[slinkelist] Master-Slave / Track Restart / MD Manager

[Mike Kropp]

Curious that you should bring this up.  I been having a different but not
that dissimilar problem.

I'm not doing the master/slave thing but have an app that runs and
communicates with CDJ and handles other IR chores.  Perhaps part of it is
similar to MD Manager.

I found that after about an hour (similarity here), things would start going
bonkers (technical term) in ways similar to what you describe.  In my case,
I found that things improved if my app no longer listened to the cdslr
devices.

It still occasionally goes into la-la land but after a much longer time
(hours rather than always about an hour).  Once it gets to la-la land,
stopping the playlist and restarting it doesn't clear the problem.

I don't know what's going on with the latest version of CDJ (8/14) but one
thing I noticed that even it seems to be struggling to keep the UI
up-to-date.  I noticed particularly that the album cover changes seem to be
much more sluggish -- often switching five seconds or more after the track
has started.

Also, when it goes into la-la land and I stop the playlist, it seems there
is a lot of activity going on in the devices window and finally it catches
up and both my players indicate they're stopped.

Maybe these two problems are related at some level.  I hope so because
having additional data points, it may be easier for Colby to find a fix.

--Mike



> -----Original Message-----
> From: slinkelist-admin@nirvis.com [mailto:slinkelist-admin@nirvis.com]On
> Behalf Of Hoen, Dave
> Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2000 12:06 AM
> To: slinkelist@nirvis.com
> Cc: Jeff Schaffer; andre.nijhuis@tnt-lb.com; Heemin Yang
> Subject: Re: [slinkelist] Master-Slave / Track Restart / MD Manager
>
>
> For those of you who have implemented the Master-Slave modification to
> your Slink-e, you may be interested in the following problem.  For those
> of you who haven't, no need to read on, this doesn't apply to you.
>
> The last couple of versions of CDJ have not worked correctly with my
> Master-Slave circuitry.  This is the circuitry recommended on the Nirvis
> website for those of us who want to be able to use CDJ to control our
> sound system or let our system run standalone in a Sony Master-Slave
> environment.  Up until the last few versions of CDJ, this circuitry
> worked very well and more or less solved most of my mysterious CDJ hangs.
>
> Here are the symptoms with the latest software (08/07):
> After running CDJ for an hour or so, I will start getting track restarts
> or track aborts.  From that point on, about 1 in 5 tracks will have
> restarts or aborts.  (A restart is starting a track over after it has
> already played for several seconds.  An abort is stopping a track after
> it has played for a few seconds, and going on to the next track.)  The
> problem seems to be exacerbated if I run MD Manager.  Using MD Manager
> the problem usually happens within two or three tracks and usually halts
> playing after the current track.  I have seen it occur in as short as one
> track and as long as 10 tracks, however.
>
> What I have discovered:
> The DIO 0 signal from the parallel port of the Slink-e is used to switch
> from Master-Slave environment to CDJ environment.  When you start up CDJ,
> this signal is set to logic high and is used to energize the relay.  When
> you shut down CDJ, this signal is cleared to logic low and de-energizes
> the relay.  At least that is how it is supposed to work.  What is really
> happening, is while CDJ is running, this signal is being cleared to logic
> low.  This reconnects the s-link busses, and things go amok.
>
> What I have done about it:
> Although it may be something peculiar to my setup, I don't know how
> anything in my setup could possibly be changing the state of the DIO 0
> signal.  I have been in e-mail conversation with Colby, so he is aware of
> the problem, but may be low-priority.  Which I can understand
> completely.  In the meantime, I have installed a switch across the
> collector and emitter of the transistor used to energize the relay.  If I
> want to run CDJ, I close the switch.  If I want to run standalone, I open
> the switch.  It is a little more work, but everything is working great
> again, especially MD Manager.  Hopefully the cause can soon be found, and
> I can just leave the switch open.
>
> Dave Hoen
>
> p.s. In addition to the normal slinkelist, I am copying this to several
> people (on the slinkelist) who have reported similar problems.  Thanks
> for your suggestions, and hope this might solve some of yours.
>
>
>
>
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