Show Cue System

This is a weird issue we've had for a few years actually, but is getting to be more of a problem when we do sound heavy shows. SCS will be working just fine. Then you play a cue and it will show it playing on the screen like normal but there is no audio. Sometimes we've noticed the audio has just stopped during a preshow playlist, even though it says on the screen it is still playing. Usually restarting the computer is enough to fix it. Sometimes I've had to restart both computer and the Saffire interface.

We're using SCS 10.7.7, connected via firewire to a Saffire Pro 40, connected to our sound board, a Allen & Heath GL 2200. It doesn't happen very often; about three times a month when we're running shows six days a week. It really hard to reproduce the problem and you never know when it might happen during a show. I was able to reproduce it once by turning the computer on in the morning and just waiting for it to fail.

Any ideas on what could be causing this? SCS has been a great system for us otherwise but the unreliability makes people nervous.

Being investigated with rmarsh's assistance.

I have encountered the same problem, however it only seems to occur when a playlist is running from a timer cue. For instance, I set up a profile for "evening" and the preshow music playlist is set up to start playing at 7:27 for an 8pm show. At about the third song in, the music stops being heard. the VU meters in SCS show music playing, but nothing get to the mixer. If the program is shut down and restarted, it still doesn't work. I need to reboot the whole computer. Thus the audience is left in silence for a time. I tried recreating the error, but it didn't happen during a test. so I thought it was okay. So when I ran it via timer for the performance, it cacked again. Needless to say, I don't use that feature any more, until it it figured out. Thanks.

Are you sure it's an SCS problem, and not an issue with the computer being left alone for a while? If the SCS VU meters are showing music playing then audio should be getting out of SCS. Also, if closing and restarting SCS alone doesn't fix the problem then I think the problem lies elsewhere.

From Google I found Audio stops working but works after a reboot on the Microsoft Community web site. It seems that many people have found audio stops after a while (totally unrelated to SCS). Unfortunately there are many more people raising the issue than there are answers, but if you look towards the end of the topic there are some possible solutions.

Mike, I work with Becky Marsh in the US, and am actually the designer for most of the shows. Thank-you for getting us to download the latest version - however this has not helped the situation. I see your post about Microsoft and Windows 7 possibly being the issue, and yes our computer runs with Windows 7, but with the latest software I am now running into another problem that I never experienced with version 10.7. This new issue is that now, randomly, when a cue is running, the cue will stop and the cue list says that the cue has completed. I only downloaded the software about a week ago and have had several incidents of this, two being within the last few minutes. While the other issue may be a windows issue, because I also have the meters saying they are outputting sound, I just don't get anything at the board, this most recent issue seems to be a SCS thing. Surely we are not the only people experiencing this????
Beyond that I have the issue (that is not really related to this topic) that I can not see the cue properties panel - it is all squashed up into about 2mm of space, and I can't seem to enlarge it, and I can only see 3 outputs on the audio section - I used to be able to see all 4 - now I have to scroll down. Even the writing is cut off in places - the bottom of Length, Time and Cross, for Play (Length), Fade in and Fade out (Time) and Loop (Cross).
Neil

Neil, have there been any recent updates to the computer OS or the video drivers? The screen issue sounds like it could be a display issue with the computer.
How old is the computer? Any other programs running on it? Have you updated the version of SCS?

That does seem very strange, Neil, so I've emailed you details of a tracing version to run to help me see what's happening in your environment. In particular, please send me log files from a run that exhibits the problem of a cue stopping before it has actually reached the end.

Hello I don't know if you are still having this problem.
i have had this problem before on larger cue lists.

The Solution I found was to open scs and and the show file then open task manager and on the process tab then change the priority of SCS To High/Highest. Then close task manager once doing this I did not get the issue. downside is you have to do it evertime you open scs. Dont know if there is a software issue but this worked for me on many occasions and to other people that have spoken to me about this issue.

Hope this helps

Sometimes if there's a delay between cues the USB bus goes into a hibernate mode as a power saver
might be worth investigating that track ?