Timer control freezing Vixen after 2 hours

[jrock64]

Newer PC. Old hard drive died.:mad:
Lenovo 2.8GHz Intel 512M memory WinXP Pro. All known updates installed.

New install of .net and Vixen from website then allowed to update to 2.0.9.0

Two sequences placed into a program using a named profile.
Program scheduled to start at 6:30 and repeat until 11:00pm.

Sometime between 8:45 and 9:00pm the second song will finish and and the first will not appear to start. I have actually heard this happen.
There is no audio. no output to renard or DMX.

The PC shows no errors and the timer control says it is executing the first song.
When I use "stop all" I can return to vixen.
If I open a sequence it will not play. When I press play nothing happens.

If I close and reopen Vixen I can restart timers.
All will return to normal for about 2 hours.

All power saving features are set to not activate for at least 6 hours.

Today I opened a sequence in the editor and had it continuously loop for 4 hours today with no issues.

Has any one else experienced this or have any suggestions?

Joel

[WWNF911]

I've only heard of this on this (new) version of Vixen. Recommend going back to a known stable version and turn off the auto update.

Heres KC's post of version 2.0.5.
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2648&highlight=vixen+finally

[jrock64]

Reverted vixen back to 2.0.5.1.

Allowed the timer to start the show at 6:30.
Show just froze at 8:50. 2 hours 20 minutes later.

No difference.

Starting to believe it may be my pc, but what?

[WWNF911]

Is this:
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?p=43615#post43615

similar to your issue?

[jrock64]

Where do we stand on the scheduler issue?:?:

I never could get 2.0.5.0 to work correctly.
If 2.0.5.0 is my only option I will have to start figuring out why it is having issues.

Joel

[RavingLunatic]

Have you checked the Vixen Bugzilla site? KC wants to use that for starting and tracking Vixen "bug" reports.

More info:
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4846

[Steven010]

We're having the same problem with the timer control freezing. However, it freezes at different time intervals. Any solutions?

[ErnieHorning]

I’ve had similar problems with the timer and using a master profile; except that the music still plays. Sometimes I can stop and restart, sometimes I have to restart Vixen and sometimes I have to blow it away first.

Instead of using a profile for a program, use a profile for each sequence. Set the program to use each sequence’s plug-in setup.

This seams to be working and I haven’t had problems in the last two days.

[rstehle]

I had to do exactly the same thing, and it ran fine. I have a question about using the crossfade between sequences. I run into Com port errors if it is set anywhere above 0 sec. Is any one else seeing the same thing? Is there any other easy way to get a bit more time between sequences?

[Steven010]

Already changed the program to use each individual sequence plug-ins - detached the sequences from the profile as suggested in an earlier post.

Just moved everything to a faster computer (XP P4 2GB Ram) and it does the same thing. First pc was a win 2000 P3.

Observations.....software seems to be a resource hog, wondering if this might be a memory leak issue. It's never frozen during the middle of a song, always freezes before starting a new sequence and/or at the end of the program. Occasionaly get a frame.net error.

NEED A SOLUTION PLEASE...... HOUSE DECORATION JUDGING IS BOTH MONDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHTS and we have kid committments and can't be home for both evenings:? So need the Program/Scheduler to work.

[WWNF911]

Observations.....software seems to be a resource hog, wondering if this might be a memory leak issue. It's never frozen during the middle of a song, always freezes before starting a new sequence and/or at the end of the program. Occasionaly get a frame.net error.


I've got the same here and noticed that when I've added more sequences to the program, I can get the timer to go longer between freezing. Additionally I've been able to recover lots quicker by going into task manager, killing the Vixen process, closing that window and restarting Vixen. Then I just click on restart current timers. donwside is the show starts over from the begining. Upside is the recovery is a heck of a lot quicker than restarting windows.

PS - I havent tried Ernie's method yet. I'll try that next. So far I've only got it to go up to an hour and a half between freezing.

[ErnieHorning]

I tried crossfade and couldn’t find any combination that didn’t give a comm. error.

BTW, I’m finding that this problem exits when just using the visualizer only. I played with this on another computer until I found what worked and then tried it on the show computer.

[jrock64]

Ernie
Are you running 2.0.5 or 2.0.9.

I have tried all the suggestions so far and no merry Christmas yet.

Still freezing every 2:15 to 2:30.

I hope that someone reports back that KC's fix squashes this sucker.

Joel

[ErnieHorning]

I reverted back to 2.0.5 and found that the problem still existed. After I found a work around, I tried it on 2.0.9 and it still worked.

Joel, Maybe a possible work around for you is to have program that only lasts for a hour and run it multiple times.

[kostyun]

I will need to try the individual plugin option - as I am having the same issue - lasts 1.5 to 2 hours then freezes. I have had the same issue on 2.0.5 and 2.0.9. I will give the individual plugins a try today

[dmcole]

Is there any other easy way to get a bit more time between sequences?

I've added a couple of seconds of silence on the end of each sequence ... Go to Sequence -> Audio and uncheck the "Resize the sequence to the audio length" button. Then double-click on the "Sequence time (mm:ss)" toolbar item and extend the length by a couple of seconds. This will give you "dead air" at the end of the sequence, which is almost as good as cross-fading.

Best o' luck.

\dmc

[ErnieHorning]

... almost as good as cross-fading.I’ve never used crossfading in Vixen before my attempt yesterday, but if it’s like all my other audio programs, it will allow you to start the next sequence before the current one is completely finished. You’ll hear the previous one fade out while the next one plays. The seconds setting corresponds to the amount of overlap.

This is the same as you’ll hear on radio stations that play commercial free music.

[Steven010]

Still troubleshooting here - getting desperate as judging is tonight!
Re-did program to have 1 hour of play time (6 shows) as suggested

PC - Win 2000 - plays 21 mins = 2 shows - fairly consistent now and then stops. - nothing on this machine but vixen

PC - Win XP - com port error "router" plug-in

Laptop - Win XP - just started testing - had 2.05 on it and no audio would play with program - upgraded to 2.09 and is working - let's see for how long.

Any Suggestions??

[JEEPGUY]

KC Posted this in the General Vixen Forum last night. I haven't tried this yet but tonight I will. Hopefully, it's the fix we're looking for or at least a temporary one.

http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5544 (http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5544)

[Steven010]

Here's an update: Both laptop and pc were stopping at about 20-25 minutes. So did this procedure:

Closed Software
Restarted Vixen
Changed Schedule Start Time – to be in sinc with pc
Closed Software
Reset pc time – so that scheduler would start within 1 minute
Restarted Vixen
didn’t do anything – let timer start by itself.

pc stopped at 84 mins (1 hr 24 mins) - repeated steps above and stopped at 53 minutes - this machine seems to degrade.

laptop just stopped at 2.5 hrs - but threw an error twice and kept playing and then ended on an error:

Received this error 2 times but laptop kept playing:
(Router)An output plugin caused the following exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Execution has been stopped.

Laptop received this error and ended/closed the software:
Vixen.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Going to restart both machines again and see what happens - only have 2.5 hours till showtime!!!

[Steven010]

JUst noticed something on laptop that makes me think there might be a hardware bug...Does the software care about the hardware handshake pins on serial port? software was running on laptop while nothing plugged in, hotplugged the serial port to first Renard, the "router" error poped up...?

[ErnieHorning]

Renard doesn’t use handshaking though I believe a couple of status lines are set high for power stealing.

Renard only uses ground and transmit and blindly accepts what it sees without any acknowledgement

[kostyun]

The update provided by KC fixed all of my issues!

[Wombat]

Im having a freezing issue as well. Not sure if it is timer related as I am not using them. But at different times Vixen just freezes with the hourglass showing and I have to close (kill task) and reopen it to fix.

Wombat

[WWNF911]

The update provided by KC fixed all of my issues!


Me too!!

For those who've not tried it yet, here's the link.

http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5544

[ErnieHorning]

The new software had no effect on the problem I was experiencing.

Certain sequences would not control lights with a master profile. I had all plug-ins in each sequence disabled.

For trouble shooting, I created a program with only one of the errant sequences. The final solution was to use a profile in each sequence and the same profile as the master profile in the program.

Interestingly with one sequence with 64 channels, if only the master profile was used with 128 channels, I’d get and an error that said that the profile had more channels than the sequence. But I could run the sequence with same profile attached to it and it would play fine. I could then also use that same profile in a program and it would still play fine.

Usually when a program wouldn’t play, I couldn’t get out of the manager and would have to three finger the program to stop it.

This was all very frustrating, since I was trying to trouble shoot this while the display was supposed to be running and most of the time the lights were out. Fortunately, I now have something that does work so I have a show and can try any fixes at other times.

[rrowan]

Me too!!

For those who've not tried it yet, here's the link.

http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5544

Hi Leon,

Does that fix also work for Enttec DMX control?

My timer seems to be locking up each night. Getting tired of baby sitting the computer

Thanks

Rick R.

[jrock64]

I am running 4 renard plugins and one DMX Pro

No issues for two nights now.

JOel

[rrowan]

I am running 4 renard plugins and one DMX Pro

No issues for two nights now.

JOel

Thanks for the info Joel

I'll have to give it a try

Rick R.

[WWNF911]

Hi Leon,

Does that fix also work for Enttec DMX control?

My timer seems to be locking up each night. Getting tired of baby sitting the computer

Thanks

Rick R.


Hmmmm. Not sure Rick. I have the LYNX Dongle with the same plug-in. Everything works great after KC's update.

Was a great relief to finally have a night where I didn't have to be somewhere close to the computer in case. :rolleyes:

[rrowan]

Hmmmm. Not sure Rick. I have the LYNX Dongle with the same plug-in. Everything works great after KC's update.

Was a great relief to finally have a night where I didn't have to be somewhere close to the computer in case. :rolleyes:

uh, I met I use the Enttec plugin but I have the Lynx Dongle

Thanks for the info

Rick R.