Control/Dimming Had a programming anomaly on my Element, can't nail down why.

[Nimick]

I posted this on the ETC Element forum, but since that forum doesn't get a whole lot of traffic I thought I'd ask here too.

We opened last night, and I discovered that some of the actors had not been wearing their proper make-up, so I had to alter some levels at home after the show. I did this on the offline client.

I e-mailed the new file to my op, he popped it up on his offline client and added some cue labels, saved his version separate from the one I sent him, and took it to the show.

He loads the show on the board and runs the show, I arrive from another tech in the middle of the second act. just in time to watch every single channel go to 75%, house lights, all specials, everything. A quick look at the board shows that indeed, the board is telling the dimmers to do so.

a quick look at blind shows that these levels tracked all the way through the last cue in the next dance number, which was blocked. I proceeded to kick off my op, sneak everything except the front wash out and attempt to re-create the dance cues on the fly.

a post-mortem look at the show files, show that:

1) The file I sent him does not contain those levels

2) The file on his thumb drive, that he added labels to, does not contain those levels.

3) The show file in the board is the only place these levels show up.

Now my first thought is, of course, operator error. but that doesn't quite wash here because

a) a change like that, either in live or blind, requires hitting multiple buttons.

b) you have to be looking at the cue to make those changes.

c) If you had seen that happen, you could always just reload the old show file (which my board op is perfectly capable of doing) or just undo.

d) there are no labels on that cue. nor are there any numbers in any of the labels near that cue (not that it would matter with the virtual keyboard.)

Is there some gremlin that could have caused this? If this happens again, could I reload a show file mid-playback without going back to the beginning of the cue list (with the possibility of a blackout)?

I know I'm giving my op the benefit of the doubt, but he's not a moron. Has anybody else had something like this happen?

 

[metti]

I would say it would take a special breed of incompetence on the part of the board op to cause this to happen so you can probably go ahead and assume it wasn't him as you are already doing. ETC has great phone and email support in addition to their forum and I think this is probably the kind of thing that would warrant giving them a call.

 

[SteveB]

Check your patch, would be my first thought - I.E. are addresses for stuff you don't want on accidentally patched to channels they should not be.

Except what you are saying is the console "created" a cue all it's own that allowed levels to track throughout the cue structure, as in at a particular cue, the console drives all channels up to 75%.

Is Tracking ON/Enabled ?. That would be problem one, if all the channels accidental got written into a cue as the console will do what it tells you, even if it's a typo.

If it's not an error present in the cue structure of either OLE file, then it sounds like a basic operator error at some point that occurred at the console.

Easy check. Do a deep clear and re-load the OLE file. Does the problem re-create itself ?. If not, possibly a short between chair and keyboard.

 

[BryanKacz]

As for your question about loading the show, I just verified on my ION:

When you load a show file all channel values will remain until you do something to change them so you can [GOTO CUE] for your current cue.

 

[Nimick]

I would say it would take a special breed of incompetence on the part of the board op to cause this to happen so you can probably go ahead and assume it wasn't him as you are already doing. ETC has great phone and email support in addition to their forum and I think this is probably the kind of thing that would warrant giving them a call.

I will, I just figured I'd ask here since it isn't urgent and it might be some known issue that I hadn't got the memo about.

Check your patch

The patch is 1 to 1 and has not changed. the rest of the show worked fine after the block.

I do have a couple dimmers preheated, but I don't see how that could have anything to do with it.

 

[meatpopsicle]

It actually wouldn't take that many key strokes to have this happen. If the last action was to select all channels for an action then the following 3 strokes would get you your situation if your default level is 75%.

[select last] [full] [full]

You can check your settings to see what the default level setting is. Chances are its 75%. If those strokes are hit then once you navitgate to another cue they're recorded. And thus tracked through until you blocked all channels for the next number.

Perhaps in the loading or labeling. Lord knows I've had bigger fat-finger episodes.