Help button – Dark/freeze

[bigbean]

I was called by a customer tonight about a situation that occurred during a rehearsal.
The customer saved a scene and things looked odd. The scene list was changed or had reverted to an earlier list. So…..
The customer hit the help button for help. Touch screen went dark and the surface was locked. Mute buttons, talk back button etc. wouldn’t work. Audio throughput was maintained. The customer called me and I told him to hard reset and reload the show file.

Normal operation returned.

Any thoughts?

firmware v1.02 build 56 something

[Chris93]

Having the scene list revert to an earlier list would suggest that they hadn’t updated the show file since that earlier list was created. This is what I would suspect if it was the only problem.

Having the console go dark is obviously an entirely different sort of problem and it’s reasonable to assume that whatever caused this also caused the scene list change.

Chris

[bigbean]

The console had been backed up to the show file before being shut down on Sunday evening. It had been unused until the beginning of the Wednesday rehearsal.

The power management scheme presently interrupts power to the board after the console goes through it’s shut down procedure. Do you think this is correct or do you think that the console should be shut down with it’s power switch and left with mains power feeding it?

[Chris93]

I’m not sure if there’s any difference really, I suppose it depends what stage of the power supply the switch is at. If it’s directly after the IEC connector then turning it off would be the same as pulling the plug. I doubt there’s a difference as far as the digital components of the actual console (after the PSU) are concerned, all I can imagine happening is that they just stop seeing power. I’ve done both and haven’t had any problems.

Would you be able to get a copy of their show file? I’d be highly surprised if it was possible to create a show file that was capable of blacking out the control surface but it couldn’t hurt to have a look (probably []).

I don’t know how the GLD works internally but it’s worth noting that only the control elements of the system stopped working. Presumably they were using an AudioRack on the dsnake network, did this continue to pass audio? Did the consoles local I/O continue to pass audio?

Chris

[bigbean]

The Aviom system continued to pass audio, the d snake 2412 and 84 continued to pass audio.

I’m only guessing but….. I think the OS gacked due to a memory allocation issue or a software problem that ran it out of memory. It was working fine after reboot two hours later so it doesn’t seem to be a hardware issue.

I’ll be working with it two hours Saturday and four hours Sunday so we’ll see. (I bet I’ll update the show file and backup to USB frequently and reboot between services prolly, Huh.)

[byondo]

there is an old post of mine about it:
https://iliveforum.allen-heath.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2072
never happened again, though (but never seen an official answer by A&H too..)

regards
Massimo

[bigbean]

Interesting. Thank you for the post.

The console had no USB at the time of this incident but during the most recent period of use it did have one. I removed it at the end of that session to purge/copy files.

It’s also possible to gack a Roland M-400 with a usb drive although doesn’t result in a complete freeze of control function.

I think I’ll spare myself the “fun” of a formal case file etc. on what seems to be a very isolated situation that will prolly be healed by a firmware upgrade and continue to crowd source info.

Thanks again.

[Chris93]

What is it that the M400’s do again? I’ve heard of one of those doing something bad as soon as it saw a flash drive it didn’t like.

Chris

[bigbean]

They are picky about USB drives. They don’t tolerate any bloatware on the stick.

You can make the usb part of the board unresponsive until you reboot by doing something the board doesn’t like with the drive. I’m sure it’s fixed with the M-480s / I don’t think the M-400 is current. We have got two in rental so I use one from time to time. Not a perfect product but it’s got some good attributes and it’s an easy, light and rugged 40 channels. We use it a lot for things that need lots of iso press feeds. I like their PC gui. In a pinch, you can use it for simultaneous on stage monitor mixing with only one desk.

I think Roland’s PC app is much better than Yamaha’s Studio Manager. Although, the good thing about Studio Manager is, as far as the gui goes, a PM5d works exactly like an 01v96i. With an Avid Profile the gui and the desk are not separable. Whatever. All this stuff does some things really well and some things not as well….

pretty soon it’s Monday again.

[Chris93]

Exactly. I think I care about the specifics of consoles until I start mixing something and then I just want to get stuff done. So far the GLD has been pretty good at staying out of the way and letting me do this.

Chris

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