We recently updated our EN4 to firmware + web versions 2.9.4. However we had issues during the upgrade and since then the EN4 has been behaving erratically - the first upgrade failed and the unit had to be restored using the upgrade.html page.
The dial on the EN4 isn’t working as you can’t scroll through any of the menus, and the unit has begun to crash (it locks up, with the lights flashing red). Additionally the cues we use trigger to allow laypeople to switch on house lights etc, only seem to send out via the 4 DMX ports rather than also broadcasting over sACN on the network, so only the lights plugged directly into the EN4 are now controlled via our cues.
Powering the device off and on again will restore the unit to translating sACN, but it doesn’t fix the dial or cues.
I first wanted to check if anyone had found anything like this with 2.94?
Things we have tried since:
Reset to defaults
Revert all the way back to the 2.4 firmware
Updated back to 2.9.4.
Mapped the ports on the EN4 to universes 1-4 to see if it’s somehow only broadcasting for universes it has mapped.
I’m thinking that our device is fried and may well need to be replaced, but would be happy to hear from anyone with suggestions for fixing. Is there some way to clear everything but the bootloader and flash from a clean chip?
Thanks for reaching out! This is definitely not normal behavior and is the first I have heard of this with the latest firmware. The first setting I would check is to see if under the cues options if “Resend Ethernet” is turned on. This will re-broadcast all sACN traffic from the cues to the other devices. The only time I have seen the unit lock up is when there is some kind of conflict on the network. Are you able to isolate the device to see if the control works correctly?
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, a couple of things have happened since you messaged. First I can confirm that resend ethernet was enabled, however that didn’t seem to help.
However, the unit became so unstable that the powers that be authorised purchasing a new EN4 which I installed a few days ago. At the same time I isolated the EN4 from our regular network (it was on it’s own VLAN, but I have instead daisy chained all our Netron nodes together). I have also switched from sACN to ArtNet + RDM.
Things seem to have calmed down, and for the moment things seem stable. I think that the problem was likely caused by a bad electrical supply (the facility is rural and so consistent voltage is a problem we are now looking to address).
I can report that the new unit on firmware 2.9.4 will only broadcast the universes it has mapped on the ports. It does seem to capture all 4 universes that we use; if I change the universe assignment on the ports it’ll go from broadcasting on that universe to not. I don’t think that this is how it used to be before 2.9.4; as we used to have the ports on the EN4 mostly mapped to universes 3 + 4 to control the house + foyer lights. I’ve had to give up control of the foyer dimmers in order to map two ports to universe 1+2.
Also, curiously enough every now and again the dial on the new EN4 will stop working and we can’t access the OLED menus. Rebooting the unit will restore the functionality though.
Just to add some further information - having used the system this weekend we found that we lost control part way through our service.
Basically on the EN4 the blue boxes that are on the DMX output were surrounded by a red box and the LEDs on the ports began to flash red. We were unable to make any lighting changes until the EN4 unit had been rebooted.
The EN4 takes an input from a Springtree SM-8 Switch (so the house lights can be turned on/off without needing Onyx), and has outputs to the house lights. Ports 2 & 3 normally control a bunch of dimmer packs on Universe 3, but I switched these to be ports 1&2 as noted above. Port 4, on universe 4, is connected to an ETC Connect Foundry which is then connected to our ArcSystem house lights.
The EP Stage controls a bunch of lights on the stage, whilst the ceiling controls a bunch of lights on the ceiling. These are mapped to universes 1&2 across the four ports.
The symptoms seems to be that going a few minutes (unknown how long) and eventually something seems to disconnect. The blue boxes on the output DMX channels on the EN4 will be surrounded with a red box. A cue triggered on the EN4 by the Springtree will no longer play (the test view seems to show nothing on the ports or artnet). At this point too the LEDs under the ports will start to flash red. Powering the EN4 off and then on again will work.
The behaviour is identical on both the old and the new units - this makes me think that perhaps there is a firmware problem.
When we first rolled out the equipment about 4 years ago we used PoE, however after a power failure we switched to using regular power with a UPS.
We are a rural facility and have seen power both over or under the desired 110/208 volts. We are looking to get a system in place that would even out these voltage variations.
However, right now I’m concerned that having replaced the unit we thought that was suspect (the EN4) with a brand new unit, we are still seeing pretty much the same behaviour. We lose control of the lights, triggering cues does nothing and the blue LEDs flash red on the DMX ports and the blue boxes are surrounded by red.
Curiously, I’ve noted that if I manually fire a cue from the EN4 things will come back - however the same cue fired from the Springtree (it’ll say that it’s firing) won’t.
Have you tested the Ethernet lines / cable integrity to make sure you don’t have a cable issue?
Do you have another way to send data to the EN4 and bypass the wall station. Is it possible that the wall station is actually the problem?
I really don’t have much to offer other than to help to start isolating parts of the system to see if there is a failure somewhere that is causing the erratic behavior. If you have 2 devices that are experiencing the same then I would have to think it is something else and not the EN4’s. Just some of my thoughts.