recall if anyone had this issue with the MP3 player. (They may have, I just don't remember this early in the morning.)

If you are running any version prior to 2.5.6, I would upgrade to the most recent version (right now 2.6.0) and see if the problem continues.

http://lightorama.com/SoftwareDownloadPage.html

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Another thing to check is that the audio/media file is the same name as what the sequence is looking for. If the sequence can't find the right audio it will skip the it and go to the next one. I had 4 songs in my Halloween show, but only one played.

Good Luck

Scott

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If your audio files are WAV format they will be skipped over on the director card also.

No format checking in the software, it just assumes you have MP3 files. If you have a WAV file it will make a SEQ#.MP3 file on the SD card but will not play on the director, but will play on your computer, it will just will skip over the sequence to the next song.

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One way to verify what these guys are saying about incorrect media file. Would be to reconfigure your show and move the song that does play now to a different position in the show. If the same song plays then I would also look at the media file. If the song in the new position 1 only plays then look for more answers.

Chuck

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Theresa, I noticed you said you used the simple show builder for your MP3 director.

For some reason, it doesn't work well with the MP3 Show Director.

Try this.

1. Update to the latest version of LOR 2.6.0 Also, you'll need to make sure all your controllers and MP3 director have the latest firmware updates. Instructions are in the manual, or lots of help here.:) After you get set up with the updates, next...



2. Open up the LOR Hardware Utility, either through the LOR Control Panel (the blue bulb thingy in your system tray); or directly through start..programs..LOR..Hardware Utility. You'll see the HW utility window open up for you. Should have already seen this, if you updated the firmware.



3. There are some TABS along the top of the HW Util. You'll see one that says LOR MP3, click on that TAB. This is your MP3 Show Builder.



4. OK, if you are doing a schedule sequence, then you want to click in the button that says play during scheduled time.

This will open up your scheduler box.



5. Now we need to set the schedule. Very IMPORTANT! If you plan on running more than 1 show; ie different songs differnt nights.

You have to set the times for those shows to be slightly different. Otherwise, the MP3 show director will jsut keep repeating Show 1, never see's Show 2 etc.

I don't think this is fixed as of yet. No worries though. Just set start and stop times of by a minute.

Show 1 7pm-10pm, Show 2 6:59pm-10:01 PM, SHow 3 7:01pm-10:02pm...I think you get the idea. They have to be offset a littlwe to see the other Shows...no biggie.:)



6. OK, using the scheduler. It will onl;y utilize days. You can't set days of the month with this one.

First lets say you want to run your show Sun-Thurs from 7pm-10pm.

You'll see the empty boxes by the days. Put a Check Mark in Sunday,Mon,Tues...Thurs.

OK, once this is done, go to the bottom of the page. You'll see the place to set the times. Set your Start Hour for 7pm, and the End hr/min to 10pm.

Then click on the button that says change selected days. You'll see the days with the check mark, now show 7pm-10pm. Firday and Saturday will still show the default times of 5pm-10pm.

Ok, Now lets say you want to run the Show on Friday and Sat nights a littlle later in the evening.

First, hit the CLEAR Button, next to the Select All button. This gives you a clean slate of the days checked. NOw, go back and JUST select Fri,Sat.

You'll follow the above procedure to set those times. Again, change your start/end times to when you want your FRi-Sat shows to play. Click the "Change Selected days button again; you should just see the Fri,Sat times change. The other days are still set for 7-10pm...OK your rockin now.:)



7. Next we have to select our sequences for the SD card.

On the right side of that page you'll see a box that says "MP3 Player Showlist"

You'll see a button that says" Add Sequence" Click on this button. It will then open up your standard file selection box, locate the folder you have your sequences stored; then select the first song you want to play.

This gets a little tedious, as you can ONLY select 1 song at a time. You can't select mutiple songs with the MP3 showbuilder. Hopefully LOR folks can fix this some day.

So, after you have painstakingly selected your songs, and adjsuted the order; it's time to put the show on the SD card.



8. Ok, your show is set up. Click on the button "Create Show"

You'll get the standard warning, about making sure the SD card is inserted etc.

Now, again. VERY IMPORTANT. If you have formatted the card, or are going to format the card. YOU MUST USE FAT16 If you use FAT 32 or NTFS format, it will NOT work in the MP3 director.....trust me, I l;earned the HARD way.:)

Alright your card is in the reader, your ready to go.

2 things. If you have not set up your time on your LOR controllers and the director, it will be off on time. So you'll have to put a timestamp on the SD card. NO biggie.

Hardware Util helps. If you need to set a timestamp: Put a check in the add a file to set MP3 time clock.

At some point, a window will open up asking you to set a time. Basicaly, give yourself enough time to write your show to your card, go outside to the MP3 controller box, then insert the SD card at the time you seleted. I find 15mins works fine, if you have the cover off the controller.

When you do this, you'll see some blinking lights on the controller, that is normal. Shows it's read the time and the show, ready to go.

If on the other hand, you get a flashing red E LED light on the MP3 director, and flashing Red LED on the Controller...something is wrong. We'll have to figure that out at that time.

If you follow everything in order, that shouldn't be a problem. NO worries OK. :)

OK, getting back to Show Creation:



9. at the Top you'll see a Show selection box, select this to Show 1. You just need show 1, as your sequences are already scheduled properly.

You don't have to set a Show for each song.

Ok, now you have Show 1 selected; click mark in the add file to SD card time thing..leave the lock step unchecked, not necessary. also the recommended Comm speed of 57.6 works fine.

Make sure your drive list points to your SD card, if all that is set....click on the

"Place show on SD Card" button. You'll see another window pop up that shows the show is being written to the SD card.

after it is finished, you'll get a message telling you of your Sucess!:P



Finally, take your SD card out to the MP3 showtime director. Check your watch, when the time you selected for putting on the SD card arrives; gently push the card into the SD card slot on the director.

That's It! You done...Whew! I know it sounds tedious, it's really not that bad.

If you need me too, I can walk you through it no problem. Just PM me your number, I'll give you a ring.



To ALL that already know all this stuff, my apologies for the lenghty thread.

However, even after reading the manuals the first year I used my MP3 director, there were some confusing things, and some things not quite clear.

These were the lessons I learned, sometimes the hard way...to working with the MP3 director.

I hope my "MP3 show Director for Dummies" will help others as well.

Best,

David

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  • 4 weeks later...

The problem that was supposed to be fixed with 2.5.6 is still there. I have 2.5.6 and the first song kept playing over and over again. This only happened on Saturday night. My show was scheduled to run from 6PM to midnight. I changed it to run from 6PM to 11:59PM and that fixed the problem. Where can I download 2.6.2 from? I don't know if it will be fixed in that or not, but I would like to try it.

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