Problems with X-Lights

[Dennis Cherry]

I am trying to run my show with X-Lights the last few days of the season, but have a couple of problems.

1. In the Schedule, the Files name length for the PLAY LIST are not long enough and cannot be expanded in the Window. My file names are long and it would be nice to be able to expand the file name ares to see my option notes in my file name..

2. X-Light crashes if I want to remake a Xseq file again and already have one made. I do not get the warning window that the file already exists and do I want to over write it.  Got tp go and delete the file again and then restart X-Lights again.

3. X-Lights will sometime crash trying to convert an LMS file to Zseq. I believe this is happening because of an conflict with the Bluetooth driver and device installed recently.

Once the files are converted everything right now looks fine.

[rrowan]

I don't get a crash when I repeatedly convert the same file to xseq.

Wow you must have some very long filenames. I thought mine were long but I can see them with no problem.

Rick R.

[Steve Gase]

Could the old sequence file being overwritten be "in use"?

[SCUBA]

I could use a little help with Xlights.  12 LSP files converted to .lms files, then I ran the setnet scripts to modify the network settings:

 networks = [{'stIndex':0,'endIndex':47, 'net':0},
                {'stIndex':48,'endIndex':479, 'net':1},
                {'stIndex':480,'endIndex':911, 'net':2},
                {'stIndex':912,'endIndex':1343, 'net':3},
                {'stIndex':1344,'endIndex':1487, 'net':4},]

Where the first 48 channels are LOR; 3-16 channel box units 1-3 and the next four are a single E680 E1.31 with 4 universes; 3 universes with 432 channels (144 pixels) each, and the last universe has 144 channels.

A view of the converted files shows network="0" for the LOR boxes; the the Network="..." for the four universes in 'proper order'.  looks good!

Xlights:
Network setup:

   Network type      Port           Baud or universe        Last Channel

  LOR                    COM3               57600                       48
E131                    239.255.0.1           1                          432
E131                    239.255.0.2           2                          432
E131                    239.255.0.3           3                          432
E131                    239.255.0.4           4                          432

All looks good?

Make a test playlist: 'all lights on' (it's one of the LMS files I converted).  Play the file; everything lights up except for the last universe (4).  No lights.  If I run Lighting Test....I can light up the last Universe and everything else for that matter.  But the sequences will not 'run' universe 4.


Long story..... Must of screwed something up in the long conversion process..

Your Thoughts!!

John

[taybrynn]

Overall, I'm thrilled with xlights.

That said, I also find the file names way too short and non-expandable.  Just would be nice to have it about twice as wide.

I also have found that messing with the GUI while a show is running ... most often results in a crash.  So I don't do it.

I can put new files in the xlights directory while its playing, but I do try to avoid putting in a file thats currently or about to be played.

I've also found a few validations are not quite working as intended.  I like to run a late-night sequence which keeps on the lights (for security lighting) ... and when I try to schedule a playlist to say start at 10pm and then end at 6:30 am ... it says the end time my be greater than the beginning time ... so thats been a problem for me.

Also, it would be nice to either have more choices of start times (currently every 15 but nothing for midnight?) ... or the ability to entry in a user entered start time, perhaps?

Again, don't take this the wrong way ... overall in love in xlights ... but these are minor issues that I'm sure could be addressed in the future.

I also miss the 'show on demand' capablity that LOR has ... so it would be nice to have that also.

Love the xlights tester, its really nice.

Thanks,
Scott

[Dennis Cherry]

I don't get a crash when I repeatedly convert the same file to xseq.

Wow you must have some very long filenames. I thought mine were long but I can see them with no problem.

Rick R.

They are about 17 meg or less files.

[Dennis Cherry]

Could the old sequence file being overwritten be "in use"?

No, made sure it was removed from the Scheduler before doing a conversion or not being used by S3.

[dowdybrown]

I am trying to run my show with X-Lights the last few days of the season, but have a couple of problems.

1. In the Schedule, the Files name length for the PLAY LIST are not long enough and cannot be expanded in the Window. My file names are long and it would be nice to be able to expand the file name ares to see my option notes in my file name..

2. X-Light crashes if I want to remake a Xseq file again and already have one made. I do not get the warning window that the file already exists and do I want to over write it.  Got tp go and delete the file again and then restart X-Lights again.

3. X-Lights will sometime crash trying to convert an LMS file to Zseq. I believe this is happening because of an conflict with the Bluetooth driver and device installed recently.

Once the files are converted everything right now looks fine.

Thank you Dennis for the feedback. xLights can't get better if people like you don't point out the shortcomings.

#1 should be easy to fix, I will look into it.

#2 I will try to recreate the issue on my pc.

#3 has already been fixed and will be released in the next version.

Thanks again,

Matt

[mmais68569]

If your file names are to long just right click on them & rename them to XYZ christmas.

          Mike

[rrowan]

I also would like a way to have it work thru midnight

Like Christmas Eve after the show is done I just have the Nativity scene lit till 9am

So it ran from 10pm to 11:45 and then it started again at 12:15am so for a half hour it was dark.

Rick R.

[taybrynn]

Also, when you first turn on xlights ... and click on the Scheduler button ... it would be nice if there was a delay possible (like 5 seconds) where you could click "uncheck" the 'run schedule' box ... because I found that if you try to modify a show already in progress ... its hard to uncheck this box ... and doing so often resulted in crashes for me.

Of course, I have recently found that running an .xseq only show seems to fix the crashing, which was apparently related to the .lms files somehow ... .lms files with over 4300 channels in them.

Again, this is just nice to have stuff.  The playing past midnight would be a really big nice to have.

[dmaccole]

I also would like a way to have it work thru midnight

I would hope the scheduler could become a bit more robust ...

In 2010 I ran one show on even-numbered nights and another show on odd-numbered nights ... this was no problem with V, which uses a calendar to schedule (but then, V crashed about four times over three weeks, so there was that).

This year I had to switch to shows that were tagged to specific nights of the week, as I would have had to redo the scheduler each week, a PITA.

A show should be able to start at any time ... 7:58 a.m. or 5:32 p.m. or whatever ... and if it's scheduled to start at 5:32 p.m. and run eight hours, it would end the next day at 1:32 a.m.

Don't know if there's existing code floating around the 'Net that you could use for inspiration or whether you'd have to do this from scratch ...

Thanks for xLights.

\dmc

[rmp2917]

I also miss the 'show on demand' capablity that LOR has ... so it would be nice to have that also.

I'm not sure how the 'show on demand' in LOR works, but in xlights you can play a show from the scheduler at any time by clicking the playlist tab and selecting the Start Playlist button on the toolbar. The Run Schedule box has to be unchecked for this to work.

I was able to work around the time settings by manually editing the xlight_schedule.xml file. I set my regular show to end at 11:57PM (23:57) and set my static display to start at midnight (00:00). I wasn't able to start a show and get it run past midnight (at least not intentionally), but I only had a couple of minutes of dark.

I did discover by accident that I could set my show to end at 11:59 and get it to run past midnight. Unfortunately, it would never shut off though. Apparently the last sequence was starting at 11:58 and running past midnight. So, when the sequence ended and xlights checked the time, the time was never greater than 23:59 and the show would never end.

[taybrynn]

Thats good advise, editing the file ... duh!

Also, I found that I CAN uncheck the 'run schedule' box a lot easier now that I'm only running .xseq files in my playlist.

I think xlights was so bogged down with the .lms files ... that it was almost impossible to uncheck the box for a running show ... and when you did, it crashed. 

Now with the xlights format only being used, these problems have mostly gone away for me.

Again, not complaining ... xlights is great ... we just give feedback and later (we hope) it'll be even better!

[pk]

Want to work past midnight?  How about this for a work around?  Just change the time on your show computer by 12 hours.  Computer noon is really midnight!    You can start your show at 5:30 AM (real 5:30PM) and stop at 1:00 PM (real 1 AM)