Enigma Comm Error after installing a new Enigma board NEC NC2000C

[Justin Hamaker]

I am attempting to replace the enigma board on one of our projectors after the old board was bricked. Prior to removing the old board it was throwing a certificate error. Upon installing the new board I am getting and Enigma Comm Error (400 : Enigma Comm Fail(000000:Conn=2)). I am not able to perform the re-marriage due to this error. I am not able to log on to the enigma board using the ICP/Enigma software (I am able to log on to the ICP board). I have a support call in already that has been escalated to NEC. However it's been 5 days with no resolution yet. Wondering if anyone here might have any ideas.

I have already tried reseating both the enigma board on the legacy board, and the legacy board in the projector. I have also tried re-seating the ICP board.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Some thoughts:

Did you ground yourself to the projector chassis (touching it would be enough) before handling the Enigma? They are static sensitive..

Did you check for any dust in or damage to the connectors before installing the new board?

Did you accidentally put the old board back in by mistake? (Been there, done that. Embarrassed myself in front of a client too.)

It is also possible that you simply got a dud Enigma board.

Some things to check out while waiting for an answer from tech support.

[Justin Hamaker]

"Did you ground yourself to the projector chassis (touching it would be enough) before handling the Enigma? They are static sensitive.."

I freely admit I didn't do this. Too many years working with computers and never having a problem, I never even considered. That being said, static is not really an issue in our projection room, so I would say the probability of this is very low.

I've tried everything else you mentioned. And rechecked several times.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Sounds like it could be a dud board then, or there is some other issue involved that may have been the cause of the original board losing the cert. (Software/firmware issue with the projector maybe?)

Hope you can get it sorted out, and please update when you find out what the issue is.

[Leo Enticknap]

Error 400 is the bad battery error, so I fear you got a bad one. The only thing I can suggest is to try it in another projector on a known good SIB, and to swap a known good Enigma onto the SIB that is giving the trouble. If the error moves with the Enigma, you've got a bad Enigma. If the error 400 stays with the same projector, likely a bad SIB.

I don't think a firmware mismatch (e.g. the Enigma is still on 1.6, and the SIB is expecting 1.8) would cause an error 400 and a failure to marry. It would cause a long list of other complaints, that should go away after flashing the current firmware into the Enigma.

[Justin Hamaker]

Before leaving work tonight I decided to put the old enigma board back into the projector just to compare the errors I was receiving with the new one. As expected, when I turned on the projector it game me a marriage error. Then once I completed the re-marriage it threw the following two errors:
487 : Security Log Error
489 : Security Log Warning

Since the new board failed when I tried to log into the enigma from the ICP and Enigma control program, I decided to log in with the old enigma in place. When I logged in it threw the following errors:
Enigma: command error
FPGA Firmware: command error
TI Login List: command error
OEM Security Officer List: command error

I didn't really think anything about this because I was expecting errors. I tried logging in with credentials I use for the ICP and it failed. Not sure if this is normal; if there are different credentials between the ICP and the enigma.

All of the sudden I noticed I had green tail lights on the projector. I clicked over to the DCC to check the errors and the 487 and 489 errors were gone. In their place: "There are no errors".

So I played a couple trailers and they played without a problem. Then I loaded a feature and the keys and hit play. No errors. No problems.

[Carsten Kurz]

You mean, that is/was with the OLD (assumed bricked) enigma in place? Are you sure you didn't mix up the two boards?

[Justin Hamaker]

Carsten, I'm positive. I even double checked to make sure. The new one has a battery date of February 2019 and the old one is November 2010, so its easy to tell them apart

[Carsten Kurz]

Wow. WEIRD...

[Steve Guttag]

Justin, the Enigma and ICP on both Christie and NEC use different logins than the ICP.

On an NEC...ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS) on any module swap, including the Enigma, ALWAYS re-run the software update. It will seemingly clear errors that you'd think shouldn't be there. Naturally, it would not fix a real battery problem or a door tamper on an Engima (if you can see what LEDs are lit on the Engima itself (it has 5 or 6 of them at one end) that can tell you what the issue with it is as well. When I charge up the ones we have in stock, I have a sheet I've been working on that lets me know that the Enigma should be good during the charging process or what error it has.

[Marcel Birgelen]

it's still a weird story though. Maybe that swapping the serials around somehow triggered the software-update process on the "presumed bricked" enigma board and this somehow revived it. Maybe it wasn't the certificate itself that was toast, but the flash got somehow corrupted?

[Leo Enticknap]

Aren't those security log errors what appear when the log storage gets full under firmware version 1.6, and then you have to update to 1.8 and purge the logs (via the server) before it'll work again? Maybe the server initiated an automatic log purge (what model of server is it?).

[Marcel Birgelen]

Maybe NEC reports those errors differently, but I remember the log explicitly stating "Security Log is Full". But maybe this is indeed a late and wrongly diagnosed case of an enigma 1.6.22 or earlier firmware with an overflowing log...

[Steve Guttag]

And doing a software update, even if that was the problem, would fix the Enigma up to 1.8 and clear that error.

[Carsten Kurz]

Maybe Justin should fire up DCC S2 and check the enigma firmware to get a better idea what is going on.