OK, I'm narrowing some stuff down, but the results are still not acceptable.
I have 214 scenes. SOME of these scenes are merely sliced up longer static scenes for the purposes of manual time correction. Like for example, this one scene is mostly yellow wash, with yellow spots. Instead of it being 1 long scene, I have it sliced into 4 scenes: Intro, Guy 1, Guy 2, Both....
On a similar concept, and this is the STRANGE part:
Using scenes that have NOT changed since the first show on December 12th(in any way!!), there is a pre-load scene before the main scene. Again, to allow for manual corrections as the show progresses. These scenes were always designed sepparately. The pre-load scene is a fade-up, while the main scene is what that fade-up scene evolved into. It's basically the hold portion of that pre-load scene. This scene has unfortunately RELIABLY had a mistake in all runs during this show. What happens? The pre-load comes in and does a fast hold AS IT SHOULD. Then the main scene kicks in(with no values changed anywhere), and then the lights freak out, but in this case recover. That's NOT what's programmed into that scene at all. It was fine in the past 3 shows with NO FLAWS. The 3D Visualizer DOES NOT show these glitches.
Other scenes have problems, but show up randomly, again, most often when coming out of a blackout, but always it's the upcoming scene. I will also note that problems were occuring both before and after adding the 4 new Mega Bar 50's(which bring that total up to 8 of those).
MyDMX runs into an Elation OptoBranch/4.
Split 1 runs to a tree that contains 4 ADJ 64 LED Pros, 2 Chauvet Intimidator Colors(DMX 500's), then runs 100 cable feet(or more) to a Chauvet DMX Follow spot.
Run 2 runs to 4 ADJ Mega Panels, and then a dimmer pack(which was removed for current draw issues), and then onto another tree with 4 ADJ 64 LED Pros and 2 Chauvet Intimidator Color units. From there, another 100 cable feet to the other Chauvet follow spot.
Other items that may be added to this run will be 2 ADJ Color Fusions, but I'm sort of phasing those out, as well as maybe another dimmer pack and/or power pack on this cable run.
The third run is to the stage. 2 Chauvet Q-Spot 150's, 8 ADJ Mega Panels, 1 ADJ 64 LED UV, an inexpensive DMX fogger(this gear isn't mind), and an Antari HZ-300 and an Antari ICE-101 and a PP-DMX20L power pack to run a Chauvet Bob Flamebowl LED effect unit(will be getting 2 more of these as well!) and very likely an ADJ AccuFog 1000 moving head fogger.
ALL lines are terminated with a DMX Terminator, and all cabling is 3-pin ADJ AccuCable DMX cabling. A fair amount of cable used at this show was also new out of the box cable, while the rest was existing cable.
Now, I have concessions I've made working with the MyDMX software. For example, when I do moving scenes with the movers, I don't EXACTLY get what I want, but I get a rough enough approximation for it to be sufficient to say "Yeah, I like that". Simpler movement scenes are typically dead on.
The problem is that I can't see or experience the problem using the 3D Visualizer, as it always shows what the scene was programmed to look like. But hooking it all up and running it, well, it's not convenient or even logistically possible to do so for me at home. And that's where I need to find the problems.
Divide and conquer did NOTHING. Regardless if I went with less runs, or isolated to a single run, at least this ONE scene transition always caused problems, and was affecting the programmed lights: ADJ 64 LED Pros and the Mega Bar 50's.
In other scenes, often when coming out of blackout, the scenes just sit black. I kick it to me snap blackout scene(keyboard trigger "-"), and then try to re-invoke the scene, hoping to make time corrections ASAP thanks to the highly divided up scenes and excessive amount of scenes. Sometimes I have to sit on that blackout for a second or two, which as you know in a live environment, is a lifetime. Sometimes I can hit the blackout and then the right scene, and it works. Sometimes I have to try a few times before the scene properly comes up.
When the problem occurs, it only affects any light programmed to be functioning in that scene, regardless of brand, regardless of which split off the Opto Branch/4.
Granted, this may NOT be the right software for the show I am working on, but it is the software that I have right now, and honestly, for now, it works, WHEN IT WORKS PROPERLY, it works brilliantly.
And I'm not done adding to this. I will be adding 8 Elation Opti RGB's, 8 Opti Tri Pars, and 4 ADJ Profile Panels to the lighting show, as well as anywhere from 4-6 additonal movers.
I don't think I'm exceeding any technical limitations regarding cable length, or to many fixtures on any particular run. That's part of the reason for the Opto Branch/4.
I also swapped out the USB Cable for another trusted USB cable. I moved connections around on the Opto Branch/4 with no change in these glitches. I bypassed the OptoBranch/4 for additional trouble shooting and while of course this caused me to lose connection with many of the lights, even for testing purposes, it didn't change the problem. My opinion is that the hardware is fine. Cables are fine. Fixtures are fine. The MyDMX dongle is fine, and my USB cables are fine. I'm fairly sure the problem is in some sort of issue in the MyDMX software AND/OR my show file being somehow, somewhere corrupted. I did NOT downgrade the software back to the March 2009 release, because for safety purposes, my computers are in lock-down status(self-imposed) as I power through my next event, and during that 2-week break, I have some maintenance windows to address other items.(OS upgrades, re-install fresh, stuff like that).
I have time before my next event, so I have two tasks to do. Task 1 is that I'm no longer really using my older DMX Operator, but I have an event that I do now that requires a second lighting solution, so the DMX Operator can't go away, and really, I'm fine with that as I've never had problems with that bit of gear and will use it to run my older cans and high-tech FX lights.
1: I'm trashing my existing universe and starting over. I was leaving gaps in to accomodate backwards compatibility with the DMX Operator, but I'm not going to do that anymore. Plus, if you saw some of my addressing and how things were addressed, it makes sense from a "where do I physically place the lights" point of view, but sucks from a quick management perspective and logical organization. So, that will be addressed and resolved.
2: Starting over like this requires ABSOLUTELY starting over. But, to maintain access to my older gear, I'll still leave that portion alone, with the first 32 DMX channels reserved for the older Parcans and dimmer/power pack channels.
2a: I'm going to copy all the profiles I DO USE to a specific directory so I can quickly organize those in case I need to have someone help me. I've had to modify many of the factory default profiles for various fixtures in order to have then work properly in the 3D Visualizer.
3: Since you can't move fixtures within the MyDMX universe and expect to preserve your programming, if I just start fresh from zero, I won't have any gremlins and any other left-overs to screw up programming stuff.
4: This is a temporary fix at best. Once this task is done, I need to start learning newer Elation Compu software. But even so, the temporary fix is designed to be a permanent solution until I have the comfort I need on the newer software, which may take me quite a while as I can't stop working on other events and shows.
5: I don't see MyDMX leaving the picture, because the applications for ease of use really make it a good product when I have to do events where I can't monitor things the whole time. But something ain't right.