Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: GDC TMS Scheduling Causing LMT-300 Media Block to Fail?

This is topic GDC TMS Scheduling Causing LMT-300 Media Block to Fail? in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=002811

Posted by Cameron Gray (Member # 9648) on 09-15-2016, 09:20 PM:

This is probably one of the craziest things I've ever seen, and I've been working with both film and digital projection for over a decade going back to age 16.

This started in July. Theater calls me after rebooting the SRX-R320, because it won't play. I dial in and format the RAID. I get another call from them 3 weeks later. I have to run RAID Builder this time. After that, I have to do the same thing 3 times in the next 2 weeks. I didn't replace the media block yet, because they were not under contract with Sony, so they would have had to pay the full price. Eventually, it got to the point I had to run RAID builder every show.

At this point, I installed a new media block. Two days later, it crashed again. A colleague suggested that I take it off the TMS and CC system. A week later, there had been no problems. I left it off both, and put the original media block back in. I ran it another week off both systems with no problems.

Monday, I reconnected to the GDC TMS. There were no problems. Yesterday I found out that I only enabled ingest ability, not its ability to pull the schedule from Ticketsoft. I dialed in and "mapped the auditorium," so the GDC TMS would send the schedule to the Sony projector.

30 minutes later, as soon as the next show should start, the house is down again with the same error as before indicating a RAID issue. We have content on the projector, with the Status RAID screen with 0% DCP availability. I took it back off the TMS and ran RAID Builder. We have had no issues since. Does anyone have any ideas?

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-16-2016, 04:48 AM:

Is the GDC-TMS connected to other projectors in the complex, and if so, what make of projectors are on this location?

Plus, a new install of the GDC-TMS at this location, or a problem that recently being coming to a head?

Wonder if the (gasp) SRXR320 has compatibility issues with GDC, which self solved the problem with no operating issues every time the SONY was taken out of the loop with the GDC-TMS.

Posted by Cameron Gray (Member # 9648) on 09-16-2016, 08:59 PM:

The GDC TMS is connected to 12 total projectors, 10 of which are the same model of Sony. The 9 other Sony projectors do not have any issues. The other 2 are NEC with GDC IMB, so of course they work better with the TMS, but I did not design this setup, as I've only been with them for a year. I'm just trying to fix the problem. The theater has been open for 2 years, and this issue started in July.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-16-2016, 09:12 PM:

Its only moving media or scheduling data to any other servers on board storage. So I just don't see how it is possible for it to affect the media block of another server since its AFTER that storage section.

Mark

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-17-2016, 07:12 AM:

You never know. The TMS is constantly polling for information (lamp on, storage capacity of the server, how much full...etc.). Some system log requests and such and for all you know, the logs are filling up for some reason or there is a memory leak and such.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-17-2016, 02:19 PM:

Memory leak? The titanic sunk quite some time ago. Memory Leak is not even a reason or an excuse with the media blocks being as isolated as they are from the rest of any server. I'm laughing out loud at that one. No TMS talks directly to any media block. DCI wouldn't hear of it. It's one server talking to another server. If content is coming in corrupted then the receiving server should reject it or simply not allow it to play.

Mark

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 09-17-2016, 04:03 PM:

I'm aware of a server that has a memory leak in the closed captioning system. After so many connections by the closed captioning equipment, the server accepts the connection (port 4170) but does not send anything. It logs a memory allocation error. I did a workaround in the USL closed captioning system to deal with this. The manufacturer is aware of the issue and is working on it. But, memory leaks occur!

Harold

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-17-2016, 05:15 PM:

Of course they can occur but not to the extent of frying a media block. The media block is probably the most isolated component ni a projection system. Something in the Sony server is obviously amuck.

Mark

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 09-17-2016, 05:57 PM:

Dolby servers used to corrupt the database for a similar issue. It was corrected several versions ago.

The Sony mediablock is basically in charge of the RAID.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-18-2016, 09:03 AM:

Add that reason to the list of why not to ever buy Sony projectors. In he real IT world it's always the OS that's in charge of the RAID, be it through software raid or hardware raid control... Another examples Sony re-engineering an area that was fine and happy before they got a hold of it,

Mark

Posted by Sascha F. Roll (Member # 9043) on 09-18-2016, 09:15 AM:

Blablabla.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-18-2016, 10:52 AM:

Uff Dah!

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 09-18-2016, 04:11 PM:

So the media block runs without OS in your opinion? It runs on holy spirit?

Dolby servers used to corrupt their database when connected to some TMS's, requiring an unconfigure or a reinstall. They have an OS too.

Wait, that's the problem then! The OS! Why those manufacturers keep using it if it's causing so many problems? Windows is an OS and it's annoyed the world with its bugs.
Let's design a new OS-less servers.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-18-2016, 05:54 PM:

I don't recall the Dolby server corrupting a TMS (none of the TMSes I've had connected to it). On a beta version, a while back, there was a version that could cause an Enigma to fill up due to repeated log entries. But you know, that is what Beta testing is for, to get those sorts of unforeseen problems knocked out before release.

I have a site where a CP2000ZX cannot boot up from a full power off if its RS232 port is connected. it appears that the PCM module is dead (all three LEDs on the CDP are lit, forever...I forget if they are flashing or not). Unplug the RS232 and then power cycle, it is happy as can be and works with the AMX system talking on RS232.

But the moral of the story is when you have two disparate systems talking to each other, anything can happen if the the two parties didn't exactly plan on how the other was going to respond. These things like logging everything and if timing or responses are not in order, logs can fill or other unforeseen problems.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 09-19-2016, 03:39 AM:

it was fixed in 4.7.2-1

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-19-2016, 10:26 AM:

Never had any of this happen with GDC servers except logs filling up. In Pre-DCI GDC firmware there was a button you used to clear the logs out. In 8.XX versions it cleared the logs automatically after a certain version number.

Mark

Posted by Cameron Gray (Member # 9648) on 11-02-2016, 10:18 PM:

We finally got the most up to date version of the GDC TMS, after the computer failed, and I got a crash course in rebuilding a desktop computer. Thank your Masters classes for the background. The new version supposedly came with patches to fix previous compatibility issues with Sony projectors, though I never got an explanation of exactly what those fixes were. Since launching the 2000 version over the 1000 version, there have been no further issues or crashes.