Hello, I keep having an issue with my Ether Dream DACs going red after sitting idle for a while. Keeping a blank clip running seems to prevent it, but if I forget to do that, once they go red the only way to get them working again is to power off each Ether Dream for a minute and then restart it.
I’ve upgraded to a managed switch—no router, no Wi-Fi—and disabled EEE. I assigned static IPs to the network switch, the Ethernet hub, and all six Ether Dreams. I set the port on the switch that the computer is connected to to auto (1000 Mbps), and forced the rest of the ports to 100 Mbps.
It seems to be more stable now, but after sitting idle they still go red and won’t reconnect when I press refresh. Sometimes one or two will reconnect, but not all of them. While they are all green, I can disconnect the Ethernet hub—or even switch hubs—and they will reconnect quickly. But once they go red, it’s difficult to get them to reconnect.
Pinging them shows they are reachable, but Liberation can’t connect. I’m using a MacBook Pro (I believe it’s the last Intel version). Does anyone have any suggestions or had a similar experience?
Thanks for the detailed write-up, and I’m sorry you’re running into this.
I’ve not generally seen this behaviour myself, and I regularly run multiple Ether Dreams without them dropping out like that after being idle.
That said, there are a few differences between your setup and mine:
I always use a router with DHCP on my network
I’m using Apple Silicon Macs these days
So it could be something specific to your network, or an edge case in Liberation that I’m not hitting here.
A few things I’d suggest trying:
Try different versions of Liberation - the Ether Dream code changed around 1.0.3 Build 3, so it’s worth comparing builds before and after that
Try adding a router and running your Ether Dreams in DHCP mode
Try a different network adapter - the quality can vary quite a lot between models
Try another piece of software (e.g. LaserShowGen or the MadLaser free version) just to see if the issue is specific to Liberation
If any of those make a difference, let me know.
Also just as a heads-up - I’m currently finishing a complete rewrite of all the laser controller code (Ether Dream, Helios, etc.) as part of my new open source library, Libera:
It’s a big change, but it should make DAC code easier to manage in future. If you’re still seeing problems, I’d be very interested to get you testing a build with the new code.
(BTW, internally there shouldn’t be any difference between no clips running and an empty clip running, so I suspect that part is just coincidence.)
Thanks again for the detailed report - I’m sure we can get to the bottom of it.