LOR channel conversion problem

[Torqumada286]

I spent about a month trying to get my DMX stuff to work for Halloween using a Falcon Pi player and my sequences designed in LOR.  While I could get my laptop to talk to each individual piece to work, I could never get everything to work together.  David Pitts from Falcon Christmas was nice enough to try to help me, but we could never get it to work.  One of the things we discovered is that for some reason during the conversion process, Xlights was inflating the number of channels in the LOR universe adding many more than were there.  When I couldn't get it to work, I fell back on a purely LOR show and that's what I ran for Halloween.  I will probably have to do the same for Christmas.   

This morning I decided to do a quick experiment.  I took one of my LOR sequences that only has traditional LOR information in it.  I changed the device type to DMX and changed the channels to the appropriate ones for the dispaly layout.  (David helped with that earlier).  Everything is set on Universe 1 and with 4 controllers there are a maximum of 64 channels, though only 48 are actually in use.  Next I set the xLights setup tab with one universe with 64 channels.  After that I set the FPP to a single universe with 64 channels and then my DIYLED bridge for a single universe with 64 channels on Universe 1.  Then I did my conversion.  Here is the output:

Reading: C:\Users\James\Dropbox\Sequences\Sequences\Halloween opening 2014 DMX test.lms
Reading LOR sequence
Track 1 length = 5381 centiseconds
DMX Network 1:  161 channels
Total channels = 48
# of mapped channels with effects=48
# of effects=96
Media file=C:\Users\James\Dropbox\Nutcracker sequences\Halloween 2012 opening.mp3
New # of time periods=1076
New data len=68864
Writing Falcon Pi Player sequence
Finished writing new file: C:\Users\James\Dropbox\Nutcracker sequences\Halloween opening 2014 DMX test.fseq
Finished converting all files


How am I getting 161 DMX channels? (53.6666 LOR channels?)  In my previous problems, I would get DMX channel counts in the LOR universe in the 180's and sometimes 200's.  I'm sure that is part of my problem.  Any help would be appreciated.  I am currently using Xlights/Nutcracker version 3.4.5

Torqumada

[JonB256]

In LOR, have you run the "Verifier" program? It will probably find the problem with your LOR files.

Note - I'm assuming it is not an xLights conversion problem because I have converted dozens of relatively complex LMS files without problems (they were all cleared by the Verifier)

[flyinverted]

The 161 channels are contained somewhere in the LMS file. If you open that file up in a text editor, you'll see them.

I've done quite a few CCR sequence conversions and even thoug I thought I got rid of the 6 channel star references, the Nutcracker conversion will call me out when I missed a channel.

[Torqumada286]

In LOR, have you run the "Verifier" program? It will probably find the problem with your LOR files.

Note - I'm assuming it is not an xLights conversion problem because I have converted dozens of relatively complex LMS files without problems (they were all cleared by the Verifier)

It told me that I still had Old MC-P compatibility enabled and I turned that off.  Nothing changed with the conversion.

Torqumada

[dkulp]

Can you send me the file to take a look?  (dan at kulp dot com)

[Torqumada286]

Which file would you like?

Torqumada

[dkulp]

Whatever LMS file is causing issues (and the xlights_networks.xml that you are using for the setup tab).  I can then look to see why it's finding so many DMX channels.

[Torqumada286]

The 161 channels are contained somewhere in the LMS file. If you open that file up in a text editor, you'll see them.

I've done quite a few CCR sequence conversions and even thoug I thought I got rid of the 6 channel star references, the Nutcracker conversion will call me out when I missed a channel.

The channels defined in the <channels></channels> section match the 48 channels that I used in the sequence.  Where else can I look to make sure there isn't anything extra?

Torqumada

[Lights On Fifth]

Make sure on the channels in your LMS file that they don't have any beat channels at the start Xlights will read exactly what you have in your LMS file but a beat channel will kill it. just had that problem the other day but we got her solved. look real close at your Lms file and make sure there are only 48 channels.

[dkulp]

For some reason, the channels in your file are set to DMX (good), are set for Network 1 (good), but are also using a Unit number other than 1 which isn't something I had seen from DMX setups from LOR yet.   All the DMX LOR files I had seen either didn't use the unit number or had it set to 1 for the entire universe.   Need to adjust this in the xLights code.

[dkulp]

And then to REALLY confuse things.....

For the most part, unit="1" has the channels 1 through 14.   unit="2" has 17-31.    Then suddenly there is:

channel name="New Channel" color="12615744" centiseconds="5381" deviceType="DMX Universe" unit="1" circuit="32" network="1" savedIndex="48"

which couldn't possibly be on unit 1. 

Definitely looks like I need to completely ignore the unit number if the type is DMX.

[Torqumada286]

Make sure on the channels in your LMS file that they don't have any beat channels at the start Xlights will read exactly what you have in your LMS file but a beat channel will kill it. just had that problem the other day but we got her solved. look real close at your Lms file and make sure there are only 48 channels.

I don't use a beat channel. 

Torqumada

[dkulp]

DMX Network 1:  161 channels

That is just a display issue (now fixed) where we try and display the number of channels per network to help diagnose setup issues.   With the fix, it now reads:

DMX Network 1:  58 channels

which is correct as channel 58 is the last one you have in use.    HOWEVER, that was just a display issue.  It doesn't affect the conversion at all.   Thus, are you having a problem with the actual converted file?

[Torqumada286]

For some reason, the channels in your file are set to DMX (good), are set for Network 1 (good), but are also using a Unit number other than 1 which isn't something I had seen from DMX setups from LOR yet.   All the DMX LOR files I had seen either didn't use the unit number or had it set to 1 for the entire universe.   Need to adjust this in the xLights code.

I am a bit confused about this, since LOR controllers only have 16 channels per controller.  How else do I designate the channels for DMX?  I'm new to this, but I would think that you have to designate it in some way then just sequentially.

Torqumada

[JonB256]

When you converted from LOR to DMX channels, did you do a manual edit with a text editor or in the channel edit tool?