Frustrating Glitches

[Janet]

Ok, this is my problem. Two Saturday nights in a row, my 1st song kept repeating itself. Yesterday morning, with the help of this forum, I realized that I didn't have the most updated software version (I had the dreaded midnight bug!). Anyway, during the day, when the show wasn't playing, I went ahead and updated to 2.6.2. I ran my hardware utility to make sure everything still came on, and the show started as scheduled at 5:45. I happened to be outside during the first song when I noticed that some of the mini trees were not coming on in a chase sequence. The beginning of the chase would work just fine, but then the middle tree would just stay on until the chase reversed. It was as if the last 8 trees had been turned off. Later on in the song, all of the trees would come on, so I know they had power. A few minutes later, I noticed that my candy canes were doing the same thing (another song)! These were on a totally different box. The top part would come on, but the bottom channels wouldn't light. Again, later on in the song, all of the lights would come on per the program. I watched closely, and it appears that this happened at the same time each time the songs played--it affected almost all of my music. Though I'm not certain, it seemed that it happened mostly during fast chase sections and not during slower ones.
The only other factor was the weather--it was very foggy last night, but not raining. This is the 3rd year that I have had programmed lights, and I have NEVER had any trouble like this (rain or fog or anything). Should I be trying to reverse back to the earlier version--is this a known glitch? If so, how do I do accomplish going back? I've worked so hard on all this programming, and it is so frustrating when things don't go right.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help.

[Frank A.]

Good morning

reference this post

worth a try

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum72/21265.html

Frank A.

[Janet]

Frank,

I read the exact same message last night and rebooted after the show ended. However, when I used Sequence Editor to run one of the songs, the same thing appeared to be happening. I won't know for sure until tonight. I'm also going out today to get a shielded usb cord--I'm trying everything I can think of to solve this.

Thanks,

Janet

[GaryMartin]

It is more likely that you're having either noise or too much traffic on your RS485 network. (the cables between the controllers and between the controllers and the PC)

1. Try not to run the Ethernet cable next to high power lines. The extension going out to your controller gets a good amount of power drawn through it and generates inductive noise that the data cable (the ethernet cable) can pick up. Running them right next to each other turns the data cable into an antenna.

2. Check the ends on your data cables. Make sure they haven't been pulled around too much resulting in a bad connection.

3. When in doubt, start replacing data cables to see if you can make the issues go away.

4. One long shot, is make sure you don't have *too small* of a load on a single controller channel. Putting a tiny load, like a 30 count LED string on one channel can often result in a situation where there isn't enough load for the triac to switch properly, so that sometimes it will stay stuck on, or come on whenever it feels like it, or not come on at all. Things like strobe lights also are a tiny load and thanks to the capacitors in them, they can cause "gate flutter" where the triacs cannot shutoff properly and the strobes keep running long after you told them to stop.

[Janet]

Gary,

Thank you for the suggestions. I am going to check all data cables in the morning and have already moved cat cables as far away as possible from the power cables. The ones that are giving me the most trouble only meet at the box--the data cables head toward my house and the power cords go to an outside outlet.

As for the loads, the two main areas that I am having problems are the candy canes (400 lights per channel--yes, I'm careful to keep the amps under control); and the chasing trees (100 lights per channel). It seems that most of the problems are occurring on the upper channels of each box (channel 9-16). Neither box is powered using the same outlet either. LOR has given me some other things to try in the morning, so I'll keep you all updated.

Thank you,

Janet

[PD1057]

I had kind of the same issue...only I called it lag. My music would keep playing fine, but the lights would either "stick" or go totally out. Come to find out, it was my computer. It has all the required hardware, but is old enough that it is causing issues. If you have the ability, check and see how much memory is available on your computer because that was a big part of my problem. I got one of those speed up my computer programs. Its helped a little, but not enough that Im going to pay for it all year. We ended up buying a new computer, but it wont be here until after this year's display is long gone.

[Janet]

Problem Solved!!!

I have checked cords, checked plugs, rebooted about 20 times, and even begged John with LOR to let me switch back to an older software version (he graciously sent me a link). Then last night about 1:00 am, I realized that I had neglected to check one last thing......
My boxes are d-light boxes!!! I got up out of bed and went to d-light's forum and found a post that had just appeared that evening. Someone had been having the exact same problem that I had. It was a firmware issue!!! I downloaded the updated firmware (1.17) and installed it on each of the boxes this morning. Everything is running exactly as it should! It seems that firmware 1.16 was having problems with chases on LOR S2 software. So if anyone else is having what they called a "sticking" problem with lights this year and he/she is using d-light boxes, don't blame the LOR software. Go update the firmware. Instructions are on d-light's website. Just make sure to follow the instructions closely.

Thank you everyone for all of the great suggestions and help. I couldn't do this without the help of others.

Merry Christmas,

Janet