Pearl Expert issue

[CJSirey]

Hi Guys, can you tell me whats going on in this situation...

Show programmed on avo pearl expert, all running fine. After 5ish hours I'm hitting flash buttons of memories and the desk just freezes. Hit clear and all is well, until I push up another memory and it freezes again. (repeat as many times as you want, it freezes and clear sorts it out.) Chases are unaffected, as are pallets and handle faders. If I manually stop and tab through a chase, the problem is magnified and desk takes ages to catch back up, didn't even manage to set the chase back to auto.

So, loaded backup show from before this was an issue into another expert. All seems dandy, and playbacks do what they should, but now some handles are not responding properly. (robe 700 patched at C041 now activates on a dimmer from atomic at D400 yet all other attrributes fine, and playbacks unaffected)

re-boot and its fine! Now, 2 days later, having had no problems yesterday, the same problem rears its head mid show.

Any ideas? Is this common and is it fixed in Titan or am I likely to experience it again due to my excessive use of manual flash buttons?

[niclights]

This is a known issue where heavy use of flash may result in significant slowdown (effectively appears to be frozen). However, as far as I know, it's still a mystery exactly what conditions cause this and I have never been able to purposefully repeat it.

Restart software fixes.

This is something I have specifically tested on Titan and so far I have not experienced any problems.
It is worth pointing out that Titan is completely different software to Pearl Classic and so bugs will be unrelated.

I highly recommend getting updated and moving on to the new software.


I cannot explain the other issue but it sounds like a one-off corruption.

[CJSirey]

makes sense. I think somehow the 2 problems are linked as now the events over I've done a restart and its all over the place again. Maybe causes somekind of memory leak/overflow? Either way, if its not present in Titan then thats all good by me. Just have to get the academy Sheffield to actually get it done, having been promised it for several months now.

[CJSirey]

Just had a convo with a more computery geek friend than myself, and he sugested it might be an IRQ issue with the usb and xp. The more I think about it (and other irq issues I've had with xp, network controllers and hard drive on the same irq anyone?) the more it seems a possibility. So, my question now becomes..

Is Titan a windows based os? if so is it at least born from longhorn?

[Dan]

Have also had this problem a lot!
It appears that it's something to do with the "Swop" function.

The crashing actually appears to be a massive slowing down, with one of your faders stuck as if you'd used the swop key whilst in run mode normal. You can tell because if you pull down the swop master it will kill the output!

Not found a decent way to fix it though. Titan should do, but have been told avo will need our desk for at least 2 weeks to do the upgrade and we simply can't afford to be without it for that long! Until they sort out some sort of manual upgrade kit i'm not sure we can do anything about it yet!

[JB Toby]

Hi Dan

Sorry to hear you have issues with the Expert.

In order to get Titan on your console there are two options.

1- You send the console in and we will install the Titan upgrade and all the hardware upgrades for free. provided the console is with us before 11.00AM we will ship it the next day. Some days have already been booked full, so contact our service department
(I have seen holes in the schedule)

2-You apply (contact avo sales) for an upgrade kit to fit yourself, due to the fact that we may have to support you I doing the upgrade we have limited the number of DIY upgrades. Thus there is a lead-time of about 4 weeks for the kit.

Titan has been shipping in production consoles form Jan 5th and upgrade kits started a week later.


I will highlight your report inside Avolites

[Dan]

Hi J.B.
Thanks! I've been in contact with Nick Forro about this for a few months also but I didn't realise there was a DIY kit available - or that it would be a return-next-day for the console, so my mistake! I'm not too far away, so it may make sense for me to drive it down and back, etc - i'll definitely be in touch soon!

Cheers,
Dan

[JB Toby]

Hi Dan

The Upgrade has been long coming, we wanted to be sure we had found "all" the niggling issues.

If coming in is an option I would take it, as you can get some training on Titan and hit the ground running.