mydmx freezing / locking up

Have you tried a different USB cable? Sometimes there the issue. They are standard printer USB cables. Give it a shot and let me know.
Welcome to the forums.
Sincerely,

Yes, forgot to mention that I bought a monster 1200mps usb cable It was $35.. no dice....

Well, there's your problem right there: AMD

(Sorry, I'm an Intel person, they are also a client of mine!)

No, but in all seriousness, that's not the problem. The CPU should be irrelevant to the discussion.

Your specs are more than sufficient. But what is your video RAM, but also system RAM? I'd bump the RAM up to 1GB at least, 2 is better. Max is best.

1: Always start your computer with the hardware disconnected. ALWAYS. After logging in(if necessary, I feel it is mandatory), when you're at the "Desktop", you can plug in. Wait for the happy tones, then launch MyDMX.

2: When the stuff starts locking up, while staying WITHIN the program, what are you doing to resolve the problem? Your status lights indicator on the interface is helpful, but I'd like to know what you're doing.

In my case, scenes would freak out. On/Off, or in the case of a scene 1 was a fade UP, then scene 2 was "hold that level", it was blinking when it went from 1 to 2, despite at the end of the fade up scene(to 100%), the RGB values were the same. I'd have other scenes blink. I'd have other scenes not come up properly. I'd have some scenes just flat out not come up. I found that kicking into a blackout scene(a scene I made) for 1 second(a lifetime in live environments) and then going back into the scene I needed was a good fix, WHEN it worked. Sometimes I'd have to do it a few times.

It was very random as to what WOULD and WOULD NOT work and how it would not work and how to clear it.

Are you disabling any power savings on the computer? Are you disabling wake on USB type stuff?

Also, what type of things are you doing with the lights? While you may be committed to the MyDMX platform, many other people have taken that position and found it to be the wrong product for what they are doing. For me, I like MyDMX very much for live environments where I don't have to worry about sync and timing issues, but for a major event I do, timing is everything and so CompuShow was the right choice for those events. While Compu Show smokes MyDMX in almost every way, the fast scene selection on MyDMX rocks the house! I can't wait to learn Compu Show. Even so, MyDMX isn't leaving my rig.

I had to reprogram my BIG show that I originally did with myDMX and converted it to Compu Show. It took 300+ hours, partially due to learning Compu Show as I was going. 40 hours to redo it? Sorry, I can't sympathize. Been in the industry 28 years, we don't whine about stuff like that. I feel your pain, but the show has to go on, right?

And guess what? I have to reprogram my big show AGAIN because I have to use someone else's lighting rig. That's going to be at least 40 hours of me NOT whining and just getting it done.

3: Restarting. Yeah, when things freak out, restarting is the best bet. Once something goes wonky, even with XP claiming protected memory, it's not.

4: Latest and greatest. Are you running the latest MyDMX and the latest Microsoft patches, fixes, tweaks, hacks, security violations(and fixes) and hotfixes?

How many interfaces do you have? Are you running off a powered USB hub or a passive USB hub(doesn't use a power supply)? Ideally, you need to run it off a USB port directly.

Your problems are really isolating things down too much. You claim the problem doesn't follow the hardware though, as you have at least 2. It's sounding like MyDMX though. So again, what version are you running?

Hello Chris,
Thanks for your help. Let me start by saying If this situation was completly up to me I would have gone for a more expensive better proven software. I unfortunatly dont write the checks, I cash them. I am given a crap budget and told to make it work.... Thats why it is the way it is. Up until now I have always started the computer with the dongle connected. I will no longer do that... I am not using any type of USB hub or DMX booster or splitter. Running the dongle directly off of a USB slot directly on the motherboard. You ask what What am I specificly doing when it freezes? All I am doing is changing from one scene to the next. Not fading anything manualy or moving to edit window or anything other than changing scenes. The audio for our shows are all on DVD. All of the scenes for the light show are titled in mydmx by the time displayed on the dvd player time window. They are triggered manualy via the mouse by the operator as he watches the dvd time display. There is no set time that it locks up. It is random. For the last 2 nights it has worked perfectly. Before that it worked for a couple weeks perfectly... When it does lock up there is no solving the problem other than re-booting. You cant even close the program without doing a cntrl,alt,del.. When you do that is still says program running, you get the standard error report send / dont send?? For now we are using 2 systems and have the second system complete with second dongle ready to go and when one system locks we simply unconnect the dmx feed from one dongle and connect it to the next then reboot the locked system incase it happens again. All power settings are set to never turn anything off. I dont know about wake on USB type stuff. I need more direction there on what to look for and what to check and how to set it. As for reprogramming, your right its not a big deal. If it was for me personaly I would spend an endless amount of time working on it. It would probably never actually be finished...but in the real world explaining to someone who knows absolutely nothing about lights why they are going to have to pay 40 or 80 or 100 hours of labor is not an easy thing to do. I am running the latest mydmx and the current updates on the machines. Dont know about any hacks, or hotfixes for mydmx??? As I stated earlier we have 2 seperate systems set up side by side and both ready to go. All in all, its the SOS... You get what you pay for....

Well, my situation is a bit different, but you can benefit from what I'm doing, but alas, in the end, you might run into the same problem.

My difference is that I still love the MyDMX product, even with this issue.

First, I think you need Compu Show. This would be ideal. But if you could have a computer run say, maybe Sony Vegas, you could have that run MTC, send it to a MIDI interface on your lighting computer, then Compu Show would play your stuff in perfect sync once you got your offset configured properly.

But, short of that, let me describe my situation:
2 hour show, involving LIVE actors and video. Using MyDMX, it was programmed using a stopwatch(for lack of a better term). To ensure I get my act back together due to drift issues, I have many "correction" scenes where there are cue points I can trigger and ensure I stay on track in case something WILL and DOES go off. Each scene is told where to go to next, so if in an ideal world, if I had to, I could go hit the crapper during the show and it theoretically should go well. The reality is that I do have to hit those scenes, as well as deal with errors. I know, it's frustrating.

The bottom line was I was trying to use a product that was not meant for what I am trying to accomplish.

Even if you scale back Compu Show a bit, you can pull in videos and have it sync to your lights perfectly. Toss the video window to a secondary display and it will be broadcast to your projector or whatever. But since you're doing audio only, divide it up into smaller chunks and then import it into Compu Show. Same end results, just no need for a secondary display if you don't want it.

Second, it sounds like you need not only a DMX merger/combiner, but you should be using an Elation Opto Branch/4. Elation makes one. You can set the priority and where to look. Reason being is that I've had MyDMX freak out when I've connected or disconnected DMX signal live.

What I do is: Power on the computer and walk away as I'm stil doing other stuff, so waiting for a start up is nothing. DMX is connected to the dongle, then the dongle is plugged into the computer. OR, you can reverse that by plugging in the dongle and then plugging in the DMX chain to the dongle. Either way, make sure your chain is connected before you run MyDMX.

Even so, following my own advise still has resulted in problems.

As far as people who don't know crap, yeah, welcome to reality. Sucks! I was once given the task of designing and implementing a world wide network for a sales team. They gave me 30 minutes to not only do it, but to have the project DONE and in place. The logic: I don't understand it, therefore it must be simple. Plus, they figured they already had the equipment spread out sufficiently throughout their global business operations that chances are they didn't need any hardware.(much less data circuits!) While I did do the design in 30 minutes(that's easy), deployment never took place since they refused to budget for it. I left the job, the manager got terminated. I left because "If you refuse to purchase equiment and services to make it happen, there's no longer anything for me to do here".

Yes, I like MyDMX. I set it up to run rock shows and small concerts, so it works ideally for me because of how I designed my scene sets. You are using the wrong product for what you're doing.

The justification is easy:
MyDMX retails in most places for around $300. I have no clue what Compu Show retails for as I said "I need it" and got a good deal on the product, so I won't comment on cost other than saying it's gonna be a lot more. And if they had spent the money right the first time, you could have done the job RIGHT the first time, and hence saved them money to do it right the first time.

I spent so many hours redoing my main show in COmpu Show and it took forever because I was learning as I went. Nothing like being forced to use a product to learn it best. I can't say I'm complaining, because in the end, the results were flawless and amazing.

I've just been informed I have to reprogram a smaller show(same producer). It only have 42 scenes, but at least 10 of those are the same, and most of the rest have many common elements. I suspect my time to reprogram this 45 minute show will be under 5 hours. Chances are I'll send 2 hours just figuring out what to do based on what I have to work with, and then the next 2-3 hours getting it done.

I think I have solved my issue. Here is what I have done. I re-formated the hard drive and loaded windows xp professional back on to it with only service pack 3. Not service pack 1 or 2.... or any updates for that matter. I uninstalled any and all other programs on the computer that were not vital to windows or mydmx. Media Player, Adobe, etc.... Computer is set to never do auto updates, turn off discs, hybernate, etc... This handycaps my computer a bit but I only use this system for mydmx control so that is not an issue for my situation. I also increased the ram to 1 gig and never turn the computer on with the dongle attached. After windows has fully loaded I then plug in the dongle. I have done this to 2 computers and have had no issues in the last couple weeks......KOW..... Thanks for the forum and for the help.........