Undo from Backup can Cause Loss of Control

When you are having these types of emergency's please call our 24hr support line. (800) 775-4382. They will be able to help you a lot faster than posting it here. 

Thank you,

David  

I really think this is more of a software developer question than a tech support question...  I'm not looking for a quick fix to get up and running again,  I've got that figured out.  I would like to know if anyone else is experiencing this problem, how they fixed it, and would like a permanent solution.  I'm sending over the master console logs now.  

 As a footnote, we were able to take channels out, but we couldn't bring their intensities back up. So we did have partial control of dmx.  Hope that helps.

Thanks,

Mike 

Hey Mike,

I know where your coming from in regards to having a permanent solution. These types of situations still need to go through our tech services dept. this is the only way that we can get them up to speed with these types of situations. It also gives you a main point of contact that will be able to determine who to send these types of problems to. Not all of the developers all work on the same parts of the desk, as I'm sure you have seen from some of the replies. Also to note these forums aren't always checked by ETC personal, and this can also cause delays to getting show critical problems fixed. The only reason why I say any of this is because I want to make sure that you get the speediest and most useful response that we can get you. 

Thank you,

David 

For what it's worth, I have had similar problems on several occasions. 

Since I tend to run shows that are only up for a single performance, I have not posted.  I have not been able to re-create the failure.  The symptoms are the same.  After editing a cuelist, playing back the show may show a loss of DMX output control on some channels.  The console reports that the values have or are changing but this is not reflected in visible output.  A reboot of the console seems to clear it up.   We had thought that it was related to the moving of cuelists from one fader to another, but have not had the opportunity to follow up.  I did call support, but with our lack of concrete information regarding the exact circumstances, and our relative inexperience, we left it at..  Hmmm  what happened?  Operator error?

If others are experiencing this, it bears a little more looking into.

Tom  McPherron

Christopher Cohan Center

San Luis Obispo CA 

I'm sorry to here that, do you recall if you were using the undo button?  Most of my loss of control problems have occured after using UNDO, but I have had a few without using that button.  You should definetley give tech services a call they may be able to help you or at least they will know about your problem, maybe send them your log files if you haven't .  We haven't discovered a fix to our loss of control problem other then to exit and re-log on.  I've seemed to notice it has something to do with undo button, it just so happens I just lost control a min. ago.  I had a group of lights selected and tried to change color pal. and it did, but when i hit the undo button to go back to the color recorded in the que, NO LOVE, no control, can't bring nothing up or down.   Needless to say i rebooted and have control again.   I'm going to try and reproduce this next time I get some free time to try and crash the console.  I did find the "kick me to shell" bug, I posted about it and ETC is aware of it.

Good luck,

I'm sorry to here that, do you recall if you were using the undo button?  Most of my loss of control problems have occured after using UNDO, but I have had a few without using that button.  You should definetley give tech services a call they may be able to help you or at least they will know about your problem, maybe send them your log files if you haven't .  We haven't discovered a fix to our loss of control problem other then to exit and re-log on.  I've seemed to notice it has something to do with undo button, it just so happens I just lost control a min. ago.  I had a group of lights selected and tried to change color pal. and it did, but when i hit the undo button to go back to the color recorded in the que, NO LOVE, no control, can't bring nothing up or down.   Needless to say i rebooted and have control again.   I'm going to try and reproduce this next time I get some free time to try and crash the console.  I did find the "kick me to shell" bug, I posted about it and ETC is aware of it.

Good luck,

Ryan:

I had a group of lights selected and tried to change color pal. and it did, but when i hit the undo button to go back to the color recorded in the que,

Just a suggestion, could you use [sneak] to restore channels or [goto Q] as a workaroud to avoid using "undo" until the bug is resolved?

Sounds like your having a world of fun at the moment (insert sarcasm here}

All the best - Brent
 

Yes, I use those whenever I can, but some people like the undo feature. 

Thanks for the advice anyway

Having lots o fun

We are pretty certain we have this tracked down now. Thanks Ryan for the showfile and for guessing that it was Undo related. With your showfile, we were able to reproduce your symptoms using Undo. We will start a different thread detailing under what circumstances the defect occurs once we gather more information. For now though, you should avoid [Undo Enter] from your backup and your symptoms should go away.

For anyone else reading this, the problem is specific to [Undo Enter] when it is performed on a backup or client.

Also, if you use your arrow keys to select a range of commands to undo, the defect does not occur. It is only when you press [Enter] immediatley after the [Undo] command.

Thanks again Ryan for your logs and showfile, they were a huge help.

Glad to be able help, and glad we figured it out.  I spoke with Matt Kerr this morning and gave him the full details.

F.Y.I. I just switched my console back to the "main" until you guys figure out a fix for the backup. 

I set most of our show files this is so we don't tear apart our scrolls.  I set the manual time so during tech, & check out

I can go from F1 to F10 without moving the scroll to fast. (I figured 1 second is better than 0)   Is there a better way to make the scroll

colors change slower in manual mode?  

Setting your rmanual color time to 1 second is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, in 1.3.0, it makes the Undo problem more likely. If you're not using Undo immediately after changing the color, the manual color time of 1 second works fine. I would leave your color time as is. 

Ryan:

I set most of our show files this is so we don't tear apart our scrolls.  I set the manual time so during tech, & check out

 Is there a better way to make the scroll

colors change slower in manual mode?  

I know this is off topic, but I am interested in what you are talking about with setting a manual time with scrollers. Is there a way to make the encoder do a fade time when changing frames in a scroller? I have a similar problem with my Chroma Q's not liking to be raced. So far the only way I can figure to do this is to do a sneak time on a color pallette. Is there a better way?

Thanks

Hi Brian

If you goto [displays] [setup] {desk} {manual control} you can change the manual timings, sneak time, etc.  Not sure if it affects the encoders, but it should do for colour pallets, etc.

Hope that helps

Cheers 

Brent, the manual timing settings do not impact encoder activity.... because that would be pretty freaky!!  But it does impact command line manual control functions.

Make sense?

Anne 

To clarify, the manual times don't affect encoder activity unless you are changing frames of parameters like gobo wheels or scrolls. If the encoder is used to change these, it does use the manual time.