"lost programming" grand ma ultralite

[peza2010]

Visited a venue today lighting a show, using the in house lighting and the in-house desk (grand ma ultralite).

 

I programmed the show, saved the show, tested the programming about 3 times throughout the day before Showtime (after foccusing specials and needing to add them in) it was all fine.

 

Showtime comes, half of the programming had just completely vanished, no where to be found!

 

I'm 99% the desk wasn't touched by in house staff, and they were a good bunch, so I can be almost certain it's not a human problem.

 

So is there anything that could have caused this that I'm missing? It's not a huge problem for me really because I wont be using that particular desk in that venue for another year or so, but it is bugging me.

 

Also to add: the in house movers returned to a home position whenever I wasn't feeding them instructions. Eg using them in one position programmed on a sub, when the sub returned to zero the movers would automatically return themselves to home position (which to add insult to injury was pointing at the floor above the audience)

 

Now like I said, it wasn't my desk to go searching through settings and changing things so I just worked with it best I could.

 

Does anyone know why this would happen?

 

Thanks.

[Smiffy]

Hi Peza:

 

Did the programming return when restored from your USB stick? (You did back up to a stick, didn't you?)

 

Without knowing how you programmed the console, then it's difficult to say what happened to the missing stacks. It could be an issue, although generally I find that the majority of issues on Grand MA's are user generated rather than a problem with the console.

 

As for the fixtures 'homing' I'm going to hazard a guess that you are most used to Avolites products; as these are the only consoles outside of Theatre World that I can think of that don't home the fixtures when no cues are being output.

 

The Hog range, the MA, and many others all send the fixtures to their home (50/50 P&T, No Colour, No Gobo, Shutter out, Focus at a default position etc) positions when no cue data or programmer data is being sent. This has the advantage of not frying the insides of the fixtures when doing nothing. It's a matter of preference or what you are used to I would guess, but I like the homing function of the GMA et-al.

 

Sorry that's not much help, but without knowing all of your button presses on the day, then it really is difficult to know the what's and why's of disappearing cue stacks.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[peza2010]

Hi Peza:

 

Did the programming return when restored from your USB stick? (You did back up to a stick, didn't you?)

 

No it didn't, It really was like the programming had never existed (it definatly did exist....

 

 

Haha and you got it one smiffy! I didn't think us avo users stuck out like a saw thumb so badly! :P

I will trust you on the reasoning behind the movers homing, but to me (even when using various "theatre" desks) it just seems bizarre and conflicts with my normal way of working.

 

But to be fair I never usually use movers rigged from front of house, but they were there, so I did. So normally when using desks other than avo the self homing has been a minor problem that I have not really paid attention to before.

Cheers

[grandMA_the_2nd]

Did you look in the sequence pool, I doubt the stacks were deleted from there also and could be simply reassigned to the executors. Some people forget that deleting the exec does not delete the sequence and it still exists in the pool.

 

Plus I assume you tried the hard disc copy as well as USB backup.

 

If you do not want to release fixtures when you pull the faded down then go into the settings of that exec fader and turn Auto Stop off. The fader will then hold all ltp values and not release them. Of course the lights would be pointing straight down if the fader was released as that would be the default values as set in the personality.

 

For more tips visit www.Facebook.com/grandpalive

[peza2010]

I can't be sure if I did look in the sequence job as the curtains were literally going up as it dawned on me that nothing was there!

 

Also thanks for the advice of auto stop.

 

I don't use grand ma's much, but it's useful info.

 

Cheers