Boot-up problems / console freezing

[cucolino]

Hello

First, I want to say hello to everyone on the forum, since I'm new here.

 

Anyway, I'm kinda sorry that I joined here only because of having problems with my console Leap Frog 48.

 

I'm gonna start from the beginning of all troubles.

I got the console to work with in december 2011, so it's less than a year, but got to know it very fast, and also love it and it's principe of working, however there are some bugs and things, I'd rather see changed/different. But that's not why I'm here.

In february, I faced with first freeze ever, and didn't pay much attention to that. On the VGA output display there was a " X " in the middle of the screen, and the console stopped responding, completely. However, it didn't stopped to transmit the output DMX signal. the only thing I could do was to turn in off and reboot. After a boot-up, the desk warned me about an error, and asked me if I want to copy the log to the usb key. I denied, since I didn't pay much attention and also needed a desk as quick as possible to run on, because it happened in the middle of the show.

After that, it happened once more in the same night. Again, didn't save the log, but next day I did a full desk reset. Thought it could be the memory scene damaged or something. But it didn't help, since I got that trouble for a few more times.

So in March, I upgraded ZerOS software on the desk, because it wasn't up to date, but that didn't solve my issues. The desk still freezed randomly, even with a completely empty scene or without doing anything special, sometimes when recording submasters, sometimes while making a pallete, etc.

When I was just about to put in on a service, I decided to clean it up a little by myself, so I opened it, cleaned any peace of dust or anything inside, but that didn't help. In may, a new upgrade came out, so I upgraded it, and for about a month I had no trobles, thinking the update solved the issues. I was wrong.

 

All summer long I was facing troubles, but couldn't get it to service, because I needed it every 3 or 4 days. These troubles now, in august, became even stranger. One of the new troubles is, that the desk freezed at deleting position or beamshape pallete, but in that case there was still a normal picture on the output VGA screen, just not responding to any click or mouse or anything... That happened even if I went to Setup and deleted "All position" palletes, but only as long as that memory scene was up. When loading up other scene from USB drive, the deleting was working fine.

The other trouble, for what I'm firstly and urgently asking you for help, is, boot-up freeze with the same X in the middle of VGA screen as mentioned at the beginning of my post. Only this time it happens right after loading all software elements - after I get warning about wing initialization errors etc, where I should press ENTER and come to main desktop - at that state it freezes with X. I can reboot it for 10 times, no help, but we did notice that when we shaked a little the console, it booted up normally.

When it occured every while, it's still acceptable, rather than staying without it for a month or two for service, but now, it happens everytime I need to use it, so I'm desperated.

 

Is it possible, that some of the elements in the console itself have troubles, or bad connections? I'm attaching the log of the last boot-up trouble, if anything helps. For other freezing and troubles, is it possible, that it's the CF/MD card having some errors? Or maybe the RAM inside? If there's any chance for that, I'd be willing to put in a bigger RAM, if it would work, and replacing the memory card, since it's kinda hard working with this troubles.... ANY help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Marc [slovenia]

debug.dat

[Jon Hole]

Hi Marc,

 

I will look more into this when I'm back in the office on Monday. However, I wouldn't suggest 'upgrading' anything in the console - everything you have there should work fine, you don't need more RAM or a larger flash card.

 

The fact that it seemed to work when you shake the console suggests a bad connection somewhere. This could be something easy - first thoughts are the Flash Card could be loose, so you get the error every time the console tries to save or load the show. If you get a chance, open the console and make sure everything is seated properly inside the console.

 

Regards,

[cucolino]

Thank you for your reply.

I already opened it, to clean everything up, especially the buttons (the MFK buttons sometimes got stuck pressed in..), and the card was seated properly, but I did recheck it's connection as well as everything else, and found nothing to seem wrong...

As you said, it's kinda logic, yes, that it happens when it tries to load (boot-up error) and save (deleting palletes error) show, so it might be because of the flash card.

Anyway, I won't change or touch too much anything in console, as I'm looking forward for your next reply with hopefully any new info.

 

Regards,

 

Marc

[Jon Hole]

Hi Marc,

 

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

 

I am hoping to receive the debug file back from our software team early next week, which will hopefully give us more info on what happened.

 

Best Regards,

[cucolino]

Hello Jon.

No problem.

I must tell you, that since I opened it, and clean everything up (not that it was any dirt inside, it was really clean, except for the faders, which I did clean up..), also took card and ram out, and refit it again, haven't had that problem yet on 3 gigs I've been working.

But still hope to get any info, if they maybe can tell for sure, if those were the hardware error problems, that might get fixed with refitting the card (since you've mentioned that it might be the card connection error when saving/reading show file). So, I'm still looking forward to your next reply.

 

Thank you,

 

Marc.

[Jon Hole]

Hi Marc,

 

Our software team are confident that this will be fixed in the next release of the ZerOS software (ZerOS 8.0)

 

I don't have a time frame for this at the moment, but we'll keep you up to date via the forums, website, facebook, twitter and email!

 

Best Regards,

[cucolino]

Great. Looking forward for next release...

 

 

Thanks,

 

Marc.

[cucolino]

Hello again. Replying to this thread directly as it's the best way of asking, I think..

So, about all those crashes - I've had a lot of them recently on my desk, but being patient waiting for new software, so I've been checking every while for it, and looks like we finally got it! Thanks for that. First of all, I want to say, that based on the release notes, it looks like the 7.4.0 had a lot of bugs and troubles, and that you fixed a lot of stuff. Great job, and I'm thankful for that. However, I'd like to ask, if there were any major changes and fixes with desk freezing, crashing, and especially slowly working and slow responses...? Since I always read about next release to be zerOS 8.0, but now you surprised us with 7.6. .Is that just the in-between version, and are we to be expecting the new version as soon as possible, or is that it, and are you going to plan newer version only if and after bugs appear?

 

Thanks

 

//// Edit:

 

Looks like in last month didn't check well enough the updates section, as you answered all of my questions there in one of the topics. Sorry for pulling this threat up with no reason!!

 

Cheers,

 

Marc.

[Jon Hole]

Hi Marc,

 

Looks like you've found my post explaining 7.6 - but I've included it below for reference.

 

We're still working on ZerOS 8 - but as you can see, there were a lot of bug fixes and we wanted to get them out to you as soon as possible! We included some small but nice new features in there too which will hopefully really speed up programming.

 

As always, if you have any questions please let me know

 

I've recently taken over the software development of ZerOS. I'd like to try and explain what's going on 'behind the scenes'.

 

As you saw at PLASA, ZerOS 8 was a massive update (with well over 200 issues and new features), and was far from being ready for release. We've learnt that there was just too much in this single release which then had knock on affects on other areas of the operating system, and kept pushing back the release date.

 

We are now scaling back a release, called 7.6, which is the fastest, and most stable release of ZerOS I have seen in my almost 3 years here. However, stability is THE most important thing, so we are spending longer than normal testing this release, both internally and externally on shows around the UK and Europe. We are *so* close to releasing 7.6.

 

After that, we are going to be working on Tracking Backup, as this is an area our current customers have told us they would like us to work on further.

 

Once these areas, which are most important to our current end users, have been completed, we are then going to revisit the new features we want to release, as 'ZerOS 8'.

 

I hope this gives you some insight into the incredible amount of internal beta software releases that's going on here at Cooper Controls, and I really hope you're going to be as happy with 7.6 as I am.

 

We're always looking for new Beta Testers from a variety of backgrounds, and if this is an area of interest to you, please drop me an email.

 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me directly - all my details are in my signature below.

[cucolino]

Thanks for reply. I'm looking forward to get to our desk tomorrow and put an update on. Hope it'll get through with no surprises, and looking forward to meet updates and fixes.

All I have on my mind to ask now is, about the PhantomZeros. Even after installing new version, 7.6, I can't seem to close program normally. When closing both, the console windows and output monitor view, I got the little form still active, and when pressing the X to close it (it seems like the only option, as there are no other buttons available), the output monitor view form blinks a few times, and then stays blank but active on top of the small start-up form, and sometimes in a few seconds I get the "Program PhantomZerOZ is not responding. Click Close to end the program", but sometimes I even have to go to task manager to end the process. What is the case with that? Is it normal behaviour, or is that just on my machine? I have these problems ever since using it, even with 7.3 and 7.4... Are you familiar with this problem too?

My operating system is Windows 7 Home-Premium 64-bit on Dell Studio 1749 laptop, and the other is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit PC machine running Intel i7.

Thanks in advance,

 

Marc.

[Jon Hole]

Hi Marc,

 

This problem seems to happen on some PCs, and not on others!

 

I find that closing the small 'control' box first (leaving the monitor and console windows open) generally closes the whole programme much quicker.

 

There is a few seconds delay, as the programme closes down 'safely'.