Sean Meighan
Welcome => Do You Need Help? Post it here => Topic started by: danj on December 21, 2015, 08:38:20 PM
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Last night, my display just stopped displaying during one of my songs. At first I thought maybe I had tripped a breaker or a GFCI. But when I checked the first time, nothing tripped. The second time it happened, I looked at one of the controllers and it was still powered up so I know I wasn't losing power (static manger scene always one--from same set of GFCI outlets....). Also, when the next song rolled around the display restarted---all lights running as they should.... So, I am thinking that this sequence is unhappy for some reason. I can't run the display for the next few days, but before I run it again I figured I would re-copy this file from my sequencing PC to my display PC and see if maybe that file got corrupted or something.
Oh--I am running two E682s from two different receptacles and an LOR CTB16PC from a third receptacle. If it makes any troubleshooting difference, the music of the sequence kept playing.
Any ideas for anything I should look for?
Thanks!!!
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I have had the display stop multiple times in the last week and it does not restart by itself, so consider yourself lucky. Mine just locks up with some lights left on, the music keeps playing and cycling thru the playlist, but there is no access to the pi even via wired network access. I've swapped routers, Pis, USB drives, and SD.
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Danj are you running from the xLights scheduler?
Jim is your only access to the Pi from the wireless? I had a lot of trouble with my first Pi. There are things you learn with those as you go. There are very few wireless dongles that will plug directly into the Pi without causing power issues. I found one on Adafruit that was a cheap tiny dongle and it worked the best because I really didn't want the mess of a powered USB hub. Also buying a nice 2A power supply helped me.
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I have had the display stop multiple times in the last week and it does not restart by itself, so consider yourself lucky. Mine just locks up with some lights left on, the music keeps playing and cycling thru the playlist, but there is no access to the pi even via wired network access. I've swapped routers, Pis, USB drives, and SD.
What version fpp? I had issues with 1.7. I reimaged to 1.5 and haven't had issues since. I know the captain said the version should make no difference, but for me it does.
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I'm with Phrog30. Pi V1.7 won't run my show. Backed up to 1.5 and have had no issues. Just for a try I ran version 1.6 and had issue with it as well.
Roger
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I swear we could do a release where all we did was change the version number and there would be people claiming it has a problem and they reverted back and it went away. It happened to us on xLights all year. I was almost thinking the same thing with my FPP until I finally got my problem to rear it's head on version 1.5. Then I changed several things and fixed my problem and been running great since with fingers crossed. And I'm back on 1.7 now.
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I agree Gil, but there are just too many posts on issues after 1.5. I will try upgrading again after the season.
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Yeah no reason to upgrade if you don't have to.
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I don't disagree at all Gil. My sequence that will not play on my Pi plays fine on Captains.... Go figure. At some point Cap and I are going to Teamview and see if he can find an issue.
Roger
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Gil--Yes I am using the xlights scheduler--using an older laptop to run the display. Not using a PI. Plan to learn that next year... I did re-save all my sequence files from my sequencing PC to my show PC, so I am thinking one of the files got messed up somehow... This is the first hiccup (other than self-inflicted stuff weeks ago....) I have experienced with the scheduler, so I am believing it is a "thing" with one of my recently re-saved files. I figured I would ask to see if there was something else I should be looking for!!
Thanks!
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Maybe Windows decided something else was more important? Or are you on another OS?
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Hadn't thought about that.... It is an older PC running W7. I'll open up the task manager next time the "offending" sequence runs and see if anything flaky is happening just during that song for some reason...
Good thought Gil.
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Mine shut down last night for the first time in the middle of a song...running directly from the PC, I keep the internet connection off on my show computer so I don't arbitrarily get a windows update or some other stuff that isn't as important as the show.
My wife says, did you do something different, the lights are half on, and static ( I like that she knows the difference between static and animated) . Xlights was off all together when I went out, could not get it to start up....I did a restart on the computer, and it worked fine the rest of the night.
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So do you guys run xLights for days or weeks without shutting down. If there is anything chewing up memory maybe it hits a limit. Ever looked at resource usage?
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I will look at task manager & resource usage the next time I fire up.
I do just the opposite, Gil--I manually run the show only for the timeframe I plan to run it; the PC is usually powered up but with its lid shut
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My 2 cents
I am running the x-lights scheduler. The computer is dedicated to to show and NOT on the internet. Twice now in different sequences it just pauses for a moment that I can notice, probably no more than 1 second and then just keeps going. I don't watch it all of the time I just make sure things are working and then go about my life.
The task manager does not show any extreme use of resources.
I hate intermittent issues.
Brad
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I think you guys are learning why most of us have migrated away from using PC's.
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Hi Gil
I am using the sandevices controllers E682 and E6804.
What do I use for a scheduler? The PI device?, I know nothing about this and what software it uses.
Brad
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All the xLights developers use a Pi. Here are the instructions for how to set one up. It's free software:
http://falconchristmas.com/forum/index.php/topic,483.0.html (http://falconchristmas.com/forum/index.php/topic,483.0.html)
The nice thing is it's running with a Linux OS and is dedicated to only running your show and not a 150 other processes like a PC. It's really inexpensive to get one setup. A lot of external devices like network drives and routers are using a Linux kernel because of its reliability and closer to real time performance.
I'm just not familiar at all with the xlights scheduler code.
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Perfect
Thanks
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Learning how to use a PI is on my early spring "to do" list in regards to 2016 Christmas display.
Good point on the "dedication" of the PI--not running a bunch of other stuff... Hadn't really thought about that.
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Got 2 of them in the mail yesterday...once this season is over...I will work on figuring it out...thanks for the link Gil...
I personally do the same thing..leave the lid on the laptop shut...it is only up when the show is running , 3 to 4 hours a day..have not looked at the resources being used, but not on the internet, pretty much just the show running.
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I've used the Pi this year running the show on its own network and have been very happy with it. However, I did have the occasional sequence do a slight 1sec pause a few times. Audio smooth but lights pause and then catchup ok. Always occurred at different times ( not that often though). Had two occurrences where the audio and lights ran out of sync and I had to do a stop and restart of the sequence. Admittedly did occur when I manually started the sequence early before it was scheduled to start. But only happened twice out of multiple times I did it. Love being able to access everything on the Pi from the iPhone while outside.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Well Logan aren't you using 25ms sequences? I know the one I copied from you was 25ms and it caused a problem on my slave FPP. I don't think you would have problems at 50ms.
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Good to know. In that case I'll go back to 50ms. In the end I don't think there was any appreciable difference in the way the timing of my 50ms vs 25ms sequences looked on the display.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Ok--I re-loaded both files that were acting up on me and all is well now. On an unrelated note, I had another one that I had recently re-loaded that had "lost" some of the channel assignments, so I re-rendered & re-saved and it worked correctly after all of that.... Just in case, I also cold re-booted my laptop in the event there was some "additive" thing going on....
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Well Logan aren't you using 25ms sequences? I know the one I copied from you was 25ms and it caused a problem on my slave FPP. I don't think you would have problems at 50ms.
Gil, thanks for noticing that. I had used Logan's base sequence and didn't notice the 25ms timing. I was getting some "misses" on some of my older DMX boards. They get their DMX from an FPD and the 25ms may have been too much for them.
Edited the xml file to 50ms. Deleted and Re-saved to get the new FSEQ file. No more "misses" on the DMX controllers.