Barco Projector Ingest Problem

[Cheryl LIzzio]

Hi all..sorry this will be long...
We are having a very odd problem with our Barco projector. We had issues and were told we needed to replace the imb board and server board. it's a Dolby dss220 (cat 745 media block) Since they no longer make them our supplier got us a used set. We put the parts in and ingested the movie with no problems. I also ingested our pre-show that we make with no issues. When I try to ingest trailers we get an error. The projector reads the hard drive (and we have tried 4 different ones) and brings up all the trailers but when we click on one to load it says "unexpected problem with show manager server, try again". We have tried tons of trailers from 4 different drives and it always errors out. We can injest movies, trailers that come on USB drives, etc. But cannot load trailers. We have all the current versions of software. Our projector supplier/repair guy has tried lots of things and cannot figure this out either. We just finally opened after being closed for covid..played one week before all the issues. Please any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as we don't have $8500 to upgrade to the newest server/imb
Thank you
Cheryl
The Onarga Theater

[Carsten Kurz]

You mean you swapped a Dolby DSS220 and CAT745 with the same components, but second hand? Or is this now a different server type?

Now, the DSS220 doesn't have a CRU slot (slot to take up hard drives). When you say, you can ingest trailers from USB drives, what connection method do you use when you speak of 'hard drives' which fail for trailer ingest?

What type of hard drive is this? Do you have an external CRU Movedock connected to that DSS220?. How did these trailers get onto that disc, where do they come from? Maybe it helps if you upload some photos of the gear here.

[Leo Enticknap]

There is a known issue with Trail Mix drives and version 4.9.4.5 of the Show Manager software: something to do with two many CPL files in the same folder (on these drives, each collection of DCP files is not in an individual sub-folder: they are all in the root). Try upgrading to 4.9.5.2 if you are on this version.

Edit: Cheryl - maybe rename this thread to "DSS220 ingestion problem" ? It's a server issue, not a projector issue, and so renaming the thread would help anyone searching the web after being hit by the same glitch would be more likely to find the suggestions here.

[Cheryl LIzzio]

You mean you swapped a Dolby DSS220 and CAT745 with the same components, but second hand? Or is this now a different server type?

Now, the DSS220 doesn't have a CRU slot (slot to take up hard drives). When you say, you can ingest trailers from USB drives, what connection method do you use when you speak of 'hard drives' which fail for trailer ingest?

What type of hard drive is this? Do you have an external CRU Movedock connected to that DSS220?. How did these trailers get onto that disc, where do they come from? Maybe it helps if you upload some photos of the gear here.

The server was the same exact one we had but used (supposed to be in working order) We use a boot that the hard drive goes in and connects to the projector via usb to bring in all the trailers. Then click on the trailer we want and tell it to move to the internal drive on the projector. Like I said movies are no problem (and they are loaded the same exact way as the trailers)

[Cheryl LIzzio]

There is a known issue with Trail Mix drives and version 4.9.4.5 of the Show Manager software: something to do with two many CPL files in the same folder (on these drives, each collection of DCP files is not in an individual sub-folder: they are all in the root). Try upgrading to 4.9.5.2 if you are on this version.

Edit: Cheryl - maybe rename this thread to "DSS220 ingestion problem" ? It's a server issue, not a projector issue, and so renaming the thread would help anyone searching the web after being hit by the same glitch would be more likely to find the suggestions here.

I will check the version again, but our projector guy said it was running the newest version of software (4.9.5.2) and I can not see how to change the title to my thread..I will if you tell me how

[Carsten Kurz]

The issues you describe with 'trailer discs' - you mention you can ingest trailers from 'some' USB discs. So, what is the difference between these? Do you know what 'TrailMix drives' are? If you are able to ingest some trailers from some USB discs, and it fails from other discs using the same connection method (USB), we need to find out what technical differences there are between these types of discs. As Leo mentions - TrailMix drives contain a huge amount of trailers in a specific format that MAY cause issues on some systems.

[Cheryl LIzzio]

The issues you describe with 'trailer discs' - you mention you can ingest trailers from 'some' USB discs. So, what is the difference between these? Do you know what 'TrailMix drives' are? If you are able to ingest some trailers from some USB discs, and it fails from other discs using the same connection method (USB), we need to find out what technical differences there are between these types of discs. As Leo mentions - TrailMix drives contain a huge amount of trailers in a specific format that MAY cause issues on some systems.

The trailer drives come from Deluxe, as well as any that come on USB drives. I do not know what they are or what format. We have never had an issue with loading from these drives since we go the projector in 2012..until we put in the "new" server and imb board. I am figuring it is something with one of these "new" parts but sine they are no longer made and hard to find...I was hoping to find a fix to this. We are a small theater just opened up for GHostbusters after being closed for 1.5yr for covid...we played 3 weeks and then down. We do not have the funds to upgrade to a new server at $8,500.

[Leo Enticknap]

I think there is some confusion creeping in that it would be good to clarify. You write:

We have tried tons of trailers from 4 different drives and it always errors out. We can injest movies, trailers that come on USB drives, etc. But cannot load trailers.

Is it just the trailers that come on CRU drives from Deluxe that are causing the problem?

If so, these are known as "trail mix" drives. As I wrote above, there was a specific bug in the way that Show Manager 4.9.4.5 interacted with these drives: not only would it not read them, but you had to reboot the server before it would read any other physical media again. But if you're already on 4.9.5.2, that isn't relevant here.

Because of the large number of trailer DCPs on these drives, the DSS220 can take a significant time after you insert these drives into the CRU reader, before it will display the list of trailer DCPs available for ingestion. I've seen it take 5-6 minutes for an older CRU boot connected to the server via USB2. If you see the drive activity light (orange, on the front of rack-mounted CRU readers, or on the back of portable ones) flickering, that means that the server is reading the drive, and you need to be patient until it gets done working through everything on it, before it can show you what is available to ingest.

What this doesn't explain is why the behavior has changed from that of a previous model of the same hardware. Maybe your CRU reader was connected by eSATA to the previous server, but by USB2 to this one? That's the only explanation I can think of for that. Is ingestion of features taking longer than it did with the previous server?