Support Forum

Hi Guys,

I have had a few issues at the last gig I did on friday, which meant I had to really babysit the machine, and I wonder if anyone has experienced the same or knows what it might be.

Firstly, I am using freestyler with an entec open dmx dongle on a dell laptop.
I have 6 stairvile LED cans, 2 Acme winner scans, 1 SGM flasher strobe and 1 Laserworld laser.
Finally, I am using glovepie to generate midi commands to operate the various features in freestyler.

Right, so the problems...

The first issue I had was that every hour or so the DMX output would just stop, I had to unplug the dongle, close freestyler, replug the dongle then restart freestyler in order to get dmx back. Most annoying! Any ideas? Anything I could look at?

Secondly, I had issues with override buttons. For example, I have an override button that turns the laser off, this works most of the time, but at some point in the evening, all of a sudden it the override will turn on, but will not turn off again. I have to manually click on the laser and tell it to release overrides.
If I restart freestyler, this starts working again, but then after a while, the same issue arises again.

In order to operate the override buttons I am sending a midi-note velocity =100% followed by a velocity of 0. Is that correct?
Is there anything I can look into for his issue?

Any help would be much much appreciated, as it got pretty frustrating having to continually restart, unplug etc etc. I'd really like to fix these problems before I next use it out anywhere.

Yours hopefully
Kind Regards
Ben

You didn't mention a fog/haze machine, but I figured I would mention that if you use one, make sure all fog/haze machine cables a far away from any of the DMX lines. I had the same issue one night with my fog machine wires too close. I had to keep restarting Freestyler to correct the "lock-up". Fortunately, my LED lights would stay on, but everything else would black out. I don't think my crowd even knew that I had issues. It only took about 30 seconds to restart Freestyler everytime, but it still was a pain.
I don't even plug in the power of the fog machine to the same outlet of any of the lights. I have never had that happen again because now I pay close attention to placement of the fog/haze machines and their cables. As of now, I don't use midi, so I can't help with that.

Re: the hazer issue, I don think it would be that as the hazer was on the other side of the room and the cables not near, but thanks for the idea.
I guess it is possible that some sort of interference might have been an issue as I had to squirt the DMX down a tie line at the venue to the back of the dj booth for the laser and some cans.

I suppose there might have been all sorts that may have caused some interference. Is this a problem with the cheapo dongle?

Hi Guys

If your interface stops sending DMX data, your laptop or pc is the cause: USB selective suspend
XP and vista will disable by default the USB root hub after an amount of time to save energy.
In the device manager right click on all root hubs and change this behaviour, there is also a patch from Microsoft called: Disable Selective Suspend.

I never had issues with overrides enabling by itself, I think your midi software is sending wrong data.

Best regards

Raph

There is a known issue with the enttec open and its sensitivity to noise on the dmx line which causes the usb device to crash.
i have posted a fix in the tutorials page.

Hi matt,

I may be being a little dense, but I couldn't find the post you refer to, any chance of a hint?


Raph, I think I have narrowed down the cause of the problem with the overrides... As I understand it, in order to "press" an override button via mid, you need to send a midi note on, followed by a midi note off.

The problem seems to come if you are using midi notes for multiple functions, such as note 23 for an override button, and note 30 for submaster go..
In this instance, if you press another midi key before releasing the first, freestyler gets confused. The override button looks like it has turned off, but the override remains active. Further pressing of the midi key appears to turn the override on and off, but doesnt actually make a difference to the fixture.

So in my example of the laser mentioned earlier in the post :

I am using midi note 23 for override button 1 and midi note 30 for the submaster (for example). The override forces the laser to be off, so that you can change the pattern preset before turning it on. The following sequence shows the problem, starting with the laser being on :

1 - Midi note 23 on
2- Midi note 23 off (laser turns off, override 1 is active)

3 - Midi note 23 on (but is held down fractionally too long by mistake so...)
4 - Midi note 30 on (the other key is also pressed briefly to change the preset)
5 - Midi note 30 off (preset is changed)
6 - Midi note 23 off (Override button turns off, BUT override is still active)

From the point on, it becomes necessary to clear the override manually.
Further presses of Midi note 23 will enable the override, but every time the override button is deactivated the override stays active on the fixtures.

It is necessary to completely exit the program in order to reset the situation.
Sorry for the long note, but any ideas?

This might seem quite a small problem, but it means that one false twitch of the fingers and you have to completely restart freestyler to get it working properly again.

Does that make sense?
Ben

Many thanks for this Matt.

Is this something you have done and it works? If so then that would be fantastic.
I don't mind getting a busy with a soldering iron

Sorry guys, I know this one is a bit of a poser...
Has anyone had anything similar with any other controllers?


Also, just a note to Raph, that your efforts in always picking up and resolving these little issues I seem to keep finding are most appreciated
I feel a bit like I am always moaning, but lets be honest its a great bit of software and almost completely does everything I need, without buying a Pearl or similar!

bckeeping wrote:Sorry guys, I know this one is a bit of a poser...
Has anyone had anything similar with any other controllers?

i have tried the same with a BCF2000,, I think i pressed two buttons on the bcf which was for two override buttons (flash). one of the override function was keeping active until I pushed the "Release All" button.. next time i was pushing one of the buttons for an override button,, same problem happend, the override button is not deactivated when you release the button on the BCF..