Sean Meighan
General => The Water Cooler => Topic started by: danj on November 25, 2016, 11:29:33 PM
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I am not able to send any info from xlights to any of my controllers. I have tried the xlights test function "by universe" and "by prop" and have tried multiple sequences, all without success. I made sure the xlights "lights on" button was "on" when trying the tests and when trying to send sequence info. I have checked & double-checked my channel layout; as far as I can tell I have that correctly done such that xlights & the controllers should be synched up in regards to the channel configuration. I ran a channel check of a couple of outputs of one of my E682s using SACNView; the channels are exactly as I had intended. One thing I might be doing incorrectly (??)---I have universe 1 blocked out for an e1.31 bridge that I do not have hooked up to the show network. Is it possible that is goofing me up here in xlights??? Thanks in advance for whatever help anyone can give me here. I'm sure there is something easy I am missing here...
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Is this from a computer or an FPP?
One thing to check, when I run a sequence from my computer and sending data out to controllers via ethernet, I have to have the wireless on the computer turned off otherwise nothing to go out to the controllers. As soon as I turn off wifi, it all works.
Just thought.
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Thanks Logan. Yes I am using a laptop to run the show. I have output test signals and sequence info before from this PC and I don't remember disabling the wireless... But maybe I did and I am not remembering that now... I will DEFINITELY try what you suggested!!! I really appreciate the response.
Edit--I tried disabling the wifi; no go. Still not able to send any test signals or sequence signals to controllers. Not sure where to go with this???
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Are you multicast or unicast. My router has problems wtih multicast over wifi. I have to use a wired connection to get multicast to work.
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Jim--everything is setup in unicast. I am using a little four port Ethernet switch for my show network.. Thanks for the thought! I am still setting up props, so I will fight with the channels some more tonight... The thing that is totally confusing to me is that I used SACNView to generate some chases and to do channel checks (just two minitrees sitting in my garage as test props...) and that worked great...
Just to take one variable out of the mix.... I plugged my cat5 directly from my PC to my F16. That didn't make any difference. I checked the OLED on the F16 and I don't see any universe info "seen" by the F16
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When generating test signals via SACNView, I see packet info on the F16 OLED & the GUI, but I am not seeing any packet info on the F16 OLED or GUI when trying to generate either test or sequence signals from xlights. Does this lead me anywhere? I'm not very strong on networking stuff.... Thanks.
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If you are unicast all controllers that are setup in xLights need to be connected and functioning or it will get continuous timeouts.
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Thank you Gil!!! I did not realize that all controllers needed to be connected.... I really appreciate the info! I will try this when I get back from Church this afternoon. I was just about ready to throw in the towel out of frustration!!!
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I use all unicast and I don't have issues like you are describing. I might see a slight lag, but no data, I'm not seeing that. It could depend a lot on the controller. I don't use sandevices. An easy test, in your setup disable all but the controller you are wanting to test.
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Can you ping the controller. I would start by proving that TCP/IP is working between the computer and controller before worrying about xlights. Always start at the bottom and work your way up. Is Ethernet cable connected. Can I ping. Can I access controller web page. Now can xlights send data and does it display correctly.
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Thanks James & Keith. I don't remember pinging any of the controllers yesterday, but I was always able to contact all of the controllers via their GUIs. The E682s have some dropouts sometime, but I think that is an E682 thing, not related to my show network. I just hooked up three controllers and was able to ping all three. I then hooked up all four and was again able to ping all of them. I have also generated controller test signals from each controller's GUI and that worked for all four. I then tried to output an xlights sequence; no lights turned on. I then went to the xlights test tab and tried to generate some xlights tests; no go there either (including no packets received on any of the controllers). So, I turned off xlights and turned on SACNView to see if I could generate any signals via SACNView. That was successful with all four controllers. I only had four strings of lights hooked up; one string per controller... Traveling for work this week so I am a traveling show, so to speak... So I sent SACNView data (white sine waves, channel chases, etc) and I am lighting up strings via all four controllers with SACNView; I also see packets received on the universes I am hitting with SACNView. I am charging up the battery on the PC I will use as my show PC; I probably need to be doing all this stuff with that PC since it will be running the display. That will be a tomorrow night thing though...
Any further ideas? I REALLY appreciate the responses!
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Are you running on a laptop with both a wifi connection and a wired connection active? Try disabling wifi.
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I think Keith is onto something. If you have a hard-wired and wifi connection available xLights might choose the wrong one. If you do a Check Sequence I believe Keith has it printing out a statement that will tell you the IP address xLights will use to send data.
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I will check that tonight. Thanks so much for your help!!! I'll see what xlights is broadcasting to then I'll disable wireless and check again.
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Here's what I found.
With wireless enabled: "IP Address we are outputting data from: 10.219.213.26"--this is the shared apartment wireless network....
With wireless disabled: "IP Address we are outputting data from: 127.0.0.1"
I don't have a clue where the 127.0.0.1 IP address is coming from though... I have my Ethernet setup to 192.168.10.110. ???
Next, I will try connecting to my controllers with wireless disabled. Gotta help my wife with something first.
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127.0.0.1 is the inbuilt loop back adapter that just sends the data to itself. With wireless disabled what does ipconfig display.
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Here's what I found.
With wireless enabled: "IP Address we are outputting data from: 10.219.213.26"--this is the shared apartment wireless network....
With wireless disabled: "IP Address we are outputting data from: 127.0.0.1"
I don't have a clue where the 127.0.0.1 IP address is coming from though... I have my Ethernet setup to 192.168.10.110. ???
Next, I will try connecting to my controllers with wireless disabled. Gotta help my wife with something first.
Disable wireless and set your wired NIC to a static address that is on same subnet as controllers.
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Keith:
Here's what ipconfig shows in the CMD screen with wireless disabled:
Ethernet adapter Ethernet:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Ethernet adapter Bluetooth Network Connection:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
James:
I have my Ethernet adapter set to static IP 192.168.010.110--all my controllers are set to 192.168.010.xxx
THANKS!!!!!!!!
I connected all four controllers to my laptop. I am able to ping them and manipulate them via their GUIs--turn on test patterns, change settings, etc. I am able to send packet info and make lights do stuff with SACNView--checked several universes on every controller---all good--but nothing (including no packets sent to any controllers...) when running test or sequence signals from xlights. I made sure I turned SACNView off before trying to flash lights with xlights... With the wireless disabled, xlights reports it is outputting data from 192.168.010.110--my laptop's Ethernet static IP address.
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Sorry to bug everyone to death with my network woes.... I decided to try something--I reset all of my controllers as multicast in their GUIs (except F16...) and reset all of them in xlights as multicast. I had to change the universe assignments of the E682s because they are only capable of receiving 7 universes in multicast... After I made those changes, I was able to make lights flash with xlights in test and with sequences. I was also able to keep the wireless enabled while generating test/sequence signals from xlights to my controllers. When I used the "check sequence" tab, xlights is now choosing 192.168.010.110 (my static Ethernet IP address) as its "output from" IP address.
Does that help troubleshoot my network issues? If forced to, I could make a bunch of channel changes and set everything up in multicast but I would really like to run in unicast; that allows me to use the E682s to their fullest capabilities and to keep the sockets/outputs as planned.
THANKS AGAIN!
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Unicast vs Multicast shouldn't matter. Were you restarting xLights after you made the network changes?
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Thanks Gil. I don't think I closed/reopened when I changed from unicast to multicast. I had closed/ reopened many other times, though... After I changed the setup from unicast to multicast, XL then generated test & sequence output data. I saw the data output via flashing lights hooked up to controllers (lights were doing what the sequence or test was driving....) and via SACNView--SACNView shows each universe that is receiving data from XL, SACNView, whatever... As stated last night, I changed all my E682s to receive multicast data; F16 does not have any changes necessary regardless of unicast/multicast.
But... Tonight I'll change back from multicast to unicast and I'll make sure I close/reopen XL before I try test/sequence signals...
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Trying to help a friend out with a large public display and having the same type of problem. Can see all the controllers on the network using IP Scanner, can log into controllers and manipulate the settings, can turn lights on using Da_e131, but can not access lights using xlights 52 or53 or 4.3.02. Very strange.
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I wonder if something is blocking xlights, like virus scanner or something.
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What would block xlights. I have windows firewall off, I have only Windows defender on this laptop. We can talk to the network, we can access the controllers via their web UI, we can turn lights on and off with da_e131. This just does not make sense. We have 3 different computers here and xlights does not work on any of them.
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So Jim you didn't say anything about following the advice I've given here. Did you run check sequence to see what IP address xLights says its going to use for output? Did you shutoff wifi on the machines?
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What would block xlights.
Antivirus could. I'm not saying this is your problem, but it could stop a program from sending out packets. You could still ping, you could still access via webpage. Since you have the same problems on multiple computers, it sounds like something else. But, it's very possible for an antivirus to block xlights.
James
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So Jim you didn't say anything about following the advice I've given here. Did you run check sequence to see what IP address xLights says its going to use for output? Did you shutoff wifi on the machines?
Sorry did not mention a lot of stuff that we tried. but we did run sequence checker. We are not using wifi for anything. This is a completely wired show. We did turn wifi off on the computer connected to the show network, did not make any impact. The network is all unicast with 9 alphapix controllers. We only have one network cable to connect to the show network.
We took another laptop and direct wired it to one controller. Again we can access the web UI, make changes, etc. but can not turn on lights with xlights. We could turn lights on using da_e131 program.
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Jim, do you have your computer to test with?
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I had my computer direct connected to one controller, but could only get lights on with the da_e131 program and I could make lights come on although I don't know enough about that program to diagnose anything. At the moment that controller is back on the show network and I am just my computer to search for answers on the internet.
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Make sure Frame Sync is not enabled under Settings. I would maybe install WireShark and see if you can see xLights sending packets when you turn on Output to Lights. I've been doing all my testing from xLights as I don't move my files over to FPP till later.
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Not sure what frame sync is, but after a phone call with Dr. Pitts. We are making some progress. Not ready to say it is all fixed yet, but do have some lights on on some controllers. Baby steps so far, but feeling better now.
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Frame Sync is a new feature specified in the recent update to the E1.31 standard. Keith added support for it in xLights. There is an option under Settings to turn it on or off so even though you don't know what it does you could still make sure it's off. I had one user that turned it on without knowing what they were doing and it caused issues because it should not be on if the controller doesn't support the feature.
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Looks the problem was mismatched controller and xlights config. Glad it is not my installation, this is a big church that plans to have the show opening on Thursday night. I had enough config issues on my own setup. Now Roger is going thru each controller and software one by one and watching the lights come on. Yah. Now I hope Dan J finds his problem since we kind of hijacked his thread.
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Looks the problem was mismatched controller and xlights config. Glad it is not my installation, this is a big church that plans to have the show opening on Thursday night. I had enough config issues on my own setup. Now Roger is going thru each controller and software one by one and watching the lights come on. Yah. Now I hope Dan J finds his problem since we kind of hijacked his thread.
Just curious, what church are you doing?
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West Ridge Church in Dallas, GA
http://www.westridge.com/ (http://www.westridge.com/)
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Thanks for sharing the link. I lived in Woodstock back in early 2000, I was curious.
James
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Here's what I tried tonight.
Turned off Windows Defender, tried to run test/sequence from xlights. No go.
Turned off wireless also, tried to run test/sequence from xlights. No go.
I am able to generate test signals with SACNView and da_e1.31 apps in multicast and unicast with windows defender and wireless enabled/disabled.
I was able to generate test and sequence outputs from xlights with xlights and the controller (my F16 tonight) in multicast with windows defender and wireless enabled/disabled.
I checked "Frame Sync" in XL; it is disabled.
Jim--can you share what you did to fix your similar problem?
Thanks for all the responses!
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Have you ever posted any files or screenshots of xLights settings? We are trusting that you have it correct but we would be rich if everyone that told us it was correct gave us $20 when they were wrong.
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See post 32. It was not my installation, I was just trying to help so I do not have all the details. If I understood it correctly this was a display from last year that had some new props added which caused addresses to change which caused controllers to be out of sync and then I think there was a change to absolute addressing. All of it combined to mean that the xlights config and the controller configs did not match up, which is why we could still get to the controllers via ip address and even though the correct ip addresses were in xlights, the channel addresses were not matching.
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Thanks Jim. I saw that but kind of blew past it. Got it...
Gil--I'll send xlights, E682, & F16 screenshots tonight when I get home from work. Good point.
My first post was asking what I missed!!! I know I am missing something easy....
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Here are screenshots of E682-1 & E682-2 controllers. I will post the rest in followups.
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3rd E682 & F16 screenshots. xlights next... I did notice last night that I have FW 5.003 loaded on E682-3 and it doesn't add up channels correctly. I don't have my prop plug with me; will upload FW 5.018 tomorrow night. I don't think the channel assignments would have anything to do with all the controllers receiving data or not receiving data. Should it???
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Screenshots of my XL setup.
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I really have trouble seeing the screenshots on this forum because it only shows like 10% of the image and its really hard to scroll. Anyways spot checking I didn't notice anything wrong. I would suggest you download this free program and learn how to capture the ethernet traffic on your machine and then create a new sequence, drop a butterfly on a whole house group, turn on output to lights, and monitor where or if xLights is sending ethernet packets.
https://www.wireshark.org/ (https://www.wireshark.org/)
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I'll do that. Thanks again, Gil.
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Not sure if this matters or not, but one of my E682s is acting a bit flaky. When I enter # of pixels and starting universe/channel on the 2nd page of the GUI, it only adds like 3 channels to the start channel no matter how many pixels you tell it are on that output. Would one controller acting up keep unicast from working properly?
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I corrected all the channel configuration on the E682 that was not responding properly. Jim St Johns had me uncheck "chase" on the channel configuration page to get the controller to do the universe/channel math correctly. No impact on universes received, to the best of my knowledge, though... Now I am fairly sure I have all my E682s and my F16 responding correctly, but still not able to send any unicast data from xlights. I am successful on all controllers with da_e1.31--I am watching lights flash to test signals and I am seeing the info sent via wireshark, as Gil recommended last night. So, I will go to my backup plan now--I will go to multicast because that is working... Sure wanted to get unicast doing what it's supposed to do! I'm sure I'm missing some really minor detail somewhere....
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With my SanDevices controller I had problems with multicast and had to switch it to unicast.
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Thanks for that info, Gil. I am going to try to go see a fellow enthusiast this week to see if he can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. I am sure I am missing ONE little thing.... I was not able to reset everything this weekend; we had some really high winds in south Louisiana Tuesday (I was working out of town so didn't see all this until Thursday night late); all the branches on my 5m megatree became disconnected from the tree and were all twisted/tangled up. So yesterday was an unplanned rebuild day.. That took almost all day to sort that out. So, here I am with no blinky flashy! Bummed but am not giving up... Will have this up & running next weekend.
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Ok. Took another good hard look at the spreadsheet I use to keep up with channels, which ones go where, etc... I noticed that I have one of megatree star's channels setup in XL as universe 10 channels, but the first universe on the controller (an E682) to which I am trying to send that data is universe 11. So, I'll change that tomorrow night (I will move that prop to an output on the E682 that is SUPPOSED to be receiving universe 10 data....) and re-try this will all my controllers hooked up and see if that solves this... I am cautiously optimistic...
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My millionth post on this topic... I changed the IP address entries on the XL setup tab from
192.168.010.100 thru 192.168.010.103 to 192.168.10.100 thru 192.168.10.103. Once I changed the "010" to "10" in the IP addresses, all four controllers started receiving packets when running sequences from XL.
I can't begin to tell all of you how much I appreciate all the inputs you provided over the last week or so. THANKS
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I swear the thought crossed my mind when I saw your IP addresses because I never enter the leading zeroes but I didn't think it would matter.