all saved files gone + lights come on when powering up the Element

I forgot two things: The reason I mentioned the house lights is now none of the cues run house lights; again indicating they are the old cues. Also when I save I don't use Shift Update becasue it only saves to one location. I always double click on the show file in each location.

Is it possible the show files you saved aren't in the folder you thought they were in?

Knowing very well the theory of PEBCAC - Problem Exists Between Chair and Computer/Console I won't rule anything out however this particular show file is pretty raw under one folder and it has a long string of saves below it. That was always expanded on the HD and Flash drive and every time I saved I clicked on the top .esf of that file name.

Oops. hit enter to quick. Also I see the string of saves with time and date pretty close to when I believe we finished and none of them have any changes when I open them.

Oh and I wonder if the Lekos coming on like they did has something to do with a buggggg. I was just sent a text that it looks like one of the color fixture subs now has a wrong color on it. We didn't even do any sub recording/updating.

something that happened to me more often than i want to accept: are you sure right now that you are in Files>Open and not in Files>Merge? you can tell if there is a red element marking the current line in the browser rather than an orange one.

I will go back to the church and check that but Open and Save are right on top of each other and I very carefully check to make sure I am in the right one every time. I have saved in the past to an "Open" and lost everything so I really check very carefully. Merge is pretty far down the list so I would be extremely surprised that is where I was at last night when I opened the show files but again: PEBCAC.

I'm going to get over to the church tomorrow to check this out however as I think about it I should have known I was merging instead of opening because doesn't Merge open a selection window asking what the operator wants to merge? That definitely did not open any of the times.

There are a few things here that may be happening or at least making it harder to understand what's going wrong.

Doing the saves to the usb and the desk actually opens up an easy error to occur if you are changing the names of the show file (like putting an incremental number on the end, which from your comment of 30.--- I think you might be doing).

When you save to a usb and change the name, that changes the name its saved to on the usb, but it doesn't change the name its saved to when you do the next save to the desk.  (Its more like the save a copy as option that 's started appearing in some products rather than the save as function).  So its easy to end up saving the desk copy with the same name a previous one.

So it would probably be a safer workflow,  if you just saved every so often on the desk and then at the end of the reprogramming session put a backup copy on the flash drive and take it home.  (after all the desk is just a PC and even the most paranoid of us rarely create a usb drive backup a spreadsheet or word document every time we save it.)

In general there is little point in changing the name (assuming you are) as the desk saves it with a unique name anyway (and hides the previous versions of the same name unless you click on the > next to the show file name to see all the revisions.   (So it would be easier if you just saved the file as Sunday Morning  and let EOS deal with the revision handling).

Its almost certainly not going to be affecting you but if you are working on two computers and they are set with different times then that can catch you out moving the memory stick from one to another as the file names have the date in them and can then sort the revisions in the wrong order (eg the desk is in one time zone and your laptop is in another and you grab the showfile form the desk to work on it on your laptop and then when you load from the flash drive the earlier version loads as it had the later time on it.

Misunderstanding. I am not changing the show file name. It's a generic name. I just double click on the existing show file to save in each location and keep it the same always.

The 20. and 30. and so on are cue numbers on one cue list. So cue 20.1-20.5, cue 30.1-3-.9, etc. It was the cues that were changed and saved many times but no longer show as correct.

I'm also not working with any computers, well unless you include the Element. I save to the Element internal HD and one usb flash drive. My personal ION I save to the HD plus two separate usb hard drives.

OK so its a single show file but different cue ranges you use for different days.

By computers I do mean the element and the ION as they are both windows PC's in an unusually shaped case :)

So if you are moving files between them then its possible to get the situation I was talking about (which panic'd me when a massive amount of show setup work seemed to have disappeared due to the time being set differently on the two desks (an ION and Nomads) with the result that the file I had saved had hidden itself as an earlier revision rather than the latest.   There is probably a higher probability of this happening if the desks are not connected to the internet as the date/time could easily be out on one machine. 

If you are not moving the files around (and if you've not for some reason changed the date time on the desk) then you can ignore all of this.  But it does feel like it might be a date time issue.  Maybe check the history on the file and see if there is a version that's date time stamped out of sequence

not moving files around and only Element involved. I opened the saved version again yesterday and now all the cues show up. Not sure what is going on.

So I have not been able to get those lights to come on during boot up like I have been told happened 3 times however I just received a text from church; they booted up the Element and those same lights on the submaster came on with the sub down and a bunch of the green bump led's are flashing. This has all started since I upgraded to 273. they shot a quick video however its on my text messages and I am sending this on my work computer.

A flashing fader means it's physical position is not the same as what the console is sending. This can happen using the command line (sub 1 full). My venue has a shutdown macro that makes sure the work lights are at full before shutting down so that when the console is powered up and takes control from a wall station the theatre isn't plunged into a blackout.

A more likely scenario is a user is powering down the console with a sub in the up position then pulling the faders down after the console has been powered off. The console is going to start where it thought the faders were.

I can't rule anything out however a couple of thoughts:

We have wall stations however they only control the house lights; cans and flourescents none of which come on when the console is fired up and none of which are affected in any way.

When a console is shut down with lights on my memory is they remain on after the console is off as long as they can handle that feature, which all our stage lights do. So if someone shut it down with that one sub up then brought the sub down after it was off they would most likely see the lights are still on and possibly address it. Also there are a lot of people in and out of the sanctuary daily which would most likely see them on, especially when the house is off and hopefully they would contact someone. But again, I can't rule anything out.

I understood flashing bump led's indicate that fader is in a mark type of state. Meaning it has been tapped or brought up then back down and the fixture nip's remain, however the fixture goes black; depending on how that fader is set up. (Very brief explanation of what I am saying.) So if that were the case then it would indicate the person shutting the console down may have used those faders and did not do a CSE before shutting down. Not sure if bumps flash in that case when the console is powered back on.

I will have to go test these last two things to see if they are true to my memory.

Also I have no reports of the console giving the did not shut down properly error on any of the boot ups, so it appears whoever is shutting it down at least knows how to do it correctly but maybe they need a refresher course on clearing the console before doing so, if these things are happening.