Server and Backup

Cobalt is a "Synchronised Backup"

You send the Backup a copy of the entire play, and when you are "In Sync", playback commands are sent to the Backup.

Editing commands are not sent in either direction.
- If you found an edit command that crashes the Server, you do not want the Backup to go ahead and do the same thing!

Configuration and use is explained in the help - search for "backup"

The important settings in System Settings are:

• Backup Mode. Choose one of the following options:
  1. Both consoles set to "Server/Backup depends on startup order"
  2. One console "Always Server" and the other "Always Backup"
• Auto-Transfer play to Backup
  • Most sites want this Enabled
  • This must be set the same on both consoles.

There are Browser commands to manually send/fetch the play between Server and Backup.

If you have "Auto-Send Play" ticked in System Settings on both consoles, the Server will automatically send to the Backup and enable "Sync" whenever you Save or Load.

If you get "Dual Servers Online", simply restart one of them as Backup by using Exit to Welcome Screen, then selecting Backup.
- The console lets you choose which should be the Server as it cannot know why the link was lost, or which console you're currently sat in front of.

"Force To Backup" forces that console to be a backup, regardless of what else is going on. You should not use it (unless you really want to)
It is only for situations where you have two Servers and absolutely cannot restart either of them.
- It's an advanced and very low-level function that assumes you need to do something unexpected and that you know exactly what you're doing.

Finally, please send your logs to cobalt at etcconnect dot com along with a description of what you were doing (or as much as you remember) and when it happened, so we can investigate the event you encountered.
Note that if the hourglass is on then the console has not crashed, it's busy doing something (or trying to). If it gets stuck or takes too long then it'll give up and give you a log reporting dialog, and at that point the backup should take over.

Hi Richard

We still have some doubts about this Server/Backup option so after your quick reply, that I thank a lot, there are few more questions:

"- Editing commands are not sent in either direction.

- If you found an edit command that crashes the Server, you do not want the Backup to go ahead and do the same thing!"

We never had think this way but yes we admit that is logic what you said cause if we use a backup we don't want that crashs at same time of Server.

"The important settings in System Settings are:

• Backup Mode. Choose one of the following options:
  1. Both consoles set to "Server/Backup depends on startup order"
  2. One console "Always Server" and the other "Always Backup."

The question is what is better??? The problem is that the Congo Sr takes almost +/-4 minutes to startup and Congo Jr do that in 2/3. So if we start the consoles at same time, they have 1mt of distance, the Jr will always be the server but we want to work with Sr. Yes I know that afetr the startup we can change this settings but it's a silly thing to do every day.

"If you get "Dual Servers Online", simply restart one of them as Backup by using Exit to Welcome Screen, then selecting Backup.
- The console lets you choose which should be the Server as it cannot know why the link was lost, or which console you're currently sat in front of."

Here the problem is that if we connect the ethernet cable while both consoles are as servers we've got this message but the Sr takes over DMX signal. For instance if at a time the Sr(Server) as frozen and we have to disconnect the ethernet cable to Jr(Backup) takes over and after the restart of the Sr we connect the ethernet cable. What happens now is that appears the message of dual servers and Sr takes over the signal, if Jr is on step 5(all at full) and Sr is at step 2(B.O.), we've got a blackout on stage no matter we do on Jr. The question is doesn't software recognize that there is already a server so the new connection as to be backup???

""Force To Backup" forces that console to be a backup, regardless of what else is going on. You should not use it (unless you really want to)
It is only for situations where you have two Servers and absolutely cannot restart either of them."

Question is if we force a console to be backup why the other console don't go to Server?? If we change the backup console to server the other goes to backup and this is right but why the other way isn't working and we can have 2 consoles on the same network as backup??? The problem is that we they are as backup there isn't signal from the consoles so we can't make any changes.

"Finally, please send your logs to cobalt at etcconnect dot com along with a description of what you were doing (or as much as you remember) and when it happened, so we can investigate the event you encountered."

I'll send this log today with the description of everything.

"Note that if the hourglass is on then the console has not crashed, it's busy doing something (or trying to). If it gets stuck or takes too long then it'll give up and give you a log reporting dialog, and at that point the backup should take over."

This problem of the hourglass is that it gets stuck and the only way to remove this is to go to "task manager", good shortcut that you arrange with ALT+F11, and restart the console.

I'll explain better on mail how can I put this hourglass any time I want.

Until next time

Pedro Alves