System in today's theatre is:
Apex RPU, high channel count - main
Laptop with high channel count dongle - backup (which may not have been online at the time of this incident)
Gio with low channel count - client for programming
The show needs the higher channel count because of having lots of battens with pixel control.
Today we had an incident where the Gio was accidentally started as a backup (because of the new 'always start up in this mode regardless of what you were last doing' shell option which I'm sure someone's asked for but just feels wrong to me, but that's another subject).
Because the Gio does not have enough parameters for this show, the whole system immediately dropped to the lower channel count of the Gio which meant we lost control of part of the rig, including the houselights.
1. It really does feel that if a device like this connects, you should get a warning **before the system capacity is reduced** making it very clear what is about to happen and giving you the option to bail out.
2. When we disconnected the Gio, the system did not return to the higher channel count, so we could not re-gain control of the rest of the rig or, particularly, the houselights. Our solution was to restart all the consoles/devices. But:
(a) the system should surely return to the higher channel count automatically when a low-count device is removed?
or
(b) is there a way of forcing the system back to the higher channel count without having to restart everything?
Thanks!