Show Buddy Connectivity Issue?

[PostParadise]

Hey Friends,

I've been using DMXIS and Show Buddy for 4-5 years and just in the last month have started running into problems with losing connectivity and the Show Buddy program locking up. I'm currently running version 1.5.3 on a 2014 retina macbook pro, 2.6GHz i5, 8 gigs of ram, OSX 10.11.6 El Capitan. We don't run any other programs live from this laptop. it runs logic pro x when we're at home recording and it's Show Buddy only when we travel.

Twice last night at a show we lost light control yet the click track kept playing. About 2-3 songs in it stopped sending info to the lights. It would move right into the next song and the click tracks and backing tracks played back fine, but the lights were just stuck on a static scene and stopped changing at a certain point. We tried to close the program to restart it but it wouldn't (even though we could still start and stop songs - weeeeird). We had to hard restart the laptop holding the power button. When it came back on we started show buddy again and it was good for about 5 minutes then locked up again. It's only ever happened one other time at a show (a month ago?) and once we restarted the laptop it was fine for the rest of our set... Aside from that we have had NO issues for years and years and literally hundreds of shows. I haven't updated the comp lately, or made any program changes or really even noticed anything out of the ordinary with it.

I guess I'm just looking for possible reasons why this would've happened. We're home so we're going to bring it into the warehouse and run through everything - change out USB cable, update to the new DMXIS version, use a different USB port(?), or maybe try a different comp if it gets to that. If anyone reading this thinks of other things for me to try I'm all ears! Thank you!!

Nick

[PostParadise]

Tried to run through some things last night and it would appear that my DMXis box is fried. Different cables, updating, different USB ports -- all 4 lights on the box just stay on the whole time. Are there firmware upgrades I could try? Or perhaps a place to just order a new box without the software? I may be able to borrow one from some friends for the weekend run we've got starting Friday but I'm sure it'll take a re-registration process, etc.

Nick

[fiveafterfour]

I'd include checking to ensure your USB ports on either end aren't loose (as opposed to just a cable issue). I've been having some issues with my laptop due to loose ports (which caused absolute havoc similar to what you've described when I needed to temporarily store all the DMXIS files on an external drive a few months ago).

[PostParadise]

Dave sent me a link to the USB Pro software to reset the box's firmware (turns out it had an error code with all 4 lights on). This reset the box and got it working for our shows last weekend(!!!). Still no idea what caused the box to fail in the first place, but we have switched out our USB cable since we realized that we'd been using the same one for many, many years...

I'll keep updating this thread if I learn any more,

Nick