song hanging up

[ronniek]

Just hooked up wireless and now when i play the sequence it hangs up on the song and will not continue. Any one know what would cause this? It all worked good until I put on the wireless.

[wbuehler]

Do you mean that the controller stops responding or that the sequencing software locks up?

Bill

[ronniek]

The software locks up.

[ronniek]

It plays a note over and over and over again. I have to turn the computer off to get it to stop.

[austindave]

Hmmm... The only thing I could think of is that the wireless transmitter having a short someplace on the DMX input - causing the DMX dongle to draw too much power, in turn causing the computer to disable the USB port, in turn causing the port to disappear for the software, causing the SW to hang... (I know that's a pretty convoluted series of things to happen, but it's the only way I can envision having the wireless impact the sw)...

When this happens, is there any kind of indication in the systray (lower right-hand corner of your display) that indicates the USB port has been disabled? If you open the Device Manger (right-click on My Computer, select Properties, & click on Device Manager & see if it indicates that the USB port has a problem)?

Just my thoughts on it...

How about posting clear photos of the transmitter board - front & back... Maybe someone will see something wrong...

--Dave

[tbone321]

While that sounds interesting and quite possibly correct, what would happen if the Tx/Rx were in receive mode instead of transmitt mode?

[austindave]

... what would happen if the Tx/Rx were in receive mode instead of transmitt mode?

I'm not that far along with the wireless stuff, but I'd theorize it'd do the same thing...

I'm thinking that a receiver that wasn't getting a wireless signal would be trying to drive its DMX output to zero. When the dongle tried to drive its DMX output to 1 (when programmed to do so by the SW), it would be fighting the receiver - possibly resulting in an overcurrent condition - causing the port to shut down, etc. etc.

I'm thinking that could well be the problem...

Let us know what you find.

--Dave

[RJ]

Ok,

 Now lets think about this for a minute.

You have a opto isolated dmx dongle that prevents the output from seeing the input at all. This been said the computer does not know if the dongle is hooked to anything or not and could not care if you shorted the dmx output together. Other than you may drive the com chip to draw enough current from the isolated dc to dc converter to cause the usb port to shut off.

So the Wireless should not be causing any problem like this. The Dongle not working on the other hand can cause vixen to hang and run slow. This is because when the software is dumping data to the port if the dongle is not keeping up it overflows the buffer and starts making vixen wait for the backlog to clear. It never does so soon vixen dies with a com error.

We know the dongle is working ok?

RJ

[austindave]

RJ,

Yeah, the only way I could see the wireless feature causing problems back to Vixen was by causing the USB dongle to overload the port (since the port is providing the power to the dongle). If the wireless transmitter were to be mis-configured - causing it to drive the DMX "bus" (instead of reading it), "bucking" the dongle (or maybe having a short on the DMX input of the transmitter), it might be able to cause the dongle to pull the 500ma that will shut down most USB ports.

Ronniek said that everything was working fine 'til he connected wireless... I'm thinking the only way simply connecting wireless to a working system would cause this is by overloading the USB port, causing the PC to shut it down & then Vixen hanging up when it can no longer access the port.

I could certainly be wrong, but an overloaded USB port (due to a DMX short or mis-configured transmitter causing the dongle to draw too much power) seemed to be the most likely cause of the problem.

--Dave

[rm357]

I don't want to patronize, but just to make sure it is the wireless transmitter causing the problem, unplug the RJ45 going to the wireless and try running the sequence again.

[ronniek]

Sorry for the delay but I'm at work and will not be home till tomorrow to work on the problem again. The wireless works ok if I use it without a song. Thanks for the help.

[austindave]

The wireless works ok if I use it without a song.

Well, that certainly changes things...

As RJ asked, "We know the dongle is working ok?"
And the same song / sequence plays properly with the dongle attached, but without the wireless connected?
So if you have an LE (for example) attached to the dongle directly (through a cat 5 cable) and you play the same song / sequence, the lights behave as expected?
Then disconnecting the LE, replacing it with the Tx (using the same, "known good" cat 5 cable), the song / sequence hangs?
And you have the transmitter module sitting on some sort of an insulator - like a piece of cardboard (without any wire cuttings on it) - and not on something conductive (like an anti-static mat)?

Sorry for the 20 questions, but the fact that you're seeing the wireless work - but not with the song playing - really changes the nature of the problem - likely taking us back to a problem with the dongle (as RJ suggested) or a problem with the song itself.

Let us know what you find...

--Dave

[Greg]

So what I think I hear you saying is that a sequence without audio attached plays just fine and blinky flashy occurs as expected, but with audio attached to the sequence it hangs?

Back in the dusty recesses of my mind I recall a similar problem I had using Vixen 2.x (maybe version 2.05) with one particular song.  After great lengths trying to figure out what the heck the correlation might be, the only thing I could find was that at a certain point in the mp3 audio file there was clipping and if the visualizer was turned on vixen would hang at that point.  After using MP3Gain to knock the max level down on the audio file, vixen was magically happy again.  I've never seen the issue here again but I always use MP3Gain to make sure there isn't any clipping in the audio files.


Greg

[ronniek]

Thanks Guys for all your help. I've been trying many different things and finaly starting over and using a different song I have it working for now.  I love the way somebody always comes to help others having problems. This is the best site ever. Thanks again.

Ronniek

[austindave]

Excellent! Glad to hear you got it working!

--Dave