Updating a Strand 300

[propmonkey]

The other day while updating our strand 300 from 2.6c to 2.8.15(I believe that's the newest). I was able to install the OS fine but then ran out of memory before I could install the net-worker and help files. I was able to go into DOS and clear it out. so I got everything loaded fine but now its locked up. I am able to load shows but I can't save anything on there or change any settings. we're not on a network so its nothing to do with that. any ideas on what to do?

[Ynot]

I am able to load shows but I can't save anything on there or change any settings.

 

You may find your save show file (.ssd??) is full - it's not very big, so can get full relatively quickly.

I can't recall the actual file name, and haven't time to scour the manual at the mo, but I'm sure someone here will point you in the right direction.

[strand600X]

mmmm this quite baffling

what is full ? hard drive or ram memory?

I dont believe the hard drive is full as there is a 2gb hard drive in the 300 (it's all dos will allow)

the file that the ssf 's are in is c:\shows but this is probably not your problem as it has up to 2gb of data potential and as ssf files are approx 200b each depending on fixtures etc then this seems highly unlikely

I would suggest you boot up in dos mode then do a 220clean on your machine this might get rid of the problem, as I would guess it's a corrupt ssf file.

to do this you need to press the F8 key while the machine is booting

then type cd 220os *

220clean

* (enter)

then follow the instructions on screen deleting any show files you may have running and any error files

I strongly advise you save any show you need to floppy first...

Hope this helps a little

Baz

Opera North

<_<

[propmonkey]

ours doesnt have a harddrive....300s do not support harddrives. I cleared out the ram, I have 1170kb free. so its not out of memory. its only a 50 channel desk. just a normal 1:1 patch, a few subs and such. nothing clsoe to complex.

[Bryson]

Well, if there's no harddrive, it's not a 300. I can assure you that 300s do support (and have!) harddrives. Where do you think the software goes to?

 

Anyway, could you tell us exactly what happens when you try and save the show? That'll help us diagnose the problem.

[henny]

Well, if there's no harddrive, it's not a 300. I can assure you that 300s do support (and have!) harddrives. Where do you think the software goes to?

 

 

The 300 as default does not have a Hard drive as such , it has a 3mb ish Disk on chip solid state drive. there is a conector/power in the case to support a harddrive but no where to mount one

 

ian

[Bryson]

Really? That'll teach me to assume that the C: drive was a HD. Or is it different between the 24/48/96 versions and the 125/250/400/600 versions? I've only ever had the latter.

[Ynot]

Really? That'll teach me to assume that the C: drive was a HD. Or is it different between the 24/48/96 versions and the 125/250/400/600 versions? I've only ever had the latter.

Yup - that's right - NO hard drive - just some coded RAM chip and a bit of 'spare' for the show files.

I'd be interested to hear where Baz has got the idea for a 2gb HDD from though - if it's at all feasible, then I WANT ONE!!!! <_< :) :D (Does the 500 series have a HDD???)

 

Seriously, though - have you cleared the show files from the archive? Like I said, they can fill the small amount of memory pretty quick if you don't delete old shows regularly.

 

TD

[propmonkey]

yeah, I went into the dos(I had this problem the first time I ever updated the software) I cleared out old back ups. I cant remember what it says exactly(ill try to look tonight when im at school for conferences otherwise ill look tomorrow) something like "user/console permission denied". I cant remember if it lets me turn channels on or just through the subs. it wasn't even outputting DMX until I loaded my saved settings. the show I have on there I had on a disk so I loaded that but its not saving on the console. its just on there.

 

I was just told over the weekend that some 500 ops have tweaked it and installed up to 256 of ram in the consoles. but no harddrives that im aware.

[henny]

yeah, I went into the dos...

 

 

run a 220 clean , - get in to dos and run it , will check all strand stuff and clean out the crap

 

ian

[propmonkey]

ok ill give that a go tomorrow. how do I get into dos when it boots up? I know its one of the f keys but I cant remember which.

[TommyToad]

F8, like pointed out earlier

[paulears]

this happened to me a couple of years ago, and the 'full' message stemmed from old backed up show files. I don't have one to hand here, so can't check - but it was simply a case of tracking down the location of these back-up files and deleting them - they don't show up in the file list, so you can't see they are there from the panel/displays. Strand emailed me the trick. if you save regularly, then these files eventually take up loads of space.

[andy jackson]

once you have cleaned up and defaulted everything save it as a show to a floppy, if it ever corrupts again then load up the 'default' show and your desk is back the way it was!

 

Works for me,

 

Andy

[Rob Halliday]

Hello....

 

Two things to check

 

- when you installed the new software, did you install 'c3', the version for the 300-series consoles (rather than c5 or ci, the versions for 500-series and 500i-series consoles)?

 

- when you get into DOS, go into the 'Shows' directory and check how many showfiles (files ending in .ssf) and backup showfiles (files ending in .bk and then a number from 0-8) you have.

 

On 500-series consoles when you re-save a showfile with the same name the console actually keeps eight previous versions of the file, renaming them .bk0, .bk1 etc. 300-series consoles used to do this, and would have been doing this in 2.6c. Trouble is, 300-series consoles don't have much hard disk space (as pointed out before, it's not a real hard drive but memory being used as a 'virtual' hard drive), and all of these old backup files soon fill it up.

 

In the current software versions, the behaviour of 300 consoles has been changed so that only the current showfile plus one backup file is stored.

 

Trouble is, by default the archive screen doesn't show the backup files, so there's no way of telling how many of these old files are left on the hard drive (-you can see them by going into 'Backup' view from the Archive screen).

 

But... quickest way is to go look in DOS, then erase all of the backup files ('erase *.bk*').

 

That should free up quite a lot of 'virtual' hard drive space for you.

 

Rob.