chuckd Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Everything has been working perfectly this season, then all of a sudden tonight, channels won't stay on, or they stick on, I get weird flashes here and there, missing stuff, etc.My configuration is a show computer connected to a USB hub (a Belkin Tetrahub). From here, I have four USB to RS485 adapters, so I'm running four separate networks.The problem is happening on all four networks.The weird thing is that it's happening at the same points in the various shows! You'd swear the sequences were just simply bad (but they're the same ones running all season).Seems like sequences that have a lot of dimming cause the problem, but I'm not absolutely sure about this.There's probably 20 different power circuits running the entire display.The radio transmission is clear, so the show is running in that fashion at least.SO, think it could be the hub, or the show computer? Since the entire display went to heck, wouldn't you think that's the problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 I'd naturally suspect the hub only because it isn't a "normal" part of the system. But that could be nothing more than my ignorant paranoia.Last week I had much the same issue(s) you describe, but with only one controller. I swapped out the data cable and reset the controller and it didn't change. The following day I powered down all the controllers, disconnected the USB485, re-booted the PC, and then reconnected the USB 485 and restored power to the controllers. Everything has worked fine since then. For what it's worth... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckd Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 I'm worried about one of those situations, where I simply 'reboot' everything and the problem goes away.My show shuts down in about 50 minutes from now, so I'll play with it then. Looks like it could be an all-nighter! Yuk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckd Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Well, this kinda stinks. I shut down the PC, unplugged it as well as unplugged the USB hub, re-plugged everything back in, booted up and now everything is fine.Great that it's working now, but that doesn't 'fix' anything for me, since I can't tell what was wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 I know the feeling - kind of waiting for the other boot to drop. Maybe it was a Chinese spy satellite passing overhead or something. Personally, I blamed my show trouble on the liberals, so I'm already psychologically prepared to be disappointed and alarmed again if it happens. If you ever figure out what it was let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 My home show PC is only USB 1.1, so I have not been using one of the belkin hubs here, but I do use the cheapest powered USB hub I can find. Even though my Halloween show is only like 40 channels, I do dual network to test it out. Then for Christmas, I go up to something like 14 controllers, but back to a single network, but the hub stays, so I can put daytime radio music on a USB drive..So far, the city show PC has had enough USB ports that I have not needed to add a hub, so I still have not tested that hub on my own.If you get a recurrence, you can probably unplug the USB hub from the PC, and unplug the power to the hub. Wait a few, then plug power back to the hub, and the hub back to the PC. If this resolves it, it would suggest that the issue is in the USB system. If not, then it is likely somewhere else. But I would not consider this test to be conclusive either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 I am not going to say that it aint your USB Hub. But concider this. I am not using such hubs, and my system did about what your talking about. Although it was only one of 4 controllers that went bat do-do crazy. A simple reboot during the show hours did the trick. I had been running continues for 2wks and 4 days before this happened. I plan to do a reboot again on the 24th before show time as a precausion. Heck it might have been some line noise that caused it. I ought to install a small UPS to clean up the noise and protect against a brown out that might scramble the computers brain to be on the safe side..Good luck finding something. And if you do, let us all know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckd Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 That's quite odd, since that's close to the same amount of time I've been up (without rebooting) as well. Wonder if it's a weird memory leak issue in LOR causing it?My system is already on a high end noise filter, and I have a large UPS that reports any brownout situations (it reported none last night). My initial though was noise, but once I realized that all four networks were doing it, I decided against that.I don't know what happened, and I realize that the odds of identifying it are next to zero. I'll keep my eyes open, though.Rebooting early Fridays seems like a good plan from here on out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 I've found it to be a good idea to reboot the show computer about once a week. That was based on my old show computer running Win98SE, which was horrid with memory management.I haven't rebooted yet this year (XP) but I probably should... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Picozzi Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 I had a similar problem last night, it involved channels (but not all of them) on 4 out of eight controllers. It only happened on one sequence, and after that everything was fine. The next time that song came on it worked. My computer had been rebooted that same day. I use a USB 4858 converter and wireless linkers to the first controller and then cat5 from there. I had this problem a couple of times before but not during shows, it was while I was outside testing sequences on my laptop and I jiggled the USB cord. I think it's tempermental and gets a bad connection easily. I think because it was spread out over four controllers it was definitely a comm issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckd Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Sure enough, tonight everything is running great, so the reboot straightened it all out.Last night, I noticed the following:1. Many channels that were supposed to be ON for a length of time turned off far too early. For example, strands that were supposed to be on for 10 seconds turned off in a half a second.2. Other channels would be stuck ON until another command came along to change it.It was as if the entire network became unreliable. In the first case, does the 1602 box require a heartbeat signal to remain ON? Not knowing the protocol, it seems like it works this way: a. Send ON command to 1602 b. Channel stays ON until either an OFF is received, or the heartbeat signal disappears. c. Send OFF commandI'm just guessing, but if the network were unreliable, the heartbeat would stop and things would turn off automatically.Just trying to figure out if it's a USB problem or LOR problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Since the heartbeat is generated by LOR, how can you separate USB issues from LOR issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckd Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 You're right, darnit! How do you expect me to get answers if you keep making sense! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 chuckd wrote: a. Send ON command to 1602 b. Channel stays ON until either an OFF is received, or the heartbeat signal disappears. c. Send OFF commandThat's the way I understand it, but I've never seen or tried to analyze the protocol... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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