Xlights - Is there a preferred workflow that makes things work 100% correctly?

O

OldMarty

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Dec 27, 2016
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Melbourne, East Suburbs
Hi All,

I'm fairly new to Xlights, only been using it for around 2 months playing with small props and pixel strips on my workbench etc.

While i totally understand ports,strings,strands etc, i feel that i'm not always adding/changing props in the correct work flow.
Sometimes things work immediately, and other times i can't get things to work without clicking/saving every possible option until something comes to life and i don't truly know how or why i made it work. I really don't want to fudge my way through Xlights, i'd like to have a solid workflow that offers (almost) 100% success while tweaking props.

I'm just wondering if there's a better chain of command i should follow, so ANYTHING i add or change will correctly update my FPP player and appear on port.X to light up whatever lights i need to light at the time.
I believe i have the Xlights 'auto' options enabled, so my configs get sent to my FPP in the background as i change/save things etc.

I spend a lof of time saving, updating, render-all, controller-save, but not sure what order i should be doing all this for best results.
My workflow seems to be hit & miss, i have a good day of 100% success and the next day nothing works until i click and save on everything to wake things up, or so it seems.

Additionally, i'm using FPP ver 5.41, the pre license era, so *maybe* the current Xlights doesn't fully support such an old FPP to full capacity anymore?????
I know i should buy a license for my FPP controller and then enjoy the extra FPP features and bug fixes etc, but one day at a time ;-)


Thank in advance for any assistance...
 
Using the upload inputs and upload outputs options after changes is probably an important step. With the latter versions of fpp you can use the auto upload feature in xlights and it will update the inputs and outputs each time output to lights is selected.
 
Includes xSchedule steps because that's what I use
1. Change everything around; save the layout and networks file. (If using xSchedule, make sure the machine with xSchedule gets a copy)
2. Reupload all controllers.
3. Rerender all sequences and save them. (I use batch render but any way of reliably getting them all works...)
4. Upload all .fseq files and media files; either to FPP player or to xSchedule machine
5. Run something and walk around outside and look at everything, just to be sure.

It's really not harder than that... the ports are set up and the files are there to match them.

Auto-upload as @AAH mentioned may work, but I don't use it. There was a while when I couldn't use it, because the upload had to be done in a certain order (on some controllers upload caused a reboot that temporarily disabled the built-in switch, preventing access to the next down the line), but this year I think I fixed that. Anyway, I don't upload often and do it manually.
 
OldMarty said:
Additionally, i'm using FPP ver 5.41, the pre license era, so *maybe* the current Xlights doesn't fully support such an old FPP to full capacity anymore?????
Click to expand...
It doesn't support integration to it at all anymore.
If you're using FPP pre-6.3, then xLights after about 2023.14 will just refuse to talk to it - for FPP Connect and Uploading configuration.
 
AAH said:
Using the upload inputs and upload outputs options after changes is probably an important step. With the latter versions of fpp you can use the auto upload feature in xlights and it will update the inputs and outputs each time output to lights is selected.
Click to expand...
Thanks Al,

The upload outputs option certainly updates things for me now, especially my model brightness levels which never worked before.
 
merryoncherry said:
Includes xSchedule steps because that's what I use
1. Change everything around; save the layout and networks file. (If using xSchedule, make sure the machine with xSchedule gets a copy)
2. Reupload all controllers.
3. Rerender all sequences and save them. (I use batch render but any way of reliably getting them all works...)
4. Upload all .fseq files and media files; either to FPP player or to xSchedule machine
5. Run something and walk around outside and look at everything, just to be sure.

It's really not harder than that... the ports are set up and the files are there to match them.

Auto-upload as @AAH mentioned may work, but I don't use it. There was a while when I couldn't use it, because the upload had to be done in a certain order (on some controllers upload caused a reboot that temporarily disabled the built-in switch, preventing access to the next down the line), but this year I think I fixed that. Anyway, I don't upload often and do it manually.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this, pretty much everything i was already doing, but for me "upload outputs" was a BIG missing step for my changes etc.
 
merryoncherry said:
Errr... uploading config has been working fine w/ 5.5. So I have not dealt with the kulps in the attic, just keep uploading configs to them and they keep playing.
Click to expand...
To be clear.. the only reasons 5.5 is working for you at this point are that (a) you are using a licensed cape, and (b) I haven't had the time to update xLights to move that to 6.5. Don't plan on uploading to 5.5 lasting much longer....
 
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