The Lighting Controller

It seems i always post when it's critical to have my issue resolved. There is a show that I'm LD'ing tomorrow and my DMX512's or my software is corrupted. If I use either interface by itself in single universe mode, they each operate fine. When I use both in 2 Universe Mode, they do not work. In fact, the last light in my chain on the second universe is triggered.

I have been operating with both interfaces for several weeks now, and in fact ran a show on Wednesday night. When I came in for a show on Friday and booted up, I had the issue.

I think I'm now forced to operate on one Universe, which works fine, but all of my programming is lost because unfortunately, all of my movers were programmed on the second universe. I have not found a way to import any of the scenes to the single universe I have set up with identical addressing for the movers.

As I mentioned, each Interface works fine by itself in single universe mode. They do not work together when I'm set up for 2 universes and triggering a scene from the first universes, sends a signal through the second to the last light.

I failed to mention, the lights work fine in the 3D Visualizer with 2 universes so I am stumpted.

I completely uninstalled and reinstalled the software and that did not help. I've used different USB ports and that did not help. I would hate to have to reprogram this show as it starts tomorrow at three and I will not have access to the venue until about 2 hours before load in. Does anyone have any ideas??

P.S. The original show is not corrupt, because even if I start from scratch, I have the same issue.

I also know it's not cabling because a National Show used my rig on a Hog4 Console and everything operated fine.

Are both d512 properly found by the software? (Start screen: 2 Universes found)
Are the green leds flashing?
Can you try on a different PC?
Try programming a new show with two universes and one scene for each universe, do they work?
As you see I'm trying to fin out if your main Lightshow is corrupted or there's a problem of how the software translates the scene data to the dmx line.

Good luck that you find the mistake!!!

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the software is recognizing both interfaces and the lights are flashing normally. I have tried it on my backup computer that has the same show, with the same results. And yes, I tried to start an entirely new show with 2 blank universes with the same results. So long as I'm only using 1 interface, it will recognize scenes in Universe 1 with no problem. As soon as I try to use 2 interfaces, none of the scenes in either universe work and in fact, if I trigger a scene in the first universe, it sends a signal to the second universe triggering the last light in my chain...which happens to be a strobe. It triggers the strobe full on and turns it off when I turn off the scene in the first universe.

As I mentioned, each individual interface will work fine independently and using only 1 universe. It's only when I try to use them both that the problem occurs....both on my main computer and my backup. Is it possible something is saved into the interfaces that is causing the issue? I can't see how that's possible when each works fine independently. I'm not sure if something can get saved to both interfaces that only triggers when they're both used.

I'm grasping a straws here because it worked fine on my last show (and for weeks before that). It was a sudden failure.

Are they pluged into a powered USB hub?

yes, the first thing you should find is: what is different? Any update? (even not related in any way)

You can also try installing all the drivers again.

I am not using a USB hub, I'm using 2 different ports on my laptop as I've done for months. As to the drivers, would not I have reinstalled the drivers by uninstalling and reinstalling the program?

I am not aware of any updates or changes to my computer and since it is also happening on my backup computer, I doubt it is any type of update that caused it. The perplexing part is that each interface works independently bot just not together.

I was successful in reprogramming a show on one Universe to get me by, but I'm now missing 24 LED pars from my rig which leaves a big hole in my show.

Is there no Chauvet support out there to weigh in on this subject? I've not heard from Chauvet since posting this thread.

A big thanks to those that replied. I appreciate all the troubleshootingideas. Sooner or later, someone will think of something that will clear up this mystery.

We propose this:
- plug the two interfaces on the computer
- plug only one fixture to each interface (with only one dmx line not connected to the other fixtures)
- make one small scene for both fixtures
- switch off (no power) all other fixtures (very important to be sure there is no ground loop problem)

If it does not work, please post this (very small) lightshow ; we will check it.
If it works, the problem might come from the rest of the dmx line.