[RDD] Library Editor--or perhaps a Database--Problem

[Chuck]

  I'm on RD v2.10.3 from Tryphon running Linux Mint 17 (no .x update) on
my personal Asus Zen notebook with /var/snd on an external USB drive.
This has been running for nearly 3 years with no problems until today.
My /var/snd and database is the master for our station as I do all the
production work, and another computer is used for actual playout, which
is a clone of my /var/snd and RD database.

  One of the things I do is edit fade-out levels and make adjustments to
music tracks in the library.  My usual method is to copy the originally
imported track and paste it to a new cut (Cut 002) and mark that as the
untouched original in the "Cut Info".  Then I weight it "0" so it never
plays, but is available if there ever should be a reason to return to
the original, untouched track.

  Today, however, when I pasted the copied track to the new cut, it did
not seem to paste.  Track length was "00.0" and when I clicked on "Edit
Markers", a dialog appeared that says, "No audio present in the cut."
This problem is repeatable with other carts, but no problems importing
new tracks to carts--just this copy and paste problem.

  There IS audio, as it plays in the preview player in the "Cut Info"
button.  And a file manager shows cut 002 with a file size identical to
cut 001 in /var/snd.  Cut 002 also imports and plays in Audacity.  It
will NOT play in RDAirplay, which also sees it as a 'no audio present'
track, and skips it.

  Anybody have any clues as to what the problem might be?

  This isn't exactly an on-air machine and is on the Internet, so I do
Mint updates, but the problem has appeared suddenly when I have not done
a Mint update for weeks.  I did have a power failure a few days ago, and
the /var/snd USB drive is not on a UPS (the notebook is), but such
outages have not caused problems in the past.  The power outage occurred
while a log was being generated, however, so /var/snd was not available
and the log generation seemed to stop.  After power resumed, I started
the log generation over, and that log seems fine.

  Any ideas appreciated.

--Chuck W.

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Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

[Cowboy]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2017 13:18:11 -0500
Sherrod Munday  wrote:

> (That being said, I have successfully used shell scripts in the past
> to send commands directly to the serial port while minicom had it
> open (this was useful to use a cron job to send a timestamp/keepalive
> and telemetry command to a device while using minicom to log the
> output), but I was not attempting to read data back out of the serial
> port back to the CLI.)

 I'm fairly routinely ( lately ) reading the port while something else
 is writing to it.
 That's tough with something like minicom,
 but real easy with cat and echo.

 tail doesn't work directly, but you can do something like
 cat /dev/ttyS0 >> /tmp/temporary &
 tail -f /tmp/temporary

 OTOH, cat will continue showing the character stream until either you
 stop it, or something else actually closes the port.

-- 
Cowboy

http://cowboy.cwf1.com


The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard
to deal with: death.
-- Michael Phelps

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Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

[Sherrod Munday]

On Mar 7, 2017, at 10:29, James Greenlee  wrote:
> This isn't a SS8.2, it's a straight 8x2 from 1995.  According to the manual 
> provided by Broadcast Tools, the default speed is 2400 8n1 which works fine 
> with minicom. Unfortunately, Rivendell doesn't for some reason.
> 
> The solution of making shell scripts is workable, but I think we're just 
> going to step up to a new switcher.

Before going there, have you tried a null modem cable on the serial port of 
your Rivendell machine, connecting it up to another computer running at 2400 
(8N1) to see what minicom vs. Rivendell produces?

This is your best best to determine what's actually going on.  If you get 
strange characters from RD when doing this, but minicom works fine, then you 
may have to delve down to hex mode in minicom (or another terminal emulations 
program) to see the actual codes that are sent and then try to figure out what 
protocol/settings are being used by RD -- or, just manually brute-force try the 
many different settings with minicom on the RD machine and see what they come 
out as on the far end of the null modem cable until you hit a match.

My bet is that Rivendell isn't initializing the port correctly.  

BTW, you didn't mention the process you used to test minicom, but I'm 
hoping/guessing you stopped the RD daemons to run minicom on the same computer. 
 If you didn't stop the daemons but were able to successfully open up the port 
with minicom, I'd really wonder what port RD is actually opening.  Serial ports 
are generally only able to be controlled by one application at a time (the lock 
file that the first comm program creates usually tells subsequent programs to 
disallow accessing the same port).


(That being said, I have successfully used shell scripts in the past to send 
commands directly to the serial port while minicom had it open (this was useful 
to use a cron job to send a timestamp/keepalive and telemetry command to a 
device while using minicom to log the output), but I was not attempting to read 
data back out of the serial port back to the CLI.)

—
Sherrod Munday


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Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

[James Greenlee]

This isn't a SS8.2, it's a straight 8x2 from 1995.  According to the manual 
provided by Broadcast Tools, the default speed is 2400 8n1 which works fine 
with minicom. Unfortunately, Rivendell doesn't for some reason.

The solution of making shell scripts is workable, but I think we're just going 
to step up to a new switcher.

James

- Original Message -
From: "Mike Price" 
To: "User discussion about the Rivendell Radio Automation System" 

Sent: Tuesday, March 7, 2017 10:13:34 AM
Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

The default speed of the Broadcast Tools switcher is 9600 N81.  Your original 
post indicates you had set up for 2400 baud.

From the manual:

The SS 8.2 may operate at baud rates from 2400 to 38400 baud. The unit is 
shipped set for 9600 baud, with 8 data
bits, no parity and one stop bit.


Cheers,

Mike Price

-Original Message-
From: rivendell-dev-boun...@lists.rivendellaudio.org 
[mailto:rivendell-dev-boun...@lists.rivendellaudio.org] On Behalf Of James 
Greenlee
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2017 6:02 PM
To: Rob Landry
Cc: User discussion about the Rivendell Radio Automation System
Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.


As far as producing the "correct" result...That would be a negative.

No matter what the macro says, Rivendell always puts the switch into mute.

Executing a *140 directly into the switcher via minicom doesn't do anything.

So Rivendell is logging in to Linux as user "rd."  I just added the user rd to 
the group dialout (which has access to the serial port).  Now rd can run 
minicom and execute switches via commands punched into minicom (*11, *81, *62, 
etc).  Rivendell macros fail though.
  
I'm obviously missing something.

In my mind, this should be really easy:

1. Install standard Rivendell per the instructions provided:  
http://static.paravelsystems.com/rivendell-install/rivendell-install-rhel7.html
2. Configure host, setup serial port, add matrix as Broadcast Tools 8x2.
3. Fire up RDLibrary, create a macro, ST 0 1 1!
4. Run macro, watch the switch assign input 1 to output 1.

Sadly it doesn't work.  The Macro puts the switcher into "mute" state.  Minicom 
allows me to switch inputs just fine though and it's using the same 
configuration as Rivendell for the serial port.

James


- Original Message -
From: "Rob Landry" <41001...@interpring.com>
To: "James Greenlee" 
Cc: "Wayne Merricks" , "User discussion about 
the Rivendell Radio Automation System" 
Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 3:42:46 PM
Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

On Mon, 6 Mar 2017, James Greenlee wrote:

> Using screen, and executing a ST macro from Rivendell, I see an output of
> *140 and the switcher goes to mute.  Executing a *140 in minicom does not
> produce the same result.

Does it produce the correct result, though?

> It would appear then that the Rivendell "driver"
> for the Broadcast Tools 8x2 speaks a slightly different language than 
> what my 8x2 actually understands.

As far as I know, 8x2s have always understood the same language.

Is Rivendell defining the serial port with different parameters than 
minicom? Is Rivendell running as a different user than minicom? If so, 
does that user have sufficient privileges to use the serial port?

> In Wayne's documentation, you can execute commands to the serial port via
> rmlsend with some shell scripts with screen commands.  I'm sure I can make
> that work, but is there a way to make a "driver" for Rivendell like the
> existing Broadcast Tools 8x2 switcher one?

UTSL ("Use the source, Luke").

Personally, I wouldn't bother, though; I'd have Rivendell run a 
constellation of shell commands containing whatever language you need to 
make the switcher work.


Rob
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Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

[Mike Price]

The default speed of the Broadcast Tools switcher is 9600 N81.  Your original 
post indicates you had set up for 2400 baud.

From the manual:

The SS 8.2 may operate at baud rates from 2400 to 38400 baud. The unit is 
shipped set for 9600 baud, with 8 data
bits, no parity and one stop bit.


Cheers,

Mike Price

-Original Message-
From: rivendell-dev-boun...@lists.rivendellaudio.org 
[mailto:rivendell-dev-boun...@lists.rivendellaudio.org] On Behalf Of James 
Greenlee
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2017 6:02 PM
To: Rob Landry
Cc: User discussion about the Rivendell Radio Automation System
Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.


As far as producing the "correct" result...That would be a negative.

No matter what the macro says, Rivendell always puts the switch into mute.

Executing a *140 directly into the switcher via minicom doesn't do anything.

So Rivendell is logging in to Linux as user "rd."  I just added the user rd to 
the group dialout (which has access to the serial port).  Now rd can run 
minicom and execute switches via commands punched into minicom (*11, *81, *62, 
etc).  Rivendell macros fail though.
  
I'm obviously missing something.

In my mind, this should be really easy:

1. Install standard Rivendell per the instructions provided:  
http://static.paravelsystems.com/rivendell-install/rivendell-install-rhel7.html
2. Configure host, setup serial port, add matrix as Broadcast Tools 8x2.
3. Fire up RDLibrary, create a macro, ST 0 1 1!
4. Run macro, watch the switch assign input 1 to output 1.

Sadly it doesn't work.  The Macro puts the switcher into "mute" state.  Minicom 
allows me to switch inputs just fine though and it's using the same 
configuration as Rivendell for the serial port.

James


- Original Message -
From: "Rob Landry" <41001...@interpring.com>
To: "James Greenlee" 
Cc: "Wayne Merricks" , "User discussion about 
the Rivendell Radio Automation System" 
Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 3:42:46 PM
Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell and Broadcast Tools switcher.

On Mon, 6 Mar 2017, James Greenlee wrote:

> Using screen, and executing a ST macro from Rivendell, I see an output of
> *140 and the switcher goes to mute.  Executing a *140 in minicom does not
> produce the same result.

Does it produce the correct result, though?

> It would appear then that the Rivendell "driver"
> for the Broadcast Tools 8x2 speaks a slightly different language than 
> what my 8x2 actually understands.

As far as I know, 8x2s have always understood the same language.

Is Rivendell defining the serial port with different parameters than 
minicom? Is Rivendell running as a different user than minicom? If so, 
does that user have sufficient privileges to use the serial port?

> In Wayne's documentation, you can execute commands to the serial port via
> rmlsend with some shell scripts with screen commands.  I'm sure I can make
> that work, but is there a way to make a "driver" for Rivendell like the
> existing Broadcast Tools 8x2 switcher one?

UTSL ("Use the source, Luke").

Personally, I wouldn't bother, though; I'd have Rivendell run a 
constellation of shell commands containing whatever language you need to 
make the switcher work.


Rob
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