Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Dragon: starts in 'invalid mode', power issues, on 5.2.28

Mike 'Fireman' Ross

Mike 'Fireman' Ross

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 8, 2011
Messages
1,672
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Wellington New Zealand
I cut & paste below a support ticket I filed with RDC recently. Has anyone seen anything similar to these issues? How is 5.2.28 working for folks? Latest response from RDC is that there's nothing in the log file, it seems to be a firmware issue, they're working on it, and try downgrading the firmware to previous production release... I'll try that in my copious free time, just recovering after getting home from a 3 week shoot in Iceland.


Hi, I spoke with ?Felipe? on the phone on Wednesday.


I upgraded Dragon to current production firmware 2 weeks ago, before leaving for a job in Iceland. Since I installed 5.2.28, the camera has significantly misbehaved.


Rig: Dragon, LCD, +1 Module, Quickplate Module, Red Bricks, Side Handle, Redvolt in Side Handle, Nikon DSMC mount, Nikon AF G-series lenses. Alternating between two different 512GB standard REDmag SSDs.


Problem 1: Camera frequently (~50% of the time) powers up in an 'invalid state'. The first clue to this is, the histogram is blank. Around 20% of the time, there's a second clue: the right side of the LCD has an 'interference' pattern on it. Another clue; if I ignore the missing histogram and attempt to record anyway, the record tally in the LCD changes to yellow, not red. I believe, but will not swear, that a blank .R3D of zero size is created on the SSD. In any case, once the camera is in that condition, you cannot stop rolling, and you can only power down the camera via a hard reset.


- If I notice the problem, don't roll, and immediately reboot the camera, the camera always or almost always powers up correctly on the reboot. So, around 50% of the time, I have to power cycle the camera to get it to work. This looks Very Bad in front of the client.


- ?Felipe?, when I spoke to him on the phone, suggested the problem could be media-related. It is NOT; the camera will come up in the 'invalid mode' described above even if NO media is inserted.


- When the camera comes up in a valid mode, it has always rolled and performed perfectly. The problem ONLY occurs on power-up. It either works, or it needs to be rebooted.


Problem 2: I always keep a charged REDvolt in the side handle, so I can hot-swap power without rebooting the camera. A Brick gets low, I pull it off, I put on a fresh one. No problem this has always worked since I first got my Epic, and my Scarlet.


5.2.28 has destroyed my ability to do that. Now, when I pull the Brick off, the camera immediately dies, even with a charged REDvolt in the Side Handle. I haven't tested it with changing from line power to Brick yet. This is not a huge problem, but it is a significant one for me and the way I work. I recall this was a problem back a couple of years ago; one early version of the Epic/Scarlet firmware broke that ability for some (not all) cameras. We seem to be there again, only this time I was unlucky enough to be affected.


Interested to hear feedback from others...

Mike
 
Hello Mike

Generally I do think it is best to let the support team and engineer a bit of time to help with a peculiar issue rather than posting on REDuser whenever something like this happens...

That said, have you tried the following :

clean re-install 5.2.28 (or maintenance > restore system)
do not change ANY default settings and see if the problem is still there.

If it is still happening there is a chance of a HW problem or incompatible accessory (strip the camera down to minimum to investigate further)... if the problem disappear with a clean install then it could possibly be a FW bug with a particular setting you are using.

I tell this because I had a very similar issue way back on early EPIC days : same kind of invalid mode you describe that would happen 50% of times on a cold boot but was generally OK on a restart... in my case it would record fine but if I recall I had the fan not going into silent mode while recording among few other 'minor' things. Was problematic as we were shooting a doc in India at the time and very often I had no time for a second boot.

After much trial and error in the evening back at the hotel, removing all acc and trying various stuff I was able to narrow the issue down to a particular camera setting that would create this problem. I think it was setting the HD-SDI output at 25 fps combined with one of the display mode overlay. RED was then able to reproduce the issue and fix it in the following FW. I was able to finish my shooting with setting it to 29.97 or whatever.

So if your problem disappear on a clean install, it is a bit time consuming but you'll have to re-enable each of your settings one by one and reboot a few time after each to see if the problem re-appears etc.

Hope this help and that you will be able to narrow it down without it being a hardware failure requiring camera to go back to mothership...

Mikael
 
That's very interesting, and the precise reason I *did* decide to reach out on Reduser for other experiences... and they have had the ticket for 3 weeks now.

This entire project, where I've had this problem, was shot at 25FPS, at the explicit demand of the client. First time I've done that in a *long* time. The camera was flawless up until the moment I installed 5.2.28... AND the moment I started shooting everything in 25FPS.

May be a clue; I'll play with that, and your other suggestions. Thanks.

Mike
 
Yes, possible some 25 fps related stuff might not have been as deeply tested by RED compared to 23.975.
I've been using DRAGON @25fps with 5.2 exclusively since the very first beta, booted hundreds of time while coding foolcontrol and I've never seen the issue you describe so hopefully it could be one specific setting you enabled that is causing the issue.
If it works normally using defaults settings and with meticulous testing you may find a new bug to be fixed :-)
 
One other 'maybe'... I started this project with the OLED EVF attached, to the +1 module, but soon removed it as I found I was seldom using it.

On the odd occasion I had used it, the EVF image seemed noticeably less bright than usual.

I think I'll start investigating afresh by changing nothing else, but removing the +1 module...

Mike
 
Progress!

I treated the issues with switching power from rear to side handle as a clue, and I was right.

It's the side handle.

Remove it, the problem never happens.

Attach the side handle, the problem happens every second boot. It doesn't matter if you're running the camera off a Red Brick, a Red Volt, or line power. It doesn't make any difference whether or not a Red Volt is installed in the side handle. If the side handle is attached, it boots into the invalid mode, you reboot, and it works.

Remove the side handle, the problem never happens. Simple as that. I can repro that consistently.

I find it odd that the side handle should start playing up the very instant I put 5.2.28 on the camera (yes the side handle WAS attached when I upgraded, and I have done 'rediscover hardware' more than once since). So I still think it's firmware-related, not hardware. I'll update the RDC ticket.

(Hot-swapping power between line power and Brick works perfectly. Hot swapping between Brick and side handle Red Volt, you take the brick off, the camera keeps running on the Red Volt. You put the Brick back on, the camera powers off instantly).

Thanks.

Mike
 
I have a Scarlet so that's next on my list, before I go disturbing the firmware on the Dragon...

Mike
 
I had some strange power problems with one of my Epics which I thought was due to the Sidehandle, but actually was being caused by the +1 module. Removed the +1 module and hot swap and power up issues went away. The problem wasn't with the module as I would get the same problem with my other +1 module. This was fixed when I sent my camera in for its Dragon upgrade.
 
First thing I tried in my troubleshooting yesterday was removing the +1 - made not the slightest different.

Got a reply from RDC this morning which confirms it seems to be a firmware issue which will be fixed in the next beta. In the meantime the recommendation is to revert to previous production firmware - 5.1.64 IIRC. Maybe something which only affects certain combinations of hardware revisions, and escaped testing.

Mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top