While prepping for this latest film I’m on, I had a very “interesting” (pronounced “maddening”) problem with my Netron EN4.  It would not acceptor universe 1.  No matter what.  

I had my Stardust on the (managed) network the EN4 was on and it was happily receiving universe 1.  sACNView showed- with no wait to appear that indicates a multicast problem- that universe 1 was on the network and waiting.  I thought it might be a bit of scrambled code, so I reinstalled the firmware.  If I switched the universe assignment, the device would instantly see that universe on the port.  I bypassed the switch and went directly from my console to the EN4.  I turned on Artnet and output universe 0.  No change. So I reached out to tech support.

They also were confused as to why this was happening.

Notice in the list above, you don’t see “I did a factory reset”.  There are two things I would change about the Netron series if I could:

1. The Presets should never be the first thing in the menu.  Too powerful to be first. I had a newish SLT accidentally reset the node that was serving 80% of our stage…while we were shooting.  Rainbow vomit everywhere, strobing lights, it was bad.
2. It should be an option to either NOT have a pin for a factory rest, or that you can choose your own pin to authorize the factory reset.  Because I have trouble remembering what the factory reset pin code is.  Or…I had that problem.

So I looked up in the manual what the code was (it’s 011, or one of them is) and then the mysterious problem disappeared.

I know this is an incredibly specific problem with a not-terribly-confusing solution.  But one of the biggest reasons I started this blog is to share the answers to the random problems that torment me sometimes.  This problem looks SO MUCH like it should be a multicast or EEE problem. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider reading this article of hard-won info.) And yet it’s not.

What weird little mysterious problems have you solved recently?  Would love to see them in the comments.

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Mark LaPierre is a programmer in film and television based out of Albuquerque.  He grew up in live entertainment and has been a designer/programmer for musicals, concert dance, live music, circus and corporate.  Mark is a proud member of IATSE, an ETC Eos trainer and an enthusiastic trainer of many other platforms and subjects.  If you enjoy his content, please consider commenting on his posts on the website to appease the Algorithm.