We are running vista 3 latest release on an up to date Mac Pro with an M1. Two or three times in the last couple of months, we’ve had our lights all go out, as if someone hit clear and release, unparked relays, etc… Then it all comes back, movers go home, everything is fine. What gives?
I’ve read that maybe it’s not seeing the license dongle, however, one thing I noticed is that when I reboot the computer, the M1, is NOT lit up anymore and I have to switch USB ports, and then it finally lights up again.
Anyone have any ideas? It’s rather frustrating to just think maybe it’s nothing, maybe it will happen when our auditorium is full of small children going up and down stairs… ETC.
One more question- I am pretty sure I saw a setting that said the M1 would stay running and hold the last cue if the software is powered down, I cannot for the life of me find that setting. Anyone know what I’m talking about, or maybe that was only in v2?
Looks like a license dongle issue indeed (maybe an old/bad driver?) But vista should give a popup message if the license dongle is disconnected (or if you launch vista without a dongle).
In the taskbar under file/networking you can see quickly if there is a license connected and for how many channels. Are you over the channel limit by any chance when this happends?
The hold dmx is not/was never a setting you can turn on/off as far as i know, but i don’t think it solves your problem because probably vista is giving the black out or it is a usb problem (and it is turning of the power of the M1 so it can"t hold anything if it has no power).
Not over on channels. Also this error happens after running fine for hours. Nothing new or changed from day to day.
No license warning pops up when booting or during the error.
I know for a fact that in the past on our old jands 2 software if we exited the software the m1 would stay running until the power to the computer was off. I guess that could just have been a windows vs Mac thing. Maybe I saw a setting and interpreted it wrong because I can’t find one now.
We are having the same thing happening in our school’s auditorium. We are looking at two possible thoughts,
It was suggested that we make sure that all our DMX chains are terminated. We are working on completing that task.
2)Another thought has to do with what happens on a Windows computer called “USB selective suspend”. We have a Mac so I am not sure if this happens on a Mac. What made us think about this is that during a show that has a lot of cues and not much time between cues, there is no sudden blackouts. It is only happens when the lights are on for an extended period of time with no cue changes. So we are thinking about testing out a mouse “jiggler” to see if that may also resolve the issue.
You may want to check your energy saver settings on your Mac. Make sure it is set to never sleep the computer, sleep the display, etc. as that would potentially lead to this issue.
In a show with lots of cues you likely are moving the mouse/interacting with the computer via the console hardware, so it will keep the computer awake. But if there are no cue changes for an hour or two, the computer will likely go to sleep/energy saver/screen saver, thus the M1 would lose power or signal or something and the lights would turn off.
For this particular issue, DMX termination is likely not the root cause, at least in my opinion. But making sure all your DMX lines are properly terminated is still always a good idea for best performance.
Thanks for your input. I will check those settings. My son suggested I hook a mouse to an oscillating fan as a test to simulate mouse movement and keep the Mac “awake”. I do know that it has happened while I was sitting there at the computer and everything looked “awake”, ie. display still on.
Hi everyone! Just wanted to update- we too still have this issue randomly. It is NOT the computer being asleep. It is some kind of USB issue.
This has flared up at random WHILE using the m1 or jands software in the middle of a show/event.
It acts as if no license dongle is present but does not give the no license warning.
Anyway there is a solution that remedy’s the issue for weeks or months at a time…
We rotate the USB items. That is, we unplug the dongle, plug the m1 into that port and then plug the dongle into the former m1 port. This is our fix. Simply unplugging and plugging back into the same ports does not work.
Anyway, always praying to not have a failure during say a FUNERAL with 500 people mourning or during a church service… Not a great place to be but it’s what we got. Haha!
Not sure what else to do to try and isolate the issue.
If the light on the dongle is going off then the issue is most certainly with the USB bus of the machine. I doubt there is anything in the Vista application that could address that since the dongles and drivers are made by a third party.
Of of curiosity, have you updated the driver using the steps in the Dongle Troubleshooting Tech Bulletin on the Vista website? I would start with that to make sure you are on the latest Sentinel driver.
If there is no change after that then my next suggestion is to swap the machine altogether. There may be another hardware fault that is causing the issue. Personally I am not a fan of Vista on Macs because they tend to do random things. I am 100% in the camp of Vista installed in Console Mode on a dedicated PC. They are rock solid (plus better touchscreen support) and I highly recommend that option to everyone.
Interesting ideas! We had the blackout happen again today during our practice. The license dongle was still lit up but the m1 was not. Then it comes back on. I did my “switcheroo” and we have not had issues again tonight. Took a quick pic.
Can I assume that you do the USB swap with the computer off? or on?
Several weeks ago we did 3 full length rehearsals and 4 shows of the high school musical with no lights randomly blinking on and off. With the third and fourth shows on Saturday running back to back. The last and fifth show on Sunday, the lights blinked quickly, twice, during the show. So going to sleep is not the issue because, of the multiple light cues used during the show. So I would love to try this. That is good to know about the Mac and windows.
Sounds like it may be a DMX signal issue in your lines. If you are not seeing any change on the Vista screen showing the blackout, and not seeing any change in a Dockable DMX window, then the issue could be a bad fixture or cable.
I had similiar issues, replacing usb cables with what i already had didn’t solve it but buying a new cable did the trick… i’m not sure how or why because i used the m1 for years without problem on a mac but maybe because those usb cables where always lose in a case or bag they just got worn out?
Also i had some problems with the m1 in venues with (minor) power issues, because the m1 is fully usb powered earthing problems from the dmx line will go trough the m1 over usb to your mac what could cause USB issues. I don’t have these problems with the s1 for example because its seperate earthed by the power plug.
These are just guesses but it could be worthwhile to check.
@ben.coleman in general i’m very happy with vista on a mac and all problems i had over time turned out to be hardware problems (bad cables, bad artnet nodes, to long or non terminated dmx lines).
I have tried several cables and ports. The only thing that fixes it is to swap the dongle and the M1 cable in my Mac. Then things are fine for a while… A week… A month… Two months… Then at a random time it will happen again. It just did it again (this weekend, luckily during band practice) two weeks after I updated to the latest version of vista.
At any rate, one tip I heard from a fellow vista user who has dealt with this SAME ISSUE on M1s, was to try a powered usb hub they said that a former customer of theirs was having the same issue as me and that solved it, maybe not enough power from the mac’s USB port or something. I need to pick one up and try it, I will let everyone know what happens.
Don’t cheap out and buy a proper usb dock then. Those cheap usb hubs with the a very light power adapter don’t solve the problem.
I tried those because i had those laying around….
To confirm what you’re experiencing, we ran into the same issue with the same hardware. Apple Mini M1. Vista worked fine for 1.5 years than all of a sudden the USB connectivity would randomly drop.
We solved this by buying a powered USB hub as you stated. No issues ever since. Apple’s Mini Bus seems to be under powered.
