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744T v2.09 lockup


Eric Burge

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I did a quick search and couldn't find anything and I can't remember if this was already discussed (I've been out of touch for a bit), but my usually faithful 744T (v2.09) locked up on me with no warning a couple of days ago, right as we started the martini shot after a really too-long day (week) of otherwise flawless recording.

I was mirroring to 3X DVDRAM on a Panasonic UJ845 with bus power and SD XL1394 cable. I heard a soft high-pitch whine in the cans, the "A-Time" froze, Rec LED still bright red, and no button that I frantically pushed (all of them) seemed to pull it out of this completely unexpected coma...big adrenal surge!

In a frantic act of desperation, I hard-booted the box by pulling the BDS cable and OEM battery, quickly reconnected the OEM battery (actually, I mindlessly neglected to reconnect the BDS), disregarded the "improper shutdown" message after immediately firing back up, and hit the Rec button...whew, close call...I recorded the last take of the day to the HDD only. After post-wrap transfer of the last take, both copies (HDD and D-RAM) played back fine, but I lost the one earlier take.

Next morning I was on the phone with SD and heard this behavior is a known bug with v2.09. If a media error is detected (I suspect on that specific D-RAM disc) the entire system can/will freeze up. Apparently v2.03 would disregard or rather drop the affected media link and continue to record to other media online.

I'm seriously thinking of back-dating my firmware until this is resolved.

Proceed at your own risk...no life guard on duty!

EB

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EB,

my buddy had his sd 744t "freeze" up as well on friday night. he brought his in and set up the unit by ac power and a sony lith bat.  activating all the rec. sources. (int.hd, cf, ext. dvd ram) it recorded fine when we just hit record and let it run, but when after maybe the 5th time of hitting stop, rec, stop rec, it completely froze. nothing would bring it back. repowering,

removing battery, nothing. we called tech support at sd and they had us install a software fix and that did nothing as well. we sent it to sd. I will let you know the outcome. your probably right about that version, I will double check what version was in the actual unit with sd tomorrow.

btw,

did your 744t have a error 9 or system 9 failure appear?? I know you wher on the martini but just wondering if there was some sort of error message that you might have noticed without the lifegaurd on duty?

talk to you later and sorry I did not have more time to with you today.

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My 744 has also frozen up twice.  Both incidents required removal of both the battery and the external power in order to get it going again.

Each time was with a different version of the software, and *neither* of them were 2.09.

Not the most reliable recorder that I have owned.  In fact, I can't recall ANY other recorder I have ever owned actually not allowing me to record a take.

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Frank, no worries. I knew I was dropping in unannounced. Didn't expect more than a howdy.

As far as messages, I think it read something like "Media Error #9". After transferring the last take to D-RAM, I noticed the D-RAM disc had a very small, yet distinct line where it had aborted while trying to write the previous data. Not exactly sure how that all works, but the entire disc appeared to be of similar "density", except for that one thin line. The take was listed in the file folder correctly, but unrecognizable when I went to open it. I tried to "repair media" after transferring to another HDD at home, but no luck.

Regarding computer transfers, I've lost count of the number of times I've encountered lockups or inability to eject the 744T from OSX 10.3.9 or 10.4.6, from v2.09 all the way back to v1.07, but it's never been so disconcerting as at least I had safely transfered data before the lockup and those crashes were always under quiet conditions off the clock. I just hate to see that "improper shutdown" message!

To have the system crash under intense production pressure during the last shot with fading light was pretty intense. There may be no wild grizzlies down here in LA, but I'm quickly learning there are other dangers in these woods...a new adventure for sure and lovin' it!

EB

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My two lockups....  Let's see....  As I recall, one of them occurred for absolutely no reason at all.  It was between two takes and suddenly just wouldn't respond when I tried to put it into record for the next take.  I believe the other lockup may have occurred after renaming a file.

Neither of these were related to DVD recording, or recording to ANY other external media.  I  only recorded to the internal drive.

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Brisker,

what software version did that happen to when you where between takes. how long before the next take? the lockup or freezing up "usually" happens when recording to the other formats etc.

just today, a rental 744t would not turn off when pressing the power button. it was idle for about 20 min. has that happened to anyone??

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"what software version did that happen to when you where between takes."

-2.03

-----------------------

"how long before the next take?"

-10 mins-ish.  Hard to remember.

------------------------

"the lockup or freezing up "usually" happens when recording to the other formats etc.

just today, a rental 744t would not turn off when pressing the power button. it was idle for about 20 min. has that happened to anyone??"

-No, but once the unit "appeared" to be functioning correctly, but in actual fact it had lost ALL I/O capabilities.  The unit had to have its power sources removed and re-connected before it returned to normal operation.

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A lot of this has been brought up both on their forum and in direct conversations with them via email and phone calls.  While they may be working on some of these issues, for the most part, unless a problem is 100% repeatable, you never really hear anything back from them with regards to how they are making out fixing these bugs or which of these issues they are actively working to get to the bottom of at all.

To me, it often *appears* as though a *some* of these issues just get "swept under the rug" by them when it is not something that is immediately 100% repeatable.  If this isn't the case, there is a communication problem as in many cases they have not taken any steps to let all of us know that *all* of these issues are being addressed.

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Darren,

If the problem is anecdotal and not repeatable how can you determine it's cause in order to eliminate it.

Computer controlled hardware used by a large number of people in a variety of ways makes for an astronomical number of possible procedures that may illicit an unforeseen glitch.  If you have ever tried to debug anything it takes careful observation and documentation in order to get at the root of any real problem.  Equipment that has timing circuits and interrupt driven hardware makes esoteric bugs even harder to trap.  It is kind of like saying why can't you just flip a coin and make it land on it's edge repeatedly.  If it happens once it can happen again, but getting all the conditions just right to repeat it may take years of attempts.  Every time the code changes there are new possible conflicts or issues that can crop up that no-one can easily predict.  Sweeping esoteric bugs under the carpet is not a choice, but if there never is enough evidence of cause and effect there is no way to proceed to fix the problem.  The more complex the device becomes the more likely there will be a cause of failure.  (Didn't Edsel Murphy make some law about that).

---Courtney

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"The more complex the device becomes the more likely there will be a cause of failure.  (Didn't Edsel Murphy make some law about that)."

Hi Courtney,

You are 100% correct with regards to your entire post.  The problem is that with some of the recording systems that are now online, we are beyond your statement that I quoted above.   We are past the *likelihood* of failure, and now need to be concerned with wondering what the *probability* of failure is.  We are now into a situation where there *are* causes for failures, and they are not uncommon at that.

It is a fact that some of the new recording systems could well be classified as "prone" to failure.  The odds of these systems failing at any given time are MUCH, MUCH higher than what we have become accustomed to over the courses of our careers.  There is a danger here, and we as a profession must ensure not to just roll over and come to accept this as a fact of life due to modern highly complex recording systems.  Systems need to meet a given (up to the users) level of reliability or perhaps they are just not suitable for our purposes, no matter how nifty they are, or how much we are impressed by their technology and potential capabilities.  We must not allow ourselves to give up high reliability for track count and features.  They shouldn't have to be mutually exclusive.

One needs to be able to have enough confidence in their recording system that they feel that the chance of a system failure is *highly* unlikely.  Personally, and I only speak for myself, I don't feel that *some* of the recording systems out there are currently achieving that to the extent that I believe is necessary.

In order for us to maintain confidence in any piece of equipment that is prone to failure, the onus is on the manufacturers to not only work diligently to solve ongoing issues, but to keep the users informed of where things stand with each issue so that we may decide for ourselves what the current risks associated with that piece of equipment are and whether those risks are tolerable to us.  Let's face it, whether we like it or not, we are ALL full time beta testers now for ALL of these manufacturers as none of the current recorders could really be considered complete at this point.  So as we work with these brands to help them complete their products and to make them more reliable, the least they could do is keep us fully informed.  ALL of the manufacturers should be adamant about letting us know the state of every single issue that has been reported, repeatable or not, so that we can best determine what we feel is the likelihood of inopportune repeatability.  Some of the manufacturers do a better job of this than others.

I eagerly await the day where these recorders can be considered "finished".  When we never have to upgrade their firmware again, as this just puts us into both another cycle of testing, and another cycle of hoping and keeping one's fingers crossed.

Personally, I'm growing a bit tired of it all and would rather just mix.

Kindest regards,

Darren

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Even the Nagra 4S-TC had glitches. If you went quickly from playback to record it would reset the Timecode to zero and keep counting.  My Fostex PD-2 would repeatedly hang and require removal of power to re-boot to a usable condition.  It took more than a year to find and fix that bug.

Dat machines and Analog Tape decks are not near as complex as the Non-linear recorders we are all moving to.  Entering and maintaining the metadata. (updating Scene numbers, fixing the track names and storing the time code when it is coming from an unstable source like a DV camera that is starting and stoping, can create problems)  With the DAT machines we only had to worry about starting and stopping them when needed.  There was no Pre-Roll, Time Code triggered Recording, Metadata, iXML chunks, or back-timed Time code stamps and file names to be worried about.  you may not realize it but a lot of housekeeping has to be going on all the time with these machines. Pressing a lot of buttons or communicating with another microprocessor over Firewire while recording, creates a lot of things to keep track of.  Too many tasks and you can overwhelm the processor.

---Courtney

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Prior to update to 2.09 mine has frozen twice when trying to power down.  I updated to 2.09 and now the unreliability begins?  It freezes on copying files to External Hard Drive and also when connecting to computer thru firewire cable.  The only way to shut down and reboot is to power down completely and repower (sometimes 2 cycles).  The only fortunate thing is my primary record is Metacorder that is to date (14 months)flawless!!  It does concern me regarding over the shoulder as the 744 replaces DAT for that application-perhaps going back to previous versions is the answer? I called SD and they are emailing me a patch today or tomorrow-will post when I install.

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eeek!

i have not yet sent in my 744t to get updated, but hearing about these lock-up issues makes me wonder if i should wait until a more solid release is out?  i still have v1.74 i think.

thoughts or opinions?

i have not had my 744 lock up at all on me - but then i probably don't use it as much as some of the other folks on this site.

-greg-

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Greg,

My 744T, nor the ones owned by my friend, ever locked up before going to the new firmware.  And they were used a lot!  Since then, mine has locked up a few times, and I have to be careful when asking it to think as fast as I can navigate through the menus.  My suggestion is that if you don't want to use a remote keyboard or record to an external drive, keep it as is for a while.  I wish I could go back!

Robert

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Robert Wrote:

"My 744T, nor the ones owned by my friend, ever locked up before going to the new firmware.  And they were used a lot!  Since then, mine has locked up a few times, and I have to be careful when asking it to think as fast as I can navigate through the menus.  My suggestion is that if you don't want to use a remote keyboard or record to an external drive, keep it as is for a while.  I wish I could go back!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Robert,

You *can* go back.

http://www.sounddevices.com/download/7_firmware/744t_1.74.zip

Cheers,

Darren

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I fully concur with Darren's and other's comments regarding new recording technology and the inherent [un]reliability of various system evolutions, and the appropriate renaming of this thread...but to bring it back to its origin regarding the 744T, I thought I'd update my own experiences since my OP.

I neglected to heed my own advice about back-installing earlier (pre v2.09) firmware. I figured in the end, there ain't no going home, and thought just maybe my original lockup had to do with the ONE specific D-RAM disc since I had gotten by fine with mirroring to EXT media before that one instance. Bad call.

The very next production day, with a brand new Maxell 5X D-RAM disc loaded, I ran into 2 more similar lock-ups, with no "repeatable" scenario per se. After the 2nd time of pulling cables and hard-booting the recorder, the yellow 744T "charging" light stayed on...even with the BDS and Sony batteries both pulled. Once again, the meltdown (the 2nd of the day in this case, but the 1st time that the yellow light remained on) happened right during the martini shot. We rolled another take, which recorded fine and was better than the 1st anyway, but still, there is no excuse for this!

The light must have been powered by the internal NiMH battery designed to hold TC and Time/Date, etc. info. Very weird. In the end, I transfered all files to another HDD, reformatted the INT HDD, reinstalled v2.09 firmware, and only then did the yellow light finally go off...at reboot after reinstalling the firmware.

For the next several days I had the D-RAM drive (Panasonic UJ845) connected and bus powered via XL1394 cable as well as a CF card installed, but neither selected in menu to be written to. I recorded all takes to the INT HDD only and then copied files at day's end for a D-RAM deliverable. With this workflow, all went well. It was like taking a few steps backward in terms of mirroring and backup capabilities, but I'll vote for reliability of one media ANY time over unreliability of mirroring. I thought about pulling the D-RAM drive and CF card altogether, but figured that since we're all just a bunch of beta lab-rats anyway (as Darren pointed out) I figured it better to reduce as few variables as possible, collecting data along the way, until system stability was achieved.

It seems kind of stupid reasoning on my part. Other than the convenience of a quick hand-off of the disc(s) at day's end afforded by mirroring to D-RAM or other EXT media, the "backup" factor was completely negated by the unreliability of writing to multiple media.

I plan to keep going with this approach...with fingers tightly crossed...until I hear confirmation that this bug has been exterminated for good!

Yeah, it would be nice to focus on mixing alone, but those days are most certainly by-gone...for now anyway. Between the trials of evolving technology and increasingly choked RF bandwidth, production sound has become quite the multi-taking adventure.

EB

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Because I only use the internal drive, I have been fortunate enough to have not encountered this latest bug.  For those of you that have, has SD acknowledged this as a bug and are they actively working on it, or are they considering it to be a large collection of isolated non-repeatable incidents?  Or is it hard to tell what they think as they are playing their cards close to their chest? 

Maybe it would be helpful to them to read this thread, as I just had a look at their 744 forum and there definitely seems to be a lot more references to the current "2.09 ext. media bug" here than there.  In fact, I couldn't really find too much at all about it on their site.  Most of the 2.09 stuff seems to have been moved to their "fixed/archived" thread.

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Greetings all. This is all very interesting to me since I bought a 744t as a back up. I've been recording only to the int. drive and not mirroring as of yet, but so far,(30 + days) no lock ups. Seems to work as advertised, but I'm not burning. I guess tomorrow I'll start burning and see. BTW I don't run back up all the time, just getting used to it so when I pull it out in the future I'll know it well. Thanks for all the info.

CrewC

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