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Author Topic: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?  (Read 75157 times)

Tim McCulloch

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #90 on: March 21, 2014, 03:11:34 PM »

I wouldn't be offended or have even known; if you had, you would have joined a popular group since I'm widely ignored on a variety of subjects.

You must have teenagers. ;)
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"If you're passing on your way, from Palm Springs to L.A., Give a wave to good ol' Dave, Say hello to progress and goodbye to the Moonlight Motor Inn." - Steve Spurgin, Moonlight Motor Inn

Robert Lofgren

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #91 on: March 21, 2014, 03:32:23 PM »

Reading between the lines of what Jan wrote the x32 is not capable of taking snapshots more than 12 times/minute since it takes five seconds to write the approx. 10.000 parameters to the flash memory.

Someone mentioned presonus. Their autosave is once every ten seconds. They have a flashing led to tell you when it autosaves.

So why not save continously? The issue at hand is the flash memory.

Many of you must have seen/heard of the corrupt firmware memory on the studiolive consoles and this autosave may be one of the problems initiating a corrupt flash memory.

A flash memory block can only be written to a certain amount of times. With the current flash memory technology at hand that limit is approx. 100.000 write cycles.

100.000 writes at the fastest snapshot speed gives us a life expectancy of 140hrs of console running time.

By saving every 2 minutes the life expectancy increases to 3.400hrs of console running time before the flash may wear out.

By clever utilization of the memory map blocks of the flash the life expectancy will become higher.

So how can the old consoles keep their memory intact at an instant. Flash memory didn't 'exist' at the time they were built so the running state of a mixer was held in a battery powered static ram. They can be written to umlimited times.

This type of memory isn't used too much anylonger due to the comfortness of the flash memory.

So, now you're thinking - Oh, no! My flash memory will go bad in my x32 and never work again. Yes, this is correct in a distant future. However the flash memory in the x32 is in fact a normal mini sd-card and can be replaced if it should ever fail. This is so much better than onboard soldered flash memory chips.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2014, 03:48:45 PM by Robert Lofgren »
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Dan Mortensen

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Dan Mortensen

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #93 on: March 21, 2014, 09:10:21 PM »

Finally got to do something I've wanted to for a while.

Set up a console with 1.15 on it which had never had 2.anything on it.

Short answer is that whatever the console is doing in 2.02 it was also doing in 1.15.

Both consoles behaved the same no matter what I did to them, and I did it in unison simultaneously (if those mean slightly different things to somebody).

Another data point is that manually saving settings to a scene and then rebooting has no effect on the settings when it reboots. It will go to its random combinations of settings upon reboot.

The auto-save is the only one that counts.

So, again, as with several other things on the console, unless they are able to make the thing autosave more often or upon any parameter change, we are left with "WTF do you expect from a console this complex which costs this much?"

At this point I feel like we've identified its behavior under surprise power loss conditions, and can plan accordingly.

In case of total power loss, bring the console up first and get your correct cue/scene loaded (and you need to affirmatively load it, not just assume that because it SAYS it's the right one that it is), and then power up your amps and speakers.

If only the console goes off, either mute all your amps or disconnect the input cables unless you are positive that no combination of wrong inputs will be embarrassing.

I'm personally happy we went off on this goose chase because now we know more about my favorite console.

I'm going to make this post in the other place, too, so that it's in the giant thread and is findable within that thread.

Robert, I think your last post should be made immortal, too, and will let you copy and paste it there. With a threat that if you don't I will, after waiting a respectful period of time for you to do it.
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Tommy Peel

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #94 on: March 22, 2014, 02:56:46 AM »

...
By clever utilization of the memory map blocks of the flash the life expectancy will become higher.
...

Generally this is referred to as TRIM. You may  see the term when looking at SSD's for computers. What happens, to my understanding, is the software makes sure to spread out all of the read/write cycles across the entire drive/flash memory chip so that no one section goes bad. This makes the drive last longer, however eventually the flash memory will fail because of excessive reads/writes.

I'm sure a Google search for TRIM will produce much more information on the subject.

Sent from my Nexus 4 running OmniROM 4.4 KitKat using Tapatalk Pro

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Nick Davis

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #95 on: March 22, 2014, 04:51:47 AM »

Dear Brian, Dan, Tommy, James, Tim,

 

  • Upon booting, X32 returns to the exact, last stored temporary state it was in before the power cycle
  • When the last stored state includes a stored or loaded scene, than that scene number will be displayed in the top status bar
  • Saving all (apprx. 10k) parameters to flash, is done by a background process and may take up to two minutes worst-case; or 5s when Safe Shutdown by pressing HOME is used

Best,
Jan Duwe

Senior Engineer Conceptualization
Music Group Services EU GmbH
With the risk of going into more iggy bins I had a re-read of Jan's post.
He does not actually say how frequent the state save is but that as it runs as a background task it can take up to 2 minutes to complete.
This would explain the apparent randomness of the loaded state
on a re boot.
is it a continuous repeated cycle-taking up to 2 mins for each state to be completely saved ?
Apologies i thought people were saying it was a snapshot every 2 mins.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2014, 05:03:09 AM by Nick Davis »
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Robert Lofgren

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #96 on: March 22, 2014, 05:25:24 AM »

With the risk of going into more iggy bins I had a re-read of Jan's post.
He does not actually say how frequent the state save is but that as it runs as a background task it can take up to 2 minutes to complete.
This would explain the apparent randomness of the loaded state
on a re boot.
is it a continuous repeated cycle-taking up to 2 mins for each state to be completely saved ?
Apologies i thought people were saying it was a snapshot every 2 mins.
Again, reading between the lines.

A full snapshot takes five seconds to complete. The automatic snapshot is made once every two minutes. This time is fixed intervalls.

Depending on when in time you change your setting on your console the automatic save may not be executed until after two minutes from that change.

You may be lucky and make a change that gets saved right away since the time is up. On the other hand you may just have missed the save and you need to wait for the next one.

It's just like waiting for a bus that is scheduled every two minutes. As long as you get to the bus stop before the next bus arrives you'll catch that bus. The waiting game depends on when you arrived, because the bus won't wait for you. If the bus closes its doors on you before you enter it you'll have to wait another two minutes. But on the other hand if you manage to get inside the bus just as the doors closes you didn't have to wait.

But the thing with the x32 is that the two minute intervall is hidden from you as an user so your worst case scenario will always be two minutes.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2014, 05:41:58 AM by Robert Lofgren »
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Nick Davis

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #97 on: March 22, 2014, 05:52:28 AM »

Again, reading between the lines.

A full snapshot takes five seconds to complete. The automatic snapshot is made once every two minutes. This time is fixed intervalls.

Depending on when in time you change your setting on your console the automatic save may not be executed until after two minutes from that change.

You may be lucky and make a change that gets saved right away since the time is up. On the other hand you may just have missed the save and you need to wait for the next one.

It's just like waiting for a bus that is scheduled every two minutes. As long as you get to the bus stop before the next bus arrives you'll catch that bus. The waiting game depends on when you arrived, because the bus won't wait for you. If the bus closes its doors on you before you enter it you'll have to wait another two minutes. But on the other hand if you manage to get inside the bus just as the doors closes you didn't have to wait.

But the thing with the x32 is that the two minute intervall is hidden from you as an user so your worst case scenario will always be two minutes.

Not saying you are wrong but just did a test of moving Faders one by one so they were in order up down - one layer - did a cycle altering state I.e reversed. Did it quite slowly.
Powered off.
On reboot first couple of faders in correct position
Some part way in between and a whole set completely down.
Implied to me the save was being done over and not at a time period.

Btw hope my rudimentary test is wrong and you are right as prefer (a 5 sec) periodic snapshot to a bacground save that can take up to 2 mins to complete.

Edit: not going to cross post- useful if Jan could re-clarify the process.
(must always test out the Ups!)
« Last Edit: March 22, 2014, 06:01:56 AM by Nick Davis »
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Robert Lofgren

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #98 on: March 22, 2014, 06:09:34 AM »

All of this is pretty irrelevant.

The only thing one need to know and understand is that any operation/changes that is made within two minutes will most likley be lost if the console is rebooting for any reason other than a safe shutdown.

I have never in my life relied on autosaves but rather manual saves anytime I feel that my adhd kicks in and tells me to. I usually have a round-robin of ten scenes...
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Nick Davis

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Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #99 on: March 22, 2014, 06:15:24 AM »

Not saying you are wrong but just did a test of moving Faders one by one so they were in order up down - one layer - did a cycle altering state I.e reversed. Did it quite slowly.
Powered off.
On reboot first couple of faders in correct position
Some part way in between and a whole set completely down.
Implied to me the save was being done over and not at a time period.

Btw hope my rudimentary test is wrong and you are right as prefer (a 5 sec) periodic snapshot to a bacground save that can take up to 2 mins to complete.

Edit: not going to cross post- useful if Jan could re-clarify the process.
(must always test out the Ups!)
All of this is pretty irrelevant.

The only thing one need to know and understand is that any operation/changes that is made within two minutes will most likley be lost if the console is rebooting for any reason other than a safe shutdown.

I have never in my life relied on autosaves but rather manual saves anytime I feel that my adhd kicks in and tells me to. I usually have a round-robin of ten scenes...
Quite agree - as have said not a great issue (though I have been shot down in flames for saying so!)
 but now having bothered to take part in this discussion would like to know how it does work - just out of interest!
« Last Edit: March 22, 2014, 06:25:09 AM by Nick Davis »
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: X32 2.02 Firmware..... Likes and issues?
« Reply #99 on: March 22, 2014, 06:15:24 AM »


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