Patching Problems

Which software version is this? Can you send us the show file? 

Are you using multi-cell devices that appear as several devices with different templates in the Device List?

We are running cobalt V7, onboard Etc congo Jr's Attached is a dropbox link to the file. 

We are having this problem at several locations, but nothing on this scale. 

Thank you for the help, 

Zach Clark. 

www.dropbox.com/.../gi-csm-2019-3-10.asc

Sorry for the delay. I tried to look at this today but the DropBox link seems to have expired. Can you give me a new one?

www.dropbox.com/.../AAAzkDxHLYAUzxWXmaOa0S2da

Thanks for the update. Looking at your show file, it seems like the bases of several multi-cell fixtures are missing (leaving only the cell definitions behind). It is unclear how this happened. I have not seen anything similar before.

Did you delete or manipulate the base channels in some way (like renaming) before you got into this state? Do you want me to remove the trailing cell devices from your show file? (This will also delete the corresponding recorded values.)

Honestly, apparently this had been a problem for long before I have been working here... we have the Sam problem across multiple campuses, they haven't had a professional LD in about a year. So I don't know if there was a curious untrained person playing with it... or what happened. Short of just making a whole new show file for 15 different desks I couldn't find a fix... 

Unfortunately, I don't think we have heard about this problem before. Thanks for reporting it.

There should be protection against this happening. But it sounds like maybe someone managed to find a way to circumvent the protection and get into this state. Did the same person(s) work on all 15 consoles?

It would be interesting to understand what caused this to appear in the first place but I imagine that this is hard to find out after such a long time.

As far as I know, there has always been one lighting programmer (like me) for the 15 desks. And volunteers operate the desks during services. I have only been here since February and this problem has been on my radar since I got here, but with 15 venues to maintain and no professional LD for a year there were several bigger fish to fry to even get to this point. 

We are running Congo Jr's in our bigger venues and Congo kids in the smaller ones... I know all of them are getting up there in age, and considering they are in use almost every day for several hours. We are starting to have weird glitches like these... I have had several showfiles corrupt when i do basic things like saving or shutting down. 

The odd part is, that the problem fixtures still function fine when we are using sequences and presets that were programmed by the original LD last year... but without selecting the individual DMX outputs I have no control over the problem fixtures. 

If need be I can start from scratch, but I want to make sure the problem won't repeat itself again.. at least until we can allocate the funds to upgrade 15 desks (as the higher ups want to keep it consistent for volunteer sake). 

As far as I know, there has always been one lighting programmer (like me) for the 15 desks. And volunteers operate the desks during services. I have only been here since February and this problem has been on my radar since I got here, but with 15 venues to maintain and no professional LD for a year there were several bigger fish to fry to even get to this point. 

We are running Congo Jr's in our bigger venues and Congo kids in the smaller ones... I know all of them are getting up there in age, and considering they are in use almost every day for several hours. We are starting to have weird glitches like these... I have had several showfiles corrupt when i do basic things like saving or shutting down. 

The odd part is, that the problem fixtures still function fine when we are using sequences and presets that were programmed by the original LD last year... but without selecting the individual DMX outputs I have no control over the problem fixtures. 

If need be I can start from scratch, but I want to make sure the problem won't repeat itself again.. at least until we can allocate the funds to upgrade 15 desks (as the higher ups want to keep it consistent for volunteer sake). 

I forgot to add, all the congos are running cobalt V7. The software was upgraded about 6 months ago

I would try to pe-patch te faulty fixtures. Anders was offering to clean out the broken fixtures. If you or he re patch them with same addresses and channel numbers that could solve the problem. 

But a new file from scratch is often good. Gives you new templates to.

I have tried  Deleting the fixtures and re-patching them, but I will get the message above, stating that the fixtures cannot be deleted...