Topic: Frozen R4 screen???

[mikesalvo]

hey there,

so I recently purchased a Busman T-Mod R4. The first time I ran it in the field I noticed that at various points during the the show the screen would freeze completely. Meters and clock. typically for a second or two at a time. It would catch up when it came back to life, no music was lost.

My second time in the field using this unit, I used different batts, cables, and power cable. The same this happened.

Has anyone experiences anything like this before?

cheers,
~Mike

[stevetoney]

Hi Mike.  What's up?  Are you heading out on the Festival trail at all this summer?  If so, maybe I'll see you out there again.

I haven't had that issue with my R4 Pro, nor have I heard of this specific issue.  However, if it freezes and then catches up, to me that sounds reminiscent of the 'HDD slow' read/write issues that have been discussed over the years with the R4, which as I recall always seemed like somewhat of a buffer overrun type of thing. 

Question...was your machine on solid ground or did you have it in a location, like on-stage, that might have been affected by either music vibrations or people dancing or whatever. 

The reason I ask is that I remember reading that vibrations can cause that buffer overrun issue.  When people relocated their R4 onto a solid surface, or put some cushioning (like a coat or a towel) underneath their R4, that solved the 'HDD slow' problem. 

The other solution was a harddrive changeout with a faster drive.

I have no clue if this is your problem because the display freeze might be a totally different issue than the 'HDD slow' issue, but it might be worth considering.


EDIT TO ADD:

I just checked the trougleshooting section of my R4 Pro manual and here are a couple of other inputs for your consideration...

The HDD Slow! message is shown
Writing access to the hard disk has slowed down.  As you repeatedly write and delete project files, the files on the hard disk become fragmented, and this slows down the processing speed.  If making important recordings, you should consistently delete all projects together when finished with them. Repeated deletion of smaller pieces of data causes the disk to become fragmented, possibly causing recording to fail.

A skip of several seconds occurs in the project playback
If the R-4 Pro is subjected to vibration or impact, writing to the hard disk may not occur in time, meaning that that portion of sound is not recorded. When you listen to the recorded project, the time count during playback does not skip, but there is a skip of several seconds in the sound of the project. During recording, please be careful that the R-4 Pro is not subjected to impact.

The sound skips when you play back through the internal speakers
Vibration produced by the internal speakers may cause reading from the hard disk to fail, and this may cause skips in the sound.  Try turning the monitor level knob toward the left to lower the volume of the internal speakers. Alternatively, you can monitor through headphones.

Skips occur in the sound
As you repeatedly write and delete project files, the files on the hard disk become fragmented, and this slows down the processing speed. If you continue recording in this state, a message of “HDD Slow!” is shown, and skips may occur in the recorded project.  If making important recordings, you should consistently delete all projects together when finished with them. Repeated deletion of smaller pieces of data causes the disk to become fragmented, possibly causing recording to fail.

[SmokinJoe]

I've seen that many times. it's seems to occur when:
a) putting my rig right next to the subwoofer where you can actually feel the vibration, or
b) running at 24/96.

Mine doesn't seem to freeze for a second or two however, it's just like maybe 1/4 or 1/2 second, enough that the meters aren't bouncing quite as smoothly as normal.  Then again, I installed a faster hard drive in mine, so maybe that's the difference.

I think that in the firmware running the R4, keeping the display up to date has a lower priority than writing data to disk, which is just as it should be.  So if the thing gets busy, the display gets slow.

General "best practices" for using an R4 in case no one mentioned it...
1) format the drive (either using the menu, or using PC software "fat32format")
2) record show after show as long as you have plenty of disk space, but never delete, rename, or alter a file on the disk. That will make the disc fragmented, and you don't want that.
3) When you are almost full, reformat and start over.  The "start of the drive" is always faster than the "back of the drive".  You are more likely to get slow disk errors when it's almost full.
4) tip... the first thing I do after I format is to record a few seconds of dead air.  This tells me (a) that it still works, and (b) when I boot it up it loads this tiny file, rather than a whole show which saves time every time you turn it on.
5) record at 1xStereo or 2xStereo.  You don't want 1xquad or 4xmono.  4xmono will almost surely result in a slow disk error, it's a lot more work for the drive.

I suggest you test this at home:
- fire up the R4
- set it for 2xStereo at 24/48.
- hit record and let it run all night.
- when you get up in the morning if you have a slow disk error on the screen, you might think about buying a faster drive. If not, you are good.  (It's a standard older laptop drive IDE or "ATA-6", not SATA).

[bdasilva]

The unit has an upgraded  80gb 7200 rpm drive...  I haven't seen the hdd slow message since. It freezes but it doesn't declare an error and the music is fine.  These units never ran right at 96/24

[mikesalvo]

thanks for chiming in guys. I will be running tests as soon as I can. The unit is at my house. I am out of town working and I wanted to bring it so I could take care of the issue, but i felt it was safer to leave it there.

Joe, thanks as always for your great suggestion. I will run that test next weekend.

[andromedanwarmachine]

Can I just say (and I don't mean to tread on Smokin Joe's toes here) that whilst that's a great test concept for identifying a slow disc issue; leaving it running during the day in front of the TV or with a source from an open window might be more indicative...

You're obviously not interested in the recorded audio, but there may be a commonality of machine-management software where if the unit is "busy" processing it may delay a disc management routine, but if it's recording silence, it might not be as busy... and the issue may not arise...?

Just a thought...

[ellaguru]

from above ^
..putting my rig right next to the subwoofer where you can actually feel the vibration


bingo!  this has happened to me twice.  had it sitting on 3" of foam padding a low wooden table on a cement floor. fixed it by setting it at an angle on the foam in the bag i carry. 

[Patrick]

4) tip... the first thing I do after I format is to record a few seconds of dead air.  This tells me (a) that it still works, and (b) when I boot it up it loads this tiny file, rather than a whole show which saves time every time you turn it on.

This is what I do as well.  I name the 1 second-long file "00000001" so it'll always come up first when booting up the R4.  This saves a huge amount of time when running late to get rolling for a show.