Sloooow Rollin'

My Road Hog recently decided to take ages to go to a cue. If anything on the console is above 0s, it makes twice the time to fade. Most of the cues I have are 3s because of the venue being a church. But occasionally I and a colleague use the console to program other (more exciting) shows. Loops that are 3 step loops at .2s a pice are 2 whole seconds between cues. Release times are about 12 seconds to release.
I updated the software Sunday to 3.2.5 and it did not do anything to help. Noting to my knowledge has changed. (Default times, etc.) The actual software is just sluggish. Even when I checked integrity it took it a good 6 seconds to process it.
So...What's up? (My inside says: WHATS WRONG WITH MY BABY??)

Thanks for the help.

(This may very well be operator error done by a volunteer that somehow got really deep down in a menu and screwed something up that I simply didn't think to check, though I doubt it.)
  • First thing to check is your cuelist rate by pressing and holding Choose or checking your cuelist options. 100% is the nornal rate.

    If that doesn't help you might try two other things.

    1 - backup your showfiles to external media and do a Full Install/Restore of the software and XPe on the desk

    2 - create a new "blank" or "empty" showfile and Merge everything from your current showfile into it.

    Hope this helps. :)
  • You can also try opening the Network window, SETUP->NETWORK.

    Highlight the Net Number which should be "1" for the DMX PROCESSOR and press SETTINGS to open the DMX Processor Setting window. Make sure you select the DMX Processor Net Number and not the Console or Server Net Number.

    In the DMX Processor Settings window, select the Artnet Outputs tab. On the far right of the window are minus and plus sign buttons, "-" "+". If the minus "-" sings are blue, press them so they turn gray.

    Do the same for the E1.31 Outputs tab.

    I have seen these settings cause the issues you describe in a Full Boar. Although the Road Hog does not have these Artent capabilities, they may still be causing problems.
  • I did a full restore and it didn't help. I had a show server error a couple of months ago, and then after I tried to startup my show from a USB stick. So it could very well be the Processor settings. I will check when I get to work. Thanks.
  • Is the timing still off if you start a new show from scratch? Try starting a new show, patching a few fixtures, and write some simple cues. Do they happen in the right time, or is everything still slow?

    Do you have Hog3PC loaded on any of your computers? If you load the show with timing problems in 3PC and try running cues, is the timing still off?
  • -According to the console, everything is fine. The network had a few "minuses" but that didn't fix it either.
    - I made a new show, not merging anything, and put 4 washes in and it still did the same thing. Programming is fine. Snaps right to. Just cues are sloooow. So strange.
    -I have a Mac with no Bootcamp or the like, so no HogPC. But I can put it on one to see.
  • Ok, I got a show in HogPC. Works fine. I dont think it's a file issue because every show I put in is slow. Any other suggestions?
  • When you say you did a full restore, did you use a bootable USB stick to totally reinstall, or did you use the software recovery from the hard drive?

    When you run a cue, does the cue start happening immediately after you press the go button and just takes longer than it should to run the cue? Or is there a wait between when you press go and the cue starting?

    Can you confirm that your console is a Road Hog and not a Road Hog Full Boar?

    Does your time of day clock run at the right speed (as in 12:30pm, and 5 minutes later its 12:35pm), or does that also run slowly?

    Can you bring up the timecode toolbar and try simulating timecode. Does that run at the right speed?
  • Bootable USB. I may have not done this correctly, but considering my files were gone I'm assuming I did. Just a regular Road Hog.
    The clock is fine, the programmer runs as it should.

    When the cue is played, it "goes" immediately. Just asserting it takes forever. Under "wait" where it gives the percentage of release and whatnot it actually shows that the percentage is slow. Instead of a 3s cue showing 0-100% in 3s it will give me about 20%. This goes for releasing as well.



    Not sure about timecode given I dont use it and it is a regular RH.
  • That's odd.

    Even though you don't use timecode, I'd still like to know if timecode simulation runs at the correct speed. Bring up the timecode toolbar and start the timer running (even if there are no cuelists listening to it).
  • Ok, the timecode is slow as well. It took 6s for the timecode to reach "00/00/1.0" What does that mean...?
  • That's really odd, and frankly I have no idea what would cause that.

    Does the console boot and run at normal speed, or does it seem slower than it used to in general? Do you have any external USB devices connected, or other non-standard hardware?

    A few things you could try that might make a difference:

    Replace the coin cell battery on the motherboard.

    Reset the BIOS settings to defaults then put them back to the correct settings.

    Replace the hard drive (Unlikely to be the cause, but who knows)

    Plug the drive into a different SATA port on the motherboard.
  • It does seem to boot a tad slower than it used to. I thought that was just because of the 6 or 7 large show files.

    What's super strange is the programmer runs fine. If I throw something up and then clear it in the programmer it snaps right off. If the cue time or release time is 0s it snaps to, anything over that is double the speed. I don't remember if I tried clearing something with fade changes on...

    I have a IO Gear usb to vga for an external monitor, which oddly enough I couldn't get to work this morning, as well as a usb keyboard. However, I did suspect that could be a problem, since the keyboard is new-er. But when I unplugged them I had no change.

    I will get my IT buddy to help me with what we can manage and see if any of those fix the problem. The good thing is, it's a church so week to week having the cue times at a billion seconds isnt too big of a deal.

    Also, this makes me feel (frustrated of course but) good that I wasnt having a :rtfm: moment. :)

    Thanks for your help. I'll let you know of any more problems. (Or just send the dern thing in)
  • [QUOTE=ericthegeek;62103]That's really odd, and frankly I have no idea what would cause...

    Eric, it seems like it is hardware related. There must be a clock source for timing things like cues n such. Maybe not the RTC for time o day. And the programmer wouldn't use that as it doesn't have to. So what do you guys use to reference cue timing?
  • [QUOTE=ChrisTall;62112]
    Eric, it seems like it is hardware related.


    Maybe, maybe not. Some piece of hardware could be failing and the OS is spending most of its time in error handling. But someone could have configured aggressive power management in the BIOS and the system is trying to go to sleep when it really needs to be running cues or a dozen other non-hardware related issues. I just don't have enough information to say for sure. That's why I've suggested a number of troubleshooting steps like wiping the hard drive and defaulting the BIOS settings.

    [QUOTE=ChrisTall;62112]
    So what do you guys use to reference cue timing?


    The Hog software is an application and thus depends on the underlying OS for all of its timing requirements. In the case of a Road Hog the OS is XP embedded. Modern OS's have a variety of ways to say "Wait 40 ms then do this" and "How long has it been between these two times" and other time related functions.
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