Differential Receiver Board Ports w/ F48 corrupted data

[tkelba]

Hello, I have the F48 running 4 ports of pixels 100 nodes each on the roofline(horizontal) and 3 pillars(vertical). Port 3 and 4 of the remote Differential receiver have suddenly started going nuts on sequences. When I enter test mode, everything runs perfect. 
what could cause these two ports data signal to be corrupted?

[tkelba]

Please note, when I enter test mode on the smart receiver, everything is working a color wash looks great. 

when I enter test mode via the F48, It is just the right pillar that does not receive data. 

I only have 1 smart receiver running on port 1-4. When swapping pixel start channel addressing for Port 3 and 4, I get the same results on port 4. 

There is also a strange thing happening with the first 3 or 4 LEDS in that one strip where the first is off and the other 3 are different colors. Then I get 1 solid color all the way up the pillar but no color wash

The crazy thing is, I had this all functioning 2 days ago and nothing has changed. My best guess is in this order
Config -> I don't see where this could happen
Ethernet cable to DRB 
Blown Port #4
Thoughts? 

[JonD]

The crazy thing is, I had this all functioning 2 days ago and nothing has changed. My best guess is in this order
Config -> I don't see where this could happen
Ethernet cable to DRB
Blown Port #4
Thoughts? 

All good guesses.

Bad controller configuration could do this.  Can you attach a print screen of your e131 and output settings?

A bad network cable could certainly cause this.  Should be easy enough to swap out with another patch cable.  Standard wire order is important if using a self-made cable.

Blown port 4 on the SR, would not likely pass a SR light test.  Issue with Port 4 on the F48 is not impossible.  Do you have other free ports available on the F48 that you could move over to for testing?

[tkelba]

Bad controller configuration could do this.  Can you attach a print screen of your e131 and output settings?

Attached

Blown port 4 on the SR, would not likely pass a SR light test.  Issue with Port 4 on the F48 is not impossible.  Do you have other free ports available on the F48 that you could move over to for testing?

I swapped out to Port 9-12 with the same settings and got the same results. string 4 not communicating. 

A bad network cable could certainly cause this.  Should be easy enough to swap out with another patch cable.  Standard wire order is important if using a self-made cable.

Feeling more and more like this is what it is. I just don't have another 100 foot CAT5 to swap out at the moment. 

I hope my config is correct. You cannot view this attachment. You cannot view this attachment.
You cannot view this attachment.

[JonD]

Why are there duplicate start channels assigned to multiple port numbers?  Was that intentional or accidental?
You cannot view this attachment.

[JonD]

I guess I did not realize the F48 config was so much different than the F4v3 and F16v3s.  Your E131 page shows it is in E131/Artnet mode showing universes.   Your output page does not show any universe information at all.  Your config does not look right to me, but I don't have a suggestion on how to fix it.  Maybe someone else will, otherwise you might try the zoom room.  From xlights select help from the main menu, then select zoom. 

[k6ccc]

A little hard to match your description to the screen captures.  You said it is four strings off 100 pixels, but there are no 100 pixel strings shown.  From the names, I assume this SR is on the port 9 - 12 position.  Also you did not include the E1.31 inputs page so we can't relate Universes to absolute channels.
However I would go along with a cable problem.  Note that I recently had a damaged (crushed) Cat-5e cable between a F4v3 and a SR.  All four LEDs on the SR were lit, but the fourth string was going nuts.  I immediately suspected the 8 year old cable, and when I relieved the crush force, the problem went away.  I replaced the cable.  Show running fine now.  So even though the status LEDs are good, the data can at least be partially bad.

[k6ccc]

I had not noticed the duplicates until Jon pointed them out, but as far as I know, that will work fine.  At least it does on the 4 and 16 port version 3 boards.

[tkelba]

A little hard to match your description to the screen captures.  You said it is four strings off 100 pixels, but there are no 100 pixel strings shown.  From the names, I assume this SR is on the port 9 - 12 position.  Also you did not include the E1.31 inputs page so we can't relate Universes to absolute channels.
However I would go along with a cable problem.  Note that I recently had a damaged (crushed) Cat-5e cable between a F4v3 and a SR.  All four LEDs on the SR were lit, but the fourth string was going nuts.  I immediately suspected the 8 year old cable, and when I relieved the crush force, the problem went away.  I replaced the cable.  Show running fine now.  So even though the status LEDs are good, the data can at least be partially bad.

Yes,

[tkelba]

A little hard to match your description to the screen captures.  You said it is four strings off 100 pixels, but there are no 100 pixel strings shown.  From the names, I assume this SR is on the port 9 - 12 position.  Also you did not include the E1.31 inputs page so we can't relate Universes to absolute channels.
However I would go along with a cable problem.  Note that I recently had a damaged (crushed) Cat-5e cable between a F4v3 and a SR.  All four LEDs on the SR were lit, but the fourth string was going nuts.  I immediately suspected the 8 year old cable, and when I relieved the crush force, the problem went away.  I replaced the cable.  Show running fine now.  So even though the status LEDs are good, the data can at least be partially bad.

Yes,

I wanted to keep the troubleshooting simple and generic. pixel counts in this case didn't matter as i was looking for basic hardware troubleshooting, but yes, what you are seeing in the screenshots is the actual pixel counts for the roofline and pillars. 

[tkelba]

A little hard to match your description to the screen captures.  You said it is four strings off 100 pixels, but there are no 100 pixel strings shown.  From the names, I assume this SR is on the port 9 - 12 position.  Also you did not include the E1.31 inputs page so we can't relate Universes to absolute channels.
However I would go along with a cable problem.  Note that I recently had a damaged (crushed) Cat-5e cable between a F4v3 and a SR.  All four LEDs on the SR were lit, but the fourth string was going nuts.  I immediately suspected the 8 year old cable, and when I relieved the crush force, the problem went away.  I replaced the cable.  Show running fine now.  So even though the status LEDs are good, the data can at least be partially bad.

It was suggested to move to an open port, so i went from port 1-4 and copied the data to port 9-12. Then swapped the Cat5 to port 9-12
either way, in this situation I learned duplicate channel data is accepted and will output on both output ports if you had a situation where pixel counts lined up 

[tkelba]

I guess I did not realize the F48 config was so much different than the F4v3 and F16v3s.  Your E131 page shows it is in E131/Artnet mode showing universes.  Your output page does not show any universe information at all.  Your config does not look right to me, but I don't have a suggestion on how to fix it.  Maybe someone else will, otherwise you might try the zoom room.  From xlights select help from the main menu, then select zoom. 

There is no longer an output page. There is only one options for E131/ARTNET Setup

[Poporacer]

I hope my config is correct.

There is something off like was already mentioned. Also, it looks like you might be manually configuring at least part of your controller? (missing Universe 25?) I would highly recommend letting xLights do all of the hard work for you and configure the controller for you. That way your controller will match what xLights has (use Auto Layout Models, Auto Size and Full xLights Control)

[Poporacer]

I just don't have another 100 foot CAT5 to swap out at the moment. 

Can you move one of them closer to the other to test with a different cable so that you aren't chasing non-existent problems? Are you using Cable Glands in any of your boxes? Those have been known to be problematic.

[JonD]

Why are there duplicate start channels assigned to multiple port numbers?  Was that intentional or accidental?

Got ya... The original ports were 1-4 and you tried swapping over to port 9-12 to see if that would resolve the issue.