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Nomad freezing problems


Mgregor12

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Both the fine people at Zaxcom and other users of this forum will thank you to refer directly to Zaxcom or your dealer with issues like these. Faulty power switches, DC offset voltages on input preamps, freezing, software bugs and other types of problems can't be fixed by discussing it here. A return to the mother ship for repair should not be unexpected, however disappointing it is.

Zaxcom Tel: 973.835.5000

General contact page: http://www.zaxcom.com/contact

Submit a technical question: http://www.zaxcom.co...hnical-question

Mark O.

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Thank you Whitney, pindrop and others for posting, but I was hoping that with my statement (echoed in part by Mark O'Russa) we could get away from this whole "score card" mentality when "discussing" a problem that someone has had with some piece of gear. It would not serve anyone any good if everytime someone posted that they had a problem with their Deva, I would chime in that I have used the Deva for 14 years, 2 months and 4 days and NEVER had a problem... the same for a Sound Devices user or any other professional gear.

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Thank you Whitney, pindrop and others for posting, but I was hoping that with my statement (echoed in part by Mark O'Russa) we could get away from this whole "score card" mentality when "discussing" a problem that someone has had with some piece of gear. It would not serve anyone any good if everytime someone posted that they had a problem with their Deva, I would chime in that I have used the Deva for 14 years, 2 months and 4 days and NEVER had a problem... the same for a Sound Devices user or any other professional gear.

Hmm! Yes on the one hand I see what you mean but on the other I am genuinely interested to read something of an antidote to the endless list of problems that tend to accumulate on discussion forums.

I am also genuinely grateful that a complex and expensive piece of equipment I have bought has given me very reliable service and like to take the opportunity to compliment the manufacturer.

However a direct request from your venerable self made, I will of course refrain from this in future.

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"I am also genuinely grateful that a complex and expensive piece of equipment I have bought has given me very reliable service and like to take the opportunity to compliment the manufacturer."

Nothing wrong with that, and certainly do not refrain from compliments to the wonderful companies that have brought us all this great gear. What I do wish to curtail is when these compliments are posted as part of a balance sheet or the score card in the somewhat pointless contest of one piece of gear vs. another. That's all.

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I totally agree with Jeff that the forum should not be used to have a "my school is better than your school," non-productive and polarizing debate. (Unless, of course, it's Mac's superiority over Win <g> (friendly chide intended).)

However (and I'm looking in particular at my intentions at posting in this topic), comparing notes with other users can often help greatly in determining whether an issue is systemic or unique. In my case I posted the specific conditions under which it (my one and only freeze) occurred to see if there was, perhaps, a common denominator that could help point us, and Zaxcom, to greater reliability of this particular piece of gear.

If such a use of the forum is to be worthwhile, however, it requires the cooperation (and self-discipline), of all the participants of this unique online community.

In a parallel vein, I think discussing relative merits of similar pieces of gear is helpful, but also requires diligent self-policing efforts.

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Mark and other fine folks,

In all fairness, of course someone should contact the company who made the product, and of course it is not a end all to post here about those problems... but that said...

I TOTALLY WANT TO HEAR ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES PROBLEMS WITH THIS AND OTHER MACHINES.... All of them.. why not. I DO understand about the majority of these recorders out in the world doing just fine, and the concept of "those who post about the problems are in the minority " and all that goes with that thought process, but I WANT to hear about it... I don't want ISSUES, however small or meaningless swept under the rug so those of us can't see, understand or correct these issues in our own brains....

There is other places to look for answers and post problems for sure, but I like this place....

By saying, this place is not a good forum to air problems or issues is strange to me.... That IS a valuable service this forum gives back to it's participants... I will let my own pea brain decide what is valuable and what is not. If I read a post that does not give me useful information, I just move down the list to one that does... If a topic does not intrest you, move on, don't read it... pretty simple really...

I am on the fence with this machine, for a year now... I want all data from all sources before pulling the trigger... I am still after all this time, not feeling it just yet, like many others, this process, although possibly corrupting, somehow makes my decision a bit better to finalize.. I do not care for the type and frequency of these issues. I do not have percentages of problematic machines verses ones with no problems... who knows, but there are a good deal of posts with issues... And this is a pretty small percentage of the population as a whole, compared to millions of Macs for example...

I am confident the issues will be worked out some time soon, by reading this material, and anything else I can gather, I will know better WHEN... Nothing is perfect, granted, but my machines CAN'T freeze... it's just not an option I ever want to consider business as usual... I understand this concept a bit, shit happens, my clients do not... My current machines do not freeze.... ever... for what that is worth... not a score card, just facts... I want my new machine to perform the same... not too much to ask... If I bought a new Nomad, it would most likely be fine. I understand that, but the little guy on my other shoulder says... wait a bit...

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My Deva 4 has frozen twice in all the years I've had it. I just called cut and rebooted. I retain full confidence in my Deva and my SD recorders as they have performed well in many harsh conditions without issue. A tip of the hat to both companies. As for this forum, I'm not into pissing contests but I am interested in hearing about legit issues big and small.

CrewC

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Excellent points from both John B. and afewmoreyears --- I think our behavior here should be guided by the advice and observations of both of these esteemed members. Thanks to both of you for your continuing and thoughtful participation. My only goal in bringing this up is to achieve a good balance of discussion, troubleshooting, support and information that doesn't go off the rails.

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" have they contacted their dealer, sent the machine in, gotten some advice or support from the right people? "

in other words: <cap>

" Both the fine people at Zaxcom and other users of this forum will thank you to refer directly to Zaxcom or your dealer with issues like these "

yes, really!

many " types of problems can't be fixed by discussing it here. A return to the mother ship for repair should not be unexpected, however disappointing it is. " ::)

" comparing notes with other users can often help greatly in determining whether an issue is systemic or unique. In my case I posted the specific conditions under which it (my one and only freeze) occurred to see if there was, perhaps, a common denominator that could help "

specific user groups, manufacturers' forums, etc.

" the "standard cure" for a recorder brain-fart w/ SD recorders: remove all power, let it chill for a bit, then try again, "

this seems to be standard "first aid" for everything. shall we call it "CPR for computer chips" ??

" xxx has frozen twice in all the years I've had it. I just called cut and..."

I can say that about my NAGRA's, and DAT's, too...

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I think that is a bit unfair, this is a new machine and it is expected there will teething problems, there will be 1000's of nomads out there and your only seeing the problemss that people put on the forums, you wont see all the good stories out there

I am very happy I purchased one and have no regrets

I don't think that saying I've been second guessing a product is unfair at all. I've second guessed a lot of products that I currently own.

If at the very least, it has people chime in saying how their Nomad's have performed flawlessly. This is all important information in my opinion, from the goods to the bads.

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I am running 2.95 and have experienced a variety of "freezing up" with my Nomad. It will freeze during boot up 30% of the time with a black screen. It will also freeze up while in the home screen, all the leds will suddenly light up and everything will lock up. Thirdly, while in the home screen all the leds will turn off, timecode will stop but the screen will still be on.

It happens regardless of what the mirror card is set to.

16g ,32g Kingston cards 133X

ext. NP1 power

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I am running 2.95 and have experienced a variety of "freezing up" with my Nomad. It will freeze during boot up 30% of the time with a black screen. It will also freeze up while in the home screen, all the leds will suddenly light up and everything will lock up. Thirdly, while in the home screen all the leds will turn off, timecode will stop but the screen will still be on.

It happens regardless of what the mirror card is set to.

16g ,32g Kingston cards 133X

ext. NP1 power

Sanjay

This is far from being normal and common - you need to contact Zaxcom directly to further diagnose this issue.

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Those of you who are more experienced (aka not me) have probably had problems with Nagra tape, DAT machines freeze or damage the tape somehow...

The two worst machine crashes I ever had in my life were with a DA88 machine, and an $8000 pro Sony PCM-7030 DAT machine, about 10-15 years ago. In the case of the DA88, the transport crashed so hard, we had to destroy the machine in order to extract the client's mission-critical tape out of it. Luckily, all the crinkled tape was at the head during tone and slate -- nothing in program. The engineer I was working with said, "eh, who cares. It's a $2 million client -- we can afford to throw away a $3000 DA88 machine for them." And I've had Rank and Spirit scanners crash in post, too. At least in post, we can just go back, make an edit, and move on.

Not the same on the set. I have had Devas crash once in awhile (maybe three times in five years), but in all cases, they were fine after a factory reset. I had a 744t crash twice as well -- one completely froze and had to have a battery reset and power cycle, and the other just needed a soft-boot (power cycle only). Every version of Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci, and Pro Tools has had bugs early on in the project cycle. I've had post sessions where the DaVinci crashed five, six times in an hour. Crap happens.

I'm confident, given Zaxcom's past record, they'll make this work.

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I think it's incredibly valuable for people to post about their problems. It makes me feel like I'm not alone - I've had 6 expensive Zaxcom units give me repeating/neverending problems. I had to dump four of them (three TRX900s & a Cameo II) but they finally seemed to have gotten my Devas to function great. Other than the hard drive failure the Deva 16 experienced earlier this year - that needed an instant trip home! (This HD failure made the purchase of a second Deva worth it a million times over - it took me 6 minutes to swap out the 16 with the old 5.8.)

People didn't used to talk about their expensive stuff failing like this, especially if they can still get it to work after some ju-ju (in my case it was the "turn off and firmly push the 4 corners of the screen" fix). I was afraid to post about it here since I was so angry at the machine and at Zaxcom I knew I was going to come off douchy and whiny. Also I was embarrassed that I even had these problems.

I heard about others having similar problems and also about tons of people having units that worked perfectly. It didn't make sense - 3 years of the same problem for a $12000 unit! Also I didn't want Glenn Sanders to hate me and for peers to see me as a whiner/complainer. (Far too late for that now ha ha!)

It just seemed I got a lemon Deva 5.8 for a while, thankfully the new screen seemed to fix it (after 3 years). But remember that's after 3 or 4 other screen replacements!

Now (in my wizened years, yeah right) I realize it's not just Zaxcom gear that acts "lemony" although personally I feel my ratio of Zax lemons was way higher than it should have been. (At least compared to the Lectro lemons or PSC ones which are very rare.)

The moral? Nothing works perfectly as other here have said. Backups are the only true solution, multiple backups. I'm not going to buy a Nomad 12 in 3 - 6 months, I'm going to get two. That's just the way it has to be in order to make sure I'm always ready to roll.

Also, having true backups (units that sit unused until needed) has done wonders for my mental health on the job, I just don't worry about so many things I used to.

So for the Original Poster - expecting new products to function perfectly is just not practical. Shit happens alla time and it's not your fault. There's only one Nomad, and if you want that to be your main tool, you just have to get two. It will be worth it I promise.

The only instance where you don't need two would be where literally every single user reports zero problems. Hasn't happened yet with anything and probably never will!

Dan Izen

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I am running 2.95 and have experienced a variety of "freezing up" with my Nomad. It will freeze during boot up 30% of the time with a black screen. It will also freeze up while in the home screen, all the leds will suddenly light up and everything will lock up. Thirdly, while in the home screen all the leds will turn off, timecode will stop but the screen will still be on.

It happens regardless of what the mirror card is set to.

16g ,32g Kingston cards 133X

ext. NP1 power

change your cards to the recommended Transcend 133x or slow sandisk . Every other card brand support is experimental.

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"change your cards to the recommended Transcend 133x or slow sandisk . Every other card brand support is experimental."

A note included in the manual recommends "4GB to 32GB: Delkin Devices, Transcend(133x), Sandisk (133x),Kingston and many others"

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Mark and other fine folks,

In all fairness, of course someone should contact the company who made the product, and of course it is not a end all to post here about those problems... but that said...

I TOTALLY WANT TO HEAR ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES PROBLEMS WITH THIS AND OTHER MACHINES.... All of them.. why not. I DO understand about the majority of these recorders out in the world doing just fine, and the concept of "those who post about the problems are in the minority " and all that goes with that thought process, but I WANT to hear about it... I don't want ISSUES, however small or meaningless swept under the rug so those of us can't see, understand or correct these issues in our own brains....

There is other places to look for answers and post problems for sure, but I like this place....

By saying, this place is not a good forum to air problems or issues is strange to me.... That IS a valuable service this forum gives back to it's participants... I will let my own pea brain decide what is valuable and what is not. If I read a post that does not give me useful information, I just move down the list to one that does... If a topic does not intrest you, move on, don't read it... pretty simple really...

Brian

I am on the fence with this machine, for a year now... I want all data from all sources before pulling the trigger... I am still after all this time, not feeling it just yet, like many others, this process, although possibly corrupting, somehow makes my decision a bit better to finalize.. I do not care for the type and frequency of these issues. I do not have percentages of problematic machines verses ones with no problems... who knows, but there are a good deal of posts with issues... And this is a pretty small percentage of the population as a whole, compared to millions of Macs for example...

I am confident the issues will be worked out some time soon, by reading this material, and anything else I can gather, I will know better WHEN... Nothing is perfect, granted, but my machines CAN'T freeze... it's just not an option I ever want to consider business as usual... I understand this concept a bit, shit happens, my clients do not... My current machines do not freeze.... ever... for what that is worth... not a score card, just facts... I want my new machine to perform the same... not too much to ask... If I bought a new Nomad, it would most likely be fine. I understand that, but the little guy on my other shoulder says... wait a bit...

I agree completely! I want to know the good and bad.. I count on this discussion group to be honest with all the problems so the that when I make a purchase decision I can take all the factors into account...

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