Hog PC issue

Greetings. I am using a Hog 3 v1.3.8 (b 988) with 2 attached mini-wings as a primary desk and a Hog PC v1.4.0 (b1112) with a mini wing and programmer wing as a backup via midi show control and a simple DMX A/B switch. The Hog 3 is running 4 universes of DMX thru a single dp2000 and the PC is utilizing 4 x DMX widgets. I had an issue on my last event where the Hog 3 crashed due to a static shock as posted earlier. We have been investigating everything that went wrong on that show and I have discovered two oddities in the Hog PC:

Issue 1:
When swapping between the primary desk and the PC, everything works well with the exception of the fact that a handful of conventional DMX channels seem to come on at full. Pig + Release does no clear them. They do not appear on any cue lists, however, you can fade them out via the GM as well as the inhibitive master. My assumption was that these channels are somehow active on one of the two mini wings on the Hog 3. On subsequent saves from the Hog 3 I have made certain that all masters are released PRIOR to saving, but this does not solve the problem. Any thoughts??

Issue 2:
I noticed today when the Hog PC was tracking the primary desk, the master Q list was showing the typical arrow on each cue as it tracked the primary desk. However, the cells were not highlighting, nor was there any timing countdown displayed as the ques were activated. It ocurred to me that this is the same state I had seen last week, but thought nothing of it. (silly me)When swapping over to the backup desk for testing purposes, it became obvious that, while I could still press the "GO" button on a particular fader and make the "arrow" move appropriately on the Q list display, the console was actually doing nothing. (no highlighting of the specific cells; no countdown) It was also not outputting any DMX information at all. Any thoughts on to the cause of this particular condition??

Thank you,
Scott Moore
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    [QUOTE=Scott Moore]
    Issue 1:
    When swapping between the primary desk and the PC, everything works well with the exception of the fact that a handful of conventional DMX channels seem to come on at full. Pig + Release does no clear them. They do not appear on any cue lists, however, you can fade them out via the GM as well as the inhibitive master. My assumption was that these channels are somehow active on one of the two mini wings on the Hog 3. On subsequent saves from the Hog 3 I have made certain that all masters are released PRIOR to saving, but this does not solve the problem. Any thoughts??


    Scott,

    I've seen this type of output on Hog III and Hog iPC that are programmed with playback wings attached and those faders loaded with lists containing conventional desk channels like band specials. If you start on the console without the wing attached those lists trigger virtually. If memory serves me well though you should be able to get rid of the output with Pig Release. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact you've got 2 wings on the Hog III and a single on the Hog PC. Have you tried deleting all the lists from the wing faders before saving and/or connecting as tracking back-up. If that works - it will be a pain to re-load faders but maybe an option.
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    Han,
    Thanks for the reply. PIG + RELEASE unfortunately does not solve the problem. I had assumed that it would, but it did not. What seems odd is that I can't seem to make any sense as to which channels are failed on (for lack ofa better term). They do not particularly correspond to any of the faders on the mini-wings.

    Thanks,
    Scott
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    Scott-

    Whenever you are not certain where the output values are coming from, please consult the output window. Pressing the Sources button will let you know what list/cue or editor is sending the data.

    I would bet that you have programmed some HTP cuelists attached to a wing on the Hog3 console. This would explain why PIG+RELEASE would not change the output. I would also guess that they live on one of the wings that you do not have represented on the Hog3PC setup that you have. That means, they would become a Virtual Fader (not to be confused with a virtual master). The default of Virtual Faders is FULL. You can change this in the Preferences window of your Hog3PC system.


    Thanks
    Cat West
    High End Systems
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    Scott,

    Cat is correct about your first issue. If you have HTP masters that the application believes are up (even if they are on a wing that's been disconnected), pig+release will not release them. If you connect the wing to Hog 3PC you should be able to control them or you can set the virtual faders setting for the wing to be down in the Preferences window to fade out the masters on that wing.

    As far as your second issue is concerned, the output, DMX, and cuelist windows are primarily driven by feedback from DP2000s (or the ob process in Hog 3PC.) If one or both of your ob processes had died for some reason you wouldn't be able to output to the universes that it was controlling and you wouldn't be receiving any of the feedback used to drive the windows I mentioned above. If you get into this state again, do a pig+open+backspace to bring up the Launched Processes window and take a look to make sure that you have 2 ob processes and both of them show a status of running. You can also look at the status of the DP2000s in the Network window. If you find that your ob processes are dying, take a look in your Hog 3PC installation directory to see if a crash dump is being created. The file name would be ob2000-win32-golden.dmp. If you do find a file with this name, you can send it to me using our upload page at upload.highend.com and I can take a look at why the process is dying.

    Thanks.
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    Tom,
    Thanks for the reply. I am a little curious as to why the default state of virtual faders would be "on". Otherwise, setting the first three fader bars to "off" did solve the problem albeit a little tedious every time we have to update the backup console. I'll keep my eyes open for the elusive second issue and let you know if it ever happens again.

    Thanks for your help,
    Scott
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    Dan,

    If non-HTP cuelists are attached to masters on a disconnected wing, they will behave normally with the virtual faders up. They can be played and released normally and will behave much like virtual lists. If the virtual fader option were down, they would be able to control non-intensity parameters, but would playback with no intensity output. HTP cuelists, however, will output at full intensity if virtual faders are up, as described above.

    Since HTP isn't turned on as a default option, I think it makes the most sense to have virtual faders up by default so that cuelists created with default settings will playback as expected in this case. There's an argument for both settings, but we had to pick one.

    Thanks for looking out for your output / feedback problem. Hopefully you won't see it again, but certainly feel free to contact me if you do.

    Thanks again.
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