SCS Shows file says playing but doesn’t actually play

[JamesP]

Hi,

We’ve been using SCS for some time and recently upgraded the PC to Windows 10. We have started getting a problem where upon activating a cue it changes the status to playing but the time doesn’t count and no audio comes out. You can press escape and cues stop but still when playing any cues it does the same. We have to close SCS entirely and restart it then it’s fine.
This happens about once in a show run and is quite random in its occurrence. It also doesn’t seem to matter if mp3 or wav files are used.
Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and found a solution?
We use a Saffire Pro 24 firewire sound device.

Many thanks.
James.

[jmgordon]

My first action when encountering odd behaviour is to reinstall SCS over the top. Sometimes the program can suffer a minor corruption, which re-installation can solve.

Worth a try.

[Buyaicia]

I had this problem in two performances recently. With a usb audio device.
The problem was fixed switching off and on the audio device.
The first time I restarted SCS, but not the second one.
I replaced the usb cable with a shorter one and the problem seems to be gone.

Regards,
Lluís

[JamesP]

We have reinstalled SCS and made sure running the latest version but I’ve been informed the crash happened again last night.

That’s interesting about the sound device, ours connects via FireWire but I shall check the connections on that as the pc is rack mounted and maybe something has been knocked.

Thanks for the help so far!

James

[jmgordon]

Has it ever worked properly under Windows 10?

It may be a WS10/FireWire issue, possibly as a result of an update if it worked before.

The Focusrite website has some suggestions for sorting out problems with WS10. Choosing the right driver and identifying the chipset are involved. Some have reverted to the WS7 driver.

Do you always power up the Saffire before booting the PC? Always wait for the boot to complete before starting SCS and wait for the load to complete before running cues? If SCS 'loses' the Saffire it should report that a device is missing. However it might default to the Windows default sound device, whatever that is, which might not be connected.

[Mike Daniell]

James.

In SCS 11.8.0RC3 (which I've just uploaded) I've included extra logging that may help identify the cause of this problem. Could you try using this version and email the log file if the problem occurs again?

[Smellyglove]

I've had the same issue on my last production.

I'm a fairly new user so I don't yet know the ins and outs of this software.

I was running Dante DVS, through an usb -> ethernet adapter. There was this one, just this one cue, which either wouldn't start, or loop as programmed.

I had several other cues with loops which worked fine. But this one either would not start (audibly, even if it said it was playing), or would not loop. The file was a straight mp3 file, but it was either no start or no loop. If I deleted the cue, made a new one, it seemed to work fine, but after a few tries (saving in between edits), it just wouldn't do as programmed. I have no idea what caused it. After trying to delete the loop, and some back and forth, one in 10 tries would start, and loop as planned. I had to go through the cuelist every night before showtime to see if it would start, and just go with the amounts of loops it tossed out during show Either no loops, play once, or three loops. I had set it to three loops.