# Oops!



## Saunier (Jul 17, 2008)

Our high school was doing Hello, Dolly for the school play. I had 80 cues programmed! Then an HOUR before the curtain went up our server went nuts and I tried to fix it and it didn't work. They all got deleted and so did the patch. (sniff) So in fifteen minutes of sweating and RE-programming they where all returned to the file.


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## Van (Jul 17, 2008)

Saunier said:


> Our high school was doing Hello, Dolly for the school play. I had 80 cues programmed! Then an HOUR before the curtain went up our server went nuts and I tried to fix it and it didn't work. They all got deleted and so did the patch. (sniff) So in fifteen minutes of sweating and RE-programming they where all returned to the file.


 Back up back up, back up, zip disk, thumb drive,floppy......... 
Hey do any consoles have an "auto save" now days ? like when you're drawing or word processing whatever, and you can set it to auto backup evry 5 minutes or so ? < Obviously I don't work with much cutting edge technology.>


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## Grog12 (Jul 17, 2008)

grandMA 4tw. Set up to backup whenever you want..I imagine Hog III does as well.


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## Wolf (Jul 17, 2008)

Van said:


> Back up back up, back up, zip disk, thumb drive,floppy.........
> Hey do any consoles have an "auto save" now days ? like when you're drawing or word processing whatever, and you can set it to auto backup evry 5 minutes or so ? < Obviously I don't work with much cutting edge technology.>



So far all the ETC console if worked with once you record anything (cue, sub, gruop, ....) it acts as a save. But yes ALWAYS save to a dick (and if its floppy dont throw them in your bag next to head phone they have magnets and will mess up the floppy)


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## Les (Jul 17, 2008)

Wolf said:


> So far all the ETC console if worked with once you record anything (cue, sub, gruop, ....) it acts as a save. But yes ALWAYS save to a dick (and if its floppy dont throw them in your bag next to head phone they have magnets and will mess up the floppy)



Save to a what???

Is this some new-fangled lighting practice they're teaching in schools these days?


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## Van (Jul 18, 2008)

Les said:


> Save to a what???
> 
> Is this some new-fangled lighting practice they're teaching in schools these days?


 I was going to leave that one alone as a pure typo but you just had to go there didn't you !


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## derekleffew (Jul 18, 2008)

Wolf, I fear you are mistaken. I don't know of any lighting console (we are talking lighting consoles here, yes? OP may be mistaken in his terminology: server? Only GMA uses that.) that saves to non-RAM every time a cue/group/sub is recorded. The Eos/Ion can be set to save to hard drive automatically at user-specified intervals, possibly ObsII as well, but I don't think ObsI or anything below that. http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/members/wolf.html


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## Charc (Jul 18, 2008)

Van said:


> I was going to leave that one alone as a pure typo but you just had to go there didn't you !



Is it a new medium of data storage?


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## Ross (Jul 18, 2008)

derekleffew said:


> Wolf, I fear you are mistaken. I don't know of any lighting console (we are talking lighting consoles here, yes? OP may be mistaken in his terminology: server? Only GMA uses that.) that saves to non-RAM every time a cue/group/sub is recorded. The Eos/Ion can be set to save to hard drive automatically at user-specified intervals, possibly ObsII as well, but I don't think ObsI or anything below that. http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/members/wolf.html




I use an OB2 and I tend to make macros for saving to DISK (Not getting sucked in to that conversation...har har) and harddrive. It doesn't save unless you tell it to.


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## derekleffew (Jul 18, 2008)

Thanks for the information, Ross. It's been a while since I was on an ObsII.http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/members/ross.html


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## themuzicman (Jul 18, 2008)

Van said:


> Hey do any consoles have an "auto save" now days ? like when you're drawing or word processing whatever, and you can set it to auto backup evry 5 minutes or so ? < Obviously I don't work with much cutting edge technology.>



I have been saved a few times by Horizon's auto-save feature 
I'd program some stuff in, run to stage and check something out, run back, and exit out thinking I was done -- only to freak out, realizing I didn't save anything! It's really the only point of that system I really like.

Thank Goodness for the "Checkpoint" files it saves for you!


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## Van (Jul 18, 2008)

themuzicman said:


> I have been saved a few times by Horizon's auto-save feature
> I'd program some stuff in, run to stage and check something out, run back, and exit out thinking I was done -- only to freak out, realizing I didn't save anything! It's really the only point of that system I really like.
> 
> Thank Goodness for the "Checkpoint" files it saves for you!


 Well, Being FORMER Rosco ET Feild tech, I knew Horizon offered these wonderful features, but wasn't sure if the rest of the industry had caught up with them yet............ 

< Ducking from the on-comming horizon rants.>


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## SerraAva (Jul 18, 2008)

Hog III's do indeed have auto backup and save. Can edit the amount of backups and the time in between each backup. Never turn it off. 

Default is 3 files, 20 minutes apart from each other. Meaning, first it backs up to the first file, then 20 minutes later, the second file. 40 minutes after the first back up, it saves to the 3rd. 60 minutes after the first back up, it goes and rewrites the first. And it continues, forever and ever and ever, until the end of time, or you turn off the console, your choice.


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## Wolf (Jul 19, 2008)

Mainly when I used an ETC Express 48/96 I never saved to a disc (I know, I know thats bad it was a very odd situation). All I did was record and thats all. The board was turned off every night and once someone even un-plugged the dmx. I look at this as saving if it is not please correct me.


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## Les (Jul 19, 2008)

The board WILL hold it's memory just fine. Turning it on and off won't change a thing, and neither would unplugging DMX (DMX has nothing to do with data storage). Even unplugging the console would be safe as long as your internal battery is good. Where you start to run into problems is that you run the risk of the console crashing. It doesn't happen very often with ETC but it can. Power surges through the building's electrical system can mess things up too. I usually save a show to 2 different floppy disks, and up date them when any change is made. Then I keep one backup in the booth and one with me. That way we always have a copy of the show... Even if the janitors decided to clean up the booth or something. 

Another scary thing is it's not hard for someone else to change or clear data in the board. Even someone walking up and loading another disk will royally screw you over when it replaces their saved data with your unsaved data. It happened to me, and there was really no easy way around it. Luckily I only had area lighting programmed in to subs (Expression III).


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## cdub260 (Aug 12, 2008)

Here's one that happened to me maybe 8 to 10 years ago. I was programing a show on an ETC Microvision board. The show had about 90 cues. When I tried to save the show to disk, the board dumped it's memory, going back to it's default settings, and erased my disk. Fortunately, I had kept pretty good notes on the light cues, and most of them were restores to previous looks, so I spent the next 20 minutes restoring the patch and reprogramming the show. I still had to do a little minor tweaking for the next night's rehearsal, but it all worked out in the end. 

Needless to say, I didn't even try saving to disk again until that show was over. When I did try saving again, everything worked just fine. I had never encountered this problem before, and have never encountered it since. That board has since been retired, replaced by an ETC Express 24/48.


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## hsaunier (Aug 12, 2008)

One nuance that may have been missed in the original post. He said the server crashed. The express 48/96 was not acting as a stand alone. It was configured to be a control surface to empahsis.


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## malex (Aug 12, 2008)

Word of warning to those of you using Congo.
The auto save feature is great, but by default, the feature is turned OFF!
Every time a new show is created, one needs to turn the feature on. Also, if your flash drive has a write-protect switch enabled, Congo will try to save to it and never tell you that it can not. 
Both of these have burned me and ETC has heard my opinion on the matters. Not sure if these are fixed in the v5 software, but I sure hope so.
I love my Congo Jr, but it has scared the hell out of me on numerous occasions.


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## derekleffew (Aug 12, 2008)

*Congo*_™ by ETC/Avab. _
_--adding true *drama* to your lighting!_​


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## cdub260 (Aug 25, 2008)

cdub260 said:


> Here's one that happened to me maybe 8 to 10 years ago. I was programing a show on an older ETC board. I don't remember what model off hand, but it was a small board with only subs. The show had about 90 cues. When I tried to save the show to disk, the board dumped it's memory, going back to it's default settings, and erased my disk. Fortunately, I had kept pretty good notes on the light cues, and most of them were restores to previous looks, so I spent the next 20 minutes restoring the patch and reprogramming the show. I still had to do a little minor tweaking for the next night's rehearsal, but it all worked out in the end.
> 
> Needless to say, I didn't even try saving to disk again until that show was over. When I did try saving again, everything worked just fine. I had never encountered this problem before, and have never encountered it since. That board has since been retired, replaced by an ETC Express 24/48.



It was a Microvision FX.


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## OnWithTheShow (Aug 25, 2008)

> Here's one that happened to me maybe 8 to 10 years ago. I was programing a show on an older ETC board. I don't remember what model off hand, but it was a small board with only subs. The show had about 90 cues. When I tried to save the show to disk, the board dumped it's memory, going back to it's default settings, and erased my disk. Fortunately, I had kept pretty good notes on the light cues, and most of them were restores to previous looks, so I spent the next 20 minutes restoring the patch and reprogramming the show. I still had to do a little minor tweaking for the next night's rehearsal, but it all worked out in the end.
> 
> Needless to say, I didn't even try saving to disk again until that show was over. When I did try saving again, everything worked just fine. I had never encountered this problem before, and have never encountered it since. That board has since been retired, replaced by an ETC Express 24/48.



This happened once on our Microvision before I got here. Turns out the disk had a firmware upgrade on it and as soon as the console tried to read it it went into the upgrade.


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## marshmolly123 (Mar 10, 2009)

Yeah, we usually spin two disks after any changes are made to the patch/cues/etc.


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