FSEQ Files Not Generating?

[Gary]

For some reason, I've discovered that FSEQ files aren't generating for me even though the Render on Save option is turned on under the Setting menu. The only way I can get it to work is to do a Save As and give my XML file a new name, and a new FSEQ file comes along with it.

I've been on version 2016.51 for about a week, but something I found "suspicious" a few days ago day was that when I opened up xLights, I got an error message to the effect of my show directory being invalid. I re-selected it and all seemed fine after.

Coincidence?

[garyh]

I'd update to .53 and see if things clear up.  I've had no problems with .53

[Gary]

What I don't gt is why it was working and then it "broke"?

[Gilrock]

There was obviously a problem accessing the directory.  Are you using a Dropbox or a USB stick for your show?

[Gary]

I'm saving right onto the hard drive of my computer...

The reason why I came back here is that I discovered something else weird I discovered, but with Audacity: When I export to an MP3 overwriting a file in my xLights folder, the date/timestamp of the MP3 file remains the same as well.

Or... if I save as a new file name such as Song2.mp3, the date/timestamp on the new file is correct. Where it gets weird is that if I delete my Song.mp3 and rename Song2.mp3 to Song.mp3, the date/time stamp reverts to what the old Song.mp3's date/timestamp.

Something with Windows 10 that I don't know about?

[Gary]

I looked at this again today because it's kind of annoying questioning whether my FSEQ files were "fresh" or "stale"...

I brought up the Command Prompt to look at the folder, and saw that the file dates/time were what I was expecting. As it turns out, Windows was trying to be smart as to what fields to show in my file listing, and since there were MP3 media files, I guess Windows shown the "Date" column (Or I added it in since there was no date column by default)... I turned on the "Date Modified" column, and it's showing the correct date now. 

[arw01]

Ran into this too with a sequence that was shared, for a few days could not get a fseq to render at all, deleted the old one, still would not render.  I made some changes to the sequence last night to add a new element and it started rendering again.  It went through the motions, but no file was created, not sure what to make of it as it tossed no errors either.

But have also see that Date instead of Date Modified in the details listing.

Alan

[Gilrock]

I had to update my sequences and noticed I didn't see the date changing but I right-clicked and looked at properties and saw the Date Accessed was current so I just trusted the file was updated and loaded it.  When I render is it takes 2 seconds I know its only saving the xml file and if I get a render status bar and 30+ seconds I know the fseq file is being saved.

[arw01]

Gil what was the setting that changed the size of the over all grid it was trying to render?  I have some sequences over 60 seconds to render and when you are messing with props  and imports you have to re-render a lot.

[Gilrock]

When you created a model group there are options for the default buffer size.  It defaults to a 400x400 grid but you can type in a smaller number.  If you typed in 200 then it would be 40,000 cells instead of 160,000 cells and would render 4 times faster.  Then when you place effects you have choices in the Render Style.  Default will give you whatever you selected in the model properties but you can switch to other buffer sizes like Per Preview will be a large buffer that's the entire size of your layout.

[arw01]

And that per preview is basically the number of nodes across the house e.g. if I have say 200 across the gutters and go out a little wider are we talking xlights thinks the "grid" for that is 300 ish, or is it doing the pixel count of my background image for it's "per preview"?

[Gilrock]

I really don't know.  You could drop an effect like a Marquee with a 5 pixel band size and count the number of color changes.

[JonB256]

The date displayed in my Win10 file window was showing the Date Created date, not the date last Modified (which is what you want. If you Right Click on the file headers (I'm assuming you are looking a "Details" view) and click on Date Modified. Now it will show the date you expect.

[arw01]

I think I can almost reproduce the fseq not rendering.  I flip back and forth to my layout tab a lot, I have noticed perhaps that if you render when on the layout tab, besides never really finishing there, the fseq seems way more likely to not write out.

I just did it about 10 times in a row where it would not render, had to close the sequence re-open and it would. Normally if I made a change to a setting of an effect it would render the next time I did it.

Would someone mind testing that out to see if we can get Gil enough to reproduce the issue.

[Gilrock]

How are you making the determination that it didn't render?