Bug and crash on flx s48 - ZerOS 8.0.0

[Alexandre]

Hello everyone,

I open a topic here because I didn't receive answer from support email, and maybe people here have somes clues 🙂 (I thinks my pro isp blocking zero88 email)

 

Since the last update, I’ve encountered a high severity bug affecting some playbacks, which causes the console to freeze and always crash.

 

I reproduced the issue using Phantom OS on PC — the software crashes there as well.

 

The problem seems related to specific playback settings, particularly the "Move on Dark" and loop playback options.

 

Please find attached the error dump file and my full showfile. You can easily reproduce the crash by accessing Playback 7 and playing it.

 

Is it possible to downgrade the firmware without losing compatibility with features I’ve used from version 8.0.0?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Best regards,

Alexandre

 

Error Dump file : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q3FHoJ1W4sxAgfwgfgq81dUKGNM2UEXG/view?usp=sharing

 

fin-juin-2025-06-01-02.zos

[kgallen]

@RJP @DMH

3 hours ago, Alexandre said:

Since the last update, I’ve encountered a high severity bug affecting some playbacks, which causes the console to freeze and always crash.

I reproduced the issue using Phantom OS on PC — the software crashes there as well.

The problem seems related to specific playback settings, particularly the "Move on Dark" and loop playback options.

Please find attached the error dump file and my full showfile. You can easily reproduce the crash by accessing Playback 7 and playing it.

 

@Alexandre

3 hours ago, Alexandre said:

Is it possible to downgrade the firmware without losing compatibility with features I’ve used from version 8.0.0?

Honestly, you'd have to try it. I don't think there were major database changes from 7.14.3 to 8.0, but support for relays was added. If you didn't use the new features in 8.0 like the new channels/playbacks/groups/palettes, then maybe there is a chance. Save your showfile and try it. Review the outline of the changes on this page. Other users may comment if they've tried to go backwards from 8.0 with a showfile.

 

 

[LLuk]

hey

my FLX crashed too a couple of time with Zeros 8.
While playing around a little during a practice(mostly in Programmer, few simple playbacks)
the console just rebooted automaticly...no idea what commands/actions was the problem. it seemed
randomly (??). the support team reacted to the debug i sended: "my" issue is now logged on zos-12707...

i went back to 7.14.3

loading the showfile back into 7.14.3 was no problem (but it was mostly just the patch, setup,
and few simple lightstates, no "complex" programming, MoD, or custom-paletts).

good evening

luk

[Davidmk]

I've got "form" for crashing FLX across more than one version of ZerOS. Not been able to find a way to force it to crash and neither have support so my ticket (ZOS-12410) is still outstanding. I updated one of my desks to v8 a few weeks back to create a new showfile for a venue I've started working at but had a crash on that so I took the desk back and started again.

My crashes have all seemed to relate to the desk being busy with lots going on (effects and a chase running plus playbacks being flashed and lots of OSC messages). Buffer overruns and processor overloads have, apparently, been ruled out by support.

That said, I've also had crashes where the desk was in a static state for a long time (hours).

I have two desks, both seem to be affected.

The fact that your issue seems to be repeatable gives some hope that it will give support more to go on. Fingers crossed 🤞.

[Alexandre]

Thank you for your answers 🙂 

For the moment, I disable the move on dark on all buggy playbacks and it is quite stable.

I have already made myself comfortable with the 4 playback/channel pages, so i will just wait new versions and make move myself on dark.

I edited post my google like for the dumpfile (too heavy to upload to the forum).

Best regards,
Alexandre

 

[Archie D]

Hi @Alexandre, apologies for the late reply but I thought it was worth sharing this.

Thank you for providing your show file.
You're correct, the crash behaviour is related to Move on Dark being used in Playback 7.

Upon further investigation of your show file, cue 3 in Playback 7 contains the 'Smooth' effect (E5 to be precise) applied to fixtures 2-9 and 49-54.

After messing around with Move on Dark and only enabling specific attributes (position, effect, etc.), it appears that Move on Dark is looking forward in the cue stack (from cue 1 & 2) and is attempting to apply an intensity effect (Smooth) to fixtures that are at an intensity of 0 in that cue (essentially - those fixtures have no intensity values to modify by the effect / have had no intensity instructions as their intensities are not set in that cue and the previous ones - tracking is enabled). Note that 'Smooth' is an intensity based effect, which is likely the reason for the crash behaviour from what I can see.

Instead of disabling Move on Dark generally for the whole playback, in ZerOS we have the option to disable certain parts of it, ensuring you don't lose out on any advantages of using Move on Dark e.g. with colour and position in sacrifice of effects to prevent crashing.

To do this, you'll need to turn off the effect attribute for Move on Dark for the specific cue(s) that are causing you problems with Move on Dark so the console ignores any effects that may cause issues for that cue specifically. You could alternatively go the simple route - disabling effects in Move on Dark for the whole playback instead of just individual cues, but that will result in (for example) position based effects not being taken into account by Move on Dark, meaning effects such as 'Circle' won't be applied in dark - you will see them apply from 0 effect size to their defined effect size for that cue over the defined fade time as the fixture's intensity is brought up. You can, however, resolve this*.

Disabling Move on Dark for effects only on specific cues:

• In the 'Settings' column in the cue stack, tap 'Add' on the cue you wish to disable effects with Move on Dark
• Tap 'Don't Move Effect' so it has a red indicator as opposed to a blue one (red is 'activated/selected', blue is not)
• Tap 'OK'

Effects with Move on Dark has now been disabled for just that cue. When launching into this cue, effects will now be applied on the press of GO into that cue. You can do this for every cue that is causing a problem.

Disabling Move on Dark for effects only on the entire playback:

• Hold the 'Setup' key on your console's front panel and tap your playback's flash button
• On the internal touchscreen (or monitor if using a FLX S48), tap 'Move on Dark'
• Tap 'Don't Move Effect' so it has a red indicator as opposed to a blue one

*By enabling 'Don't Move Effect' for the whole playback in the playback's settings, inside each specific cue's settings referred in my first set of bulletpoints, that option will now have changed to 'Move Effect' (only for cues within that playback). This allows you to tell the console to look ahead in the cue stack and move the effect-based things for a specific cue anyway, ignoring the playback's general settings for Move on Dark that all effect movements are disabled. An example of this is shown in the image below in the far left column of options:

I hope this helps, and I hope your FLX S continues to serve you well.

Kind regards

Archie