Astera (Update) Time

By 3 commentsCategory: Film, TipTags: , , , , , ,

Any of us DMX techs or Programmers who work with Astera fixtures have a very different relationship to the gear than the DPs and Gaffers who specify them on every movie.  We all know how challenging the software and app can be, particularly when updating firmware.

Recently, I was prepping a small film I’m on that is lighting almost exclusively from the truck package.  For a small production, we have a LOT of Astera products.  3 titan cases, a Helios case, Three Nyx kits, several AX5s and a case of Hydrapanels.  That’s a LOT of “Astera Time”.  To add to the fun, I only had two days to prep this (and the many other lights we have on the truck).  Though I always dread updating Astera products, the one thing this provided me is the chance to experiment with ways to try to make it less horrible.  And I think I found one.

When the updates just keep failing, I noticed a marked improvement if I force restarted the software and restarted the ART7.  I was running around a lot, so there were times when a single kit would fail up to 9 times.  If I restarted everything, it would usually do it the first time, or the second.

On the first day of principle I had to replace a Helios tube because of a battery failure.  It was the first day and a big setup for a small crew, so I was very distracted as I was desperately trying to get the tube to update to the latest firmware.  It failed ten times.  I misremembered that force restarting the app was enough.  When I remembered to restart the ART7 as well, it did it on the first try.

I’m not a software coder and I don’t have any scientific way to test and prove this helps other than experiment and observation.  But so far, so good and a marked improvement.  If you try it, let me know your results in the comments.  Anybody else out there have any tricks they use to reduce the Astera Rage?  Hit me 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.  

Photo by alexandru vicol on Unsplash

3 comments

  1. Chris Steele - Reply

    What do you mean by “force restarting” the app? Do you mean close it out and restart it, even though it’s not done updating? Or something else.

    Yes, I’ve done similar. One thing I’ve found is that if you have a group of fixtures and say all of them take the update except a couple, power off all the ones that took it, everything Astera within range actually, close out the app, restart the ART-7 box, and try it again with just those fixtures powered on. It’s still not a guarantee, but at least you get through an “attempt cycle” faster.

    It’s ridiculous that we are still struggling with this. Considering Astera’s market share and technical range, they should have solved most of these problems a long time ago.

  2. Wilson Zhang - Reply

    Hey Mark,

    Thanks for the tip. I wish I had thought to try this sooner since I only recently began running into issues with needing to update firmware on massive quantities of these fixtures.

    I’ll give this app restart trick a try next time.

    I frequently run into situations where I’m switching control devices (IE Phones or tablets) between different ART7 boxes and have found that I have much better luck facilitating the handoffs if I proactively clear out the remembered bluetooth devices stack on the control devices. Not sure I have any actual helpful tips beyond that and just taking the time to properly prep your lights before a job if you have the opportunity to do so.

    Thanks!

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