Mixers/Consoles LS-9 crash/completely locking up

[g15]

So...this made for an exicting morning...I'm sitting in our 9am service in front of a 32 channel LS-9 and one of the guys I work with says that one of the songs coming up would be cool to record. So I click through to the recorder and dig through my pocket to find a flash drive. Plug the flash drive in and wait for the console to read it. I notice that the ACCESS indicator has been lit up for a bit longer than usual. Then I realize that the entire board is completely frozen. Meters, faders, FX...everything. So obviously we completely freak out for a second and then work up a plan to reset the thing. Luckily it continuted to output audio but we had no control over it and we managed to coordinate well enough that nobody at the service noticed that we had to reset the board...so now for my question. Has anyone else had something like this happen? I haven't had time to go back and plug the drive in again and see if it does it again but I plan to do it ASAP. Someone suggested that it was because I had copies of the M7CL firmware on the drive but that's not the case. The only thing odd about the drive is that I have a folder that has a name ending in .000 which maybe the console couldn't handle. But regardless, it seems odd to me that something so minor as that has the ability to take down the entire console. Any thoughts??

 

[bishopthomas]

I have never had this happen to me (never used the recorder feature) but I have read reports of similar catastrophes. I'm not sure what the fix was or if there is one. What version firmware are you running?

 

[MNicolai]

One of the first things to check is that you have the latest firmware installed, which you can find on Yamaha's website.

I've experienced a similar problem, and it turned out that for whatever the reason, the LS9 could not read my MP3 of Jimi Hendrix' Crosstown Traffic, which I had downloaded from Amazon.

To narrow down the problem, I divided up a bunch of MP3 files I had placed in one folder into many folders, and then opened each folder one by one until the console froze. When the console froze, I knew where to start looking for the particular file causing conflicts with the console.

It's been my experience that the greatest leak in the LS9's software is the USB function; if there's any feature that's going to crash your console, that's going to be the one. I avoid at all costs using a USB drive for anything but saving and loading show files unless I have personally vetted the audio files contained on the drive which I will only use for things like music to ring the system out with -- not for playback during a show.

I've otherwise never had a problem with the console crashing.

 

[bishopthomas]

I've never really trusted the USB feature either. It feels to "computery" to me, exactly what I DON'T want in a console. Your best bet is to use a blank, formatted drive when you want to record. With the cost of USB drives these days you can keep spares to be used as dedicated recording media. Transfer, wipe, rinse, and repeat.

 

[g15]

Update:
Updated the console from some ancient firmware to the lastest from Yamaha. Plugged in the flash drive and same problem...Next time I get a chance I'm going to go through it file by file and figure out what is causing it....but that's a task for another day!

 

[MNicolai]

Update:
Updated the console from some ancient firmware to the lastest from Yamaha. Plugged in the flash drive and same problem...Next time I get a chance I'm going to go through it file by file and figure out what is causing it....but that's a task for another day!

That was the same experience that I had. I called Yamaha with the problem, they told me to update the firmware, and then when the problem persisted I had to search for the problem file.