Barco CCB fault - weird coinkidink, or known issue?

[Leo Enticknap]

Just had to deal with the same fault in two separate places, two days apart, and wondered if anyone had any thoughts.

On June 3, a customer requested a service call because he could not connect via LAN to his projector (a DP2K-6E). When I got there (on June 10), I connected to the projector’s CCB directly (straight shot patch cable - laptop to CCB) and Wiresharked the connection – absolutely nothing; no packets coming out of the CCB at all. Otherwise, the projector appeared normal. The tail light was green, and it could be controlled by an IP connection into the ICMP, using Web Commander.

I pulled the CCB out of the card cage, cleaned the contacts with DeOxit, and reseated it. Once it was back in and the projector rebooted, I did see packets on Wireshark. The CCB had reverted to the factory default IP address (192.168.100.2). All the CCB settings appeared to have reverted to their defaults, too. I reflashed all the software and firmware, restored a clone package taken earlier, reset the IP settings to what they were before the fault, and the projector worked without fault or issue. All the diagnostic self tests passed.

Earlier this evening, I was called to the exact same fault, and successfully fixed it using the exact same actions, on a DP2K-20C (with a Dolby cat745 IMB, not an Alchemy) at a totally separate site.

Has anybody else encountered this? My fear is that this is an early warning of a CCB about to bite the dust.

[Carsten Kurz]

The CCB has a known issue that occurs when power is cut during boot up. It had this happen twice with a 6E. All settings reverted. I think in one case I had to use the USB-Serial method to reconnect with Communicator. May not explain everything that you experienced, may not happen with all CCB revisions.

[Steve Guttag]

I have a LOT of DPxK-C/B projectors in the field...none of the full-sized projectors (C or B series) have had the issues you describe. I have had one 6E that had a similar communication problem to what you described however upon reseating the board, it came back with the proper firmware/settings but until the reseat, it wasn't talking. This unit had a DSS200/CAT745 system. That same projector has needed this twice. We only have 2-3 DP2K-6Es out there so I don't have much data on them but only one of them has had this issue. The other is in a museum that has been down for a year but it is used as their A/V projector as well as DCP (chosen due to its quiet operation). That one also has the ICMP version of the day (ICMP with HDMI 2.0).

[Leo Enticknap]

Thanks folks - this makes a lot of sense. The 6E is in a post house, sitting on a shelf at the back of the screening room (even though the NC1000 was about half the price when they bought the 6E, they chose the 6E for its smaller form factor and lower noise). Its owners reported that a power breaker tripped at some point over a weekend, and the UPS had drained, and it had lost power, by the time they arrived the following Monday morning. So it did experience a chaotic loss of power.

The 20C, however, is in an 11-plex, there were no problems with any of the other screens, and the site staff did not report any power event. However, its card cage is not powered through a UPS, so a power glitch can't be ruled out. Again, whatever happened, happened while the building was empty. There are cat745s in all the screens, and so when Dolby announced the cessation of recertification service, I suggested to them that they might want to leave the projectors on 24/7, because if any of those IMBs fail, their only option will be to upgrade to a new IMS. The manager had arrived yesterday morning to find "Transport not available - error connecting to cat745" error on the server's monitor, but everything else looked normal. I couldn't ping the projector from the remote access PC, and so had to go out there. So momentary power loss, and then, say, another brownout while the projector was rebooting, is entirely possible.

[Steve Guttag]

Leo, that is good data. I'd say that something like 99% of our systems have UPS on the projector electronics. We do, however, power the systems down at night (we have the automation system, eCNA, trigger a power relay that kills power to the projector electronics/fans. The same is true with NEC projectors since their AC-ON fan runs 24/7, otherwise).

So, perhaps, having a non-standard, spiky power loss contributed to the issue or perhaps it is just a freak coincidence. The 6E doesn't share the same CCB as the C or B series so I'd be surprised if they are too common though likely they share similar designs and components. There are two distinct versions of CCBs for the C and B series too (if your projector wakes up without a format selected, you have the later version...plus the updates have several more "stages").

[Leo Enticknap]

The other way to tell the difference between the mk. I and II CCB (for the B and C series) is that the earlier one has a genuine DB9 RS232 port on it, to use Communicator via a serial connection; whereas the later one has a USB jack that can act as an RS232 port.

The E series CCB is also common with the S series: I checked with Cinionic before going to the post house, because we have a 10S in the shop, from which I could have borrowed the CCB temporarily if theirs had turned out to be pooped.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I don't think it's model-specific and most likely something in the boot process, because... it's been a while, but we've had the same issue on the DP4K-23B in our screening room after a faulty breaker popped while booting the machine. We do have UPSes, but they're in a separate shed outside, behind the breakers of which one popped. The settings on the CCB were resetted to default and needed to be recovered. I'd expected it to be a fluke and maybe even solved by future software upgrades. I guess something is corrupting the configuration data while it boots, maybe it rewrites a config file during boot-up?

The other way to tell the difference between the mk. I and II CCB (for the B and C series) is that the earlier one has a genuine DB9 RS232 port on it, to use Communicator via a serial connection; whereas the later one has a USB jack that can act as an RS232 port.

Those things have their own-built-in USB to Serial converter. I like to have the option, as almost no current notebook comes with built-in serial port, but I rather like having a classic RS232 port too.