Hello
I am new to this form, but not that new to elation products. I have been using Design Spot 250s for 3 years or so, and one forms of compu software for about 7 years, starting back on the 02 software. I then used the 04 software for many years, then 06, and now the current Compu Live.
I use a mac book with 2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4gb ram. I run parallels 3 with windows XP Pro, windows seeing 2gb of ram. I have been running this system for 2-3 years.
Problems:
1. The problem I run into is with the software and usb sync. I will plug in usb dongle, and then open software. On dongle there will be green light blinking fast telling me it is getting data feed from software once open and running. Normally, not more than 5 minutes later, the green light on the dongle stops blinking, and the lights linked to dongle no longer respond to any new commands. Try to close program, no response, end program task. Restart windows, and start all over again. On a good night I can get 30-40 minutes out of it before loosing this connection, normally the less number of fixtures the longer it will run. Please keep in mind this is happening during parties, productions, and other events. Each time we have to restart we loose around 5 minutes of control during one of these shows and it is causing us problems with our clients. Even when we do switch over to a backup board, you still loose the data that was going to the lights, they all blackout temporally, and then jump to whatever the new board says to do, being very noticeable and undesirable. Please help me understand why the usb dongle is loosing the software command feed?
2. This problem is a new on that I experienced on a major production a couple weeks ago, and since this problem we have not used a laptop based controller on any shows because of the problems caused.
Running software as normal, had it running about 20 minutes, after one restart from problem mentioned above. After getting 4-5 scenes programed, I am running back through the scenes, the entire compu window closes, and I am back to just windows, all lights freeze with last command. I am thinking, ok, quick restart like normal, and everything will be fine...boy was I wrong. I open up controller for the first time, and everything is wrong:
- Opening window of software was sunlite or something like that, no longer the elation window of normal when program boots up.
-No more compression of buttons
-It is in French, with no English option
-I cant change any parameter, adjust anything on the pages
-Compu says every page of fixtures is channels 1-100, not what they really were
- Anything I just programed is not remembered
- Some buttons work, most wont do anything
- Any fixture with channels set above 100 I have now lost control of.
This is 5 minutes before the grand entrance at a major party.
I restart the program, nothing. I restart windows and open the program, still the same crashed french version. I restart the program 8 more times, still always opening as sunlite, not elation, in french. By now, I have missed the cues for grand opening, and first 15 or so minutes of event.
For whatever reason, after the next restart, the program opens as elation, but we are still in french. I still can not adjust page parameters, If I load the show I just saved it does not remember changes, The only thing that is back to normal is the fixture channels are back to where they should be, and I can adjust the lights again. This means programing as nobody notices the the scenes I had lost, during the party as I needed them.
I have included some screen shots of where I got with the last restart, for some reason I did not think to do that during the initial problems, oh thats right, I was trying to make my light show work with a dead controller. I tried to get software to revert back to before this crash and it never did. I finally updated software to your newest release, and now I have English again! And everything seems back to normal for how long? Except for loosing communication with usb as listed above in first problem.
What happened to me, and what will prevent this from happening again? How can I fix first problem listed, a if it can't be improved, I will be selling off our 3-4 elation systems as they are not currently reliable and we are not using them.
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