The Joys of using Pangolin

[masterpj]

send to pangolin, attach to email.

[catalanjo]

I am glad to hear all is well now but I'd still like to see the log files, if possible, to isolate the problem in case there is a bug somewhere on our end and/or to determine if it was some wierd MS problem.

Good to see this ( Pango )
Especially if results of log analysis are posted back here !
Hey Dan ....how were your problems resolved
( Contact with Pango doesn´t tell us much !)
Cheers

[allthatwhichis]

so u want me to upload here?

You can send it to me; aaron (at) pangolin (dot) com. I'll make sure it gets to Bill for review.

[danielbriggs]

Hey Dan ....how were your problems resolved

Crikey-o-riley! Give me chance dude!

@Dan... Was this just "verbal contact" solving the issues ...or were their "bugs" needing a software fix from Pangolin"

There was an issue with the 7.20/5 colour handling in the firmware for the FB3-QS's.
I noticed it on build 2007; around build 2016/7 (I think) it was resolved. Only an issue for LP, QS worked fine.
Pangolin were notified on 12th Feb 2011.
Other people had the same issue too: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...-livePRO/page2

The issues were not posted here on PL; direct contact with Pangolin; issues resolved and happy with the outcome.
A company should be judged on how it deals with issues, not simply "what is says on the website" et. al.
There was an issue; it was resolved suitably -> happy customers

<Tidbit>
Had a feature request for LivePro; emailed it in -> 6 hours later a new build was sitting in my inbox. Outstanding; credit due.
</Tidbit> (Just for the yin-yang of "you only hear the bad news" )

Dan here you appear to be indicationg a hardware problem ... was this the case

Flaky WIZnet module.


Look, I didn't want to turn this into a swapshop of Pangolin issues - those (resolved) issues were just used as examples to point out the fallacies of an "I think X; therefore it must be applicable to all situations" type argument.


Bono estente!

[LaserWizard]

The time that no output thing happened to me, I had sold an FB3 to a client; during the setup we were using my personal FB3 for awhile connected to his laptop. After I left, at some point his QS software would connect to his FB3 but not output anything. Found out that QS was still selecting my FB3 for output, even though his was the one plugged in! Just had to change it to the correct FB3 in the settings or whatever menu item takes you to FB3 selection. Stupid mistake, but hidden, not obvious.

Have not had any color issues.

[catalanjo]

Ta for the post Dan !

Nothing wrong with a "swapshop" of pangolin issues as long as it´s honest
in fact the thread title suggests just that !

Cheers

[mixedgas]

The company I work for makes and keeps two different software builds of EVERYTHING, one for XP and one for Seven. They often have them running in the same room, on a A/B setup. Why? Its amazing what one bad line of code can do to a 10 million dollar machine's runtime availability. Even with approved and tested, medical grade code, a upgrade written by a person in the Middle East may not like something that was tested in East Asia, and WILL change when ran on a North American operating system, and then will most likely some how run correctly when sent to Holland for debug. Why? Because a OS with over 16 million lines of code running a show software with something like a million lines of code is going have that odd combination once in a while that leads to a new "feature".

Master PJ, with all due respect, I'm going to explain to you exactly why you getting blasted. Some of us have over twenty years of field time with Pangolin products. Most of the time they are great, and they are certainly responsive if more then one user finds a bug. Often they are responsive if one user finds a bug. However, there has been more then one instance where something fails, codewise, unexpectedly. Its true with all software. However, some times issues can occur in the field that do not happen on a home bench.

You are in the "In Love, HoneyMoon" stage of marriage with your Pangolin, it can DO NO WRONG in your mind. Take some systems on tour, or swap out your show system with a older system in a emergency, and bugs will creep up. Do not assume because you get perfect service that all users have the same access. Little things like being in different time zones, can make a world of difference.

I personally like to take two different builds into the field on two different hardware platforms if possible, and often a ADAT or other show software platform. Why? I've experienced some weird glitches. I had one experience on top of a tall, windy,building, that I'd rather forget. We switched to a fellow subcontractor's system for a simple single frame logo projection. Call up a simple, rarely used, function because the client started demanding a minor change, and WHAMMO... We did quite a few run-throughs in the hotel room before we went up, too. Never saw the glitch during preshow, but later we could reproduce it.

Pango can't catch everything that can go wrong, simply because they are HUMAN. Yes, I've watched my old QM32 finish a show while the windows host machine was badly crashed, the code and custom hardware are very good. However, I know many professional Laserists who have/had a A/B box and have two different NON LINKED systems, they manually hit go on both at the same time, Why? The paycheck depends on the show running, no matter what.

PJ, Please wait till you get some field time before you assume its perfect, and that users are making mistakes.


Steve

[andy_con]

^^^ agreed.

two days before the event weekend i was using one of the fb3s in my garage testing a projector and all was fine. as soon as i got to the gig it didnt want to work.

wait till the pressure is on in the field and things are very different

[White-Light]

I think Steve hit the nail on the head. You can't test every piece of software in every situation with every piece of PC hardware / software combination.

In your case though Andy it does sound like it was a pc problem with corrupted drivers rather than a problem with anything Pangolin per se. That's the joys of a MS OS, as much as I do like Windows. It's great on day one and then with everything added it potentially goes downhill from there with every addition.

I'd also add that whereas Pangolin have always had a good reputation for reliability, with QS and Beyond, testing is on a completely different level with many more testers than ever before. QS is already very very stable in it's later builds and I expect Beyond in its final state will be very similar. No software is ever bug perfect though although I think QS is pretty close.

[norty303]

In your case though Andy it does sound like it was a pc problem with corrupted drivers rather than a problem with anything Pangolin per se. That's the joys of a MS OS, as much as I do like Windows. It's great on day one and then with everything added it potentially goes downhill from there with every addition.

I'm not quite clear how you can draw that conclusion based on Andy having to re-install the drivers.
It could equally be Pangolin getting its knickers in a twist over initialization and storing some bad config that wouldn't be reset until the drivers were sorted.
Or a number of other reasons...