AR2412 Link Error - Digital Snake not working?

Qu Qu Troubleshooting
1

Hi,

We’ve been using our Qu-24 and AR2412 without any issues for 3 months now.
But last night, right before a show, in the middle of playing some music from an iPod, the sound dropped out of the mains.
Upon investigation, we noticed that it was still playing locally on the board, but the link/err light on the AR2412 snake was blinking yellow and nothing was getting to it.
We swapped the ethernet cable to no effect.
On the Qu24, there was nothing to indicated the stage box failure. It still listed the box as present and connected (little yellow DS in bottom right).

We ended up moving the board to the stage and running locally with XLRs. When we moved it back at the end of the night, the AR2412 linked up ok. But two nights later, same issue.

So I’m at a loss to figure out what to do or how to troubleshoot this further. There don’t seem to be any moving parts to fiddle with on the stage box. And there doesn’t seem to be a firmware procedure for it or any way to reset it.

I’m desparate. Any tips welcome. And if it’s a bad AR2412, how do I go about getting it dealt with?

Thanks

2

Email the A&H support team would be my first suggestion, no doubt Nicola will be along soon to contact you…

3

Heard fron a friend a similar issue, GLD-80 with AR2412 and official cat cable: ar2412 was running (fan was working) but connection light wasn’t illuminated, board tells connectivity error! I tell him to open a support ticket and send the logfile wheb he can repoduce it! A few power off/on cycles on the AR2412 fixed the problem… Might not be a cable issue! Software? He is running Qu-16 and GLD-80 dependend on the day with same AR2412!

4

I have found it advisable if not absolutely necessary to incorporate a high-quality on-line UPS for supplying power to mission critical digital gear. And my suspicions are that connectivity and power up/dowm sequence may factor into some transient failures.

Re-booting to “fix” computer problems should be ubiquitous at this point, and our digital consoles and stage boxes are essentially computers. Power cycling is the first thing to try in such cases before jumping to any conclusions about the gear itself. Such occurrences are likely situational rather than otherwise.

I have learned a TON about AC power in doing sound and learn more all the time. There is so much more to know than merely establishing proper grounding and voltage. Any venue can have hidden issues in their circuitry which can and will affect any connected gear.

The only way I know to alleviate the down-side of this is a good on-line UPS outputting pure sine wave power such as a Tripplite. Just beware of the models with loud fans…

5

@davidweb - sorry to hear you’ve experienced some problems, please could you send us an email to support@allen-heath.com so we can look into this for you.

6

So is this a case for occasionally plugging the AR into a GLD to have the unit firmware updated?

7

Makes the dSnake a pointless addition to the QU if that’s the case…

Is there a technical reason a QU couldn’t do a firmware update of an AR?

8

@dhak & @xapbob

I think there might be some misunderstanding here!

When an AR is connected to a GLD the AR firmware is ‘synchronised’ with the GLD’s mixer firmware. To all intents and purposes the ‘firmware’ that is sent to the AR (via the GLD) is irrelevant for Qu operation, it is GLD specific.

Accordingly you don’t need to ‘update’ an AR rack for use with the Qu series - it will work out of the box - and as such there is no benefit to be obtained by occasionally connecting an AR with a GLD if you only intend to use it with a Qu!

I hope that makes things a bit clearer but if not we’re happy to answer any further questions! :slight_smile:

9

So there’s something funky and “additional” that the GLD does.

There being no serious firmware to change on a device which does ADC → Ethernet and back again…

10

Hi there,
sorry for my bad english… i´m from germany.

i use a GLD-80 with an AR2412 and AR84 for a touring band doing FOH Sound and 5 Stereo InEarmixes from FOH.

This summer we play a lot of festivals in Germany.
One Day two weeks ago we go on stage with all our stuff, plug everything like every day but there was no connection to the AR2412. The fan was working, but no LEDs flashing on the front.
If i connect only the AR84, in less than a second there was a connection to the GLD. So the Cat5 Cable and the GLD were ok.

We changed power cables, power on, power off, changed power sources and so on on the AR2412…
But only the fan was still working.

It is very bad if you stay on stage, the crowd in front of the stage are going crazy because the band does not start their concert, the time is running, and today you have to mix the headliner of the festival and the band is the reason for all the people to come to the festival. Only because one most important thing, your AR2412, does not work your are near to a heart attack. And you can not change to the local mixing desk because you doing crazy things on the GLD (thats why i use and love it) and you can not transfer this in a short time to the local mixing desk.
So you have to think about the fine if you can not play the concert.

Suddenly the AR2412 works, nobody knows why, no one takes his hands on it in this situation - but we could start a super fast Signal-Check, and start our concert with 30min delay.
The next week the AR2412 works with no single connection problem.

I had the same problem 3 monthes ago with another band, but there i had a lot of time before the show and it was not on tour - possible to switch on another desk. But there after 10min the AR2412 worked… and one day in my warehouse it does´t worked, in this moment i was busy so i give it no attention and after some minutes the AR2412 runs… and i did not worry about it…

But now i think, after three times, there is a bigger problem with it. The AR2412 is in service now by my local dealer and we got a brand new AR2412 Black for Backup to play the rest of your concerts for this season without fear.

Maybe the problem depends on the latest firmware update? I am very excited about what the problem is …

11

@yetiplanet - Sorry to hear about this, it does sound like there could have potentially been a hardware problem with your AR2412. A good service from our distributor should resolve this issue for you!

12

Hi theTovi. Did u solve the problem with the AR2412? I have exactly the same problem. How did u solve it?
Thanks for the help

13

I send the AR2412 to my local A&H dealer. The PCB Assy AR2412 PSU was replaced by the service. Now it runs. But now i have a second AR2412 for backup.

14

same here: I sent my AR2412 to my dealer, he replaced the PCB and now it works fine again!

15

somebody knows why the PCB fails?

16

Too many dancing unicorns can cause it to fail…

17

Hello! greetings from Peru. I have an Allen Heat QU32 and it’s been about two months since I installed the dSnake Allen Heat AR2412. Everything was working fine, until one night there was no sound anymore. The next day I checked everything, the QU32 console works perfectly, but I noticed that on the screen, in the lower right part, the yellow dS figure did not appear, indicating that the console is connected to the dSnake… The AR2412 turns on normal, it emits the lights, but the QU32 console does not recognize it, and therefore, I have no audio input or output… How do I solve this problem? Thank you.

18

Try another cable, if possible bring the AR2412 to the mixer and use a shot jumper.

Does this get connected and unconnected a lot?

How old is the QU32, what firmware version is it running?

19

Hello @Arnolex,

As Mike suggests, try another Cat5e (Or higher) cable, make sure this is STP cable.
Make sure you are on the latest Firmware version for QU V1.97, if not, please update.

If you have access to another QU console or another AR/AB rack, troubleshoot connecting devices to identify where the fault resides.
Example:
Connect another rack to the console, if this works, then we can confirm that the console and its dSnake port are working fine, if this second rack fails then the problem might be in the QU unit.
Connect your AR2412 to another QU or SQ console, if this works, then we can confirm that the rack is not the problem, if it fails then it is likely that the rack has a hardware issue.

If you need further assistance, feel free to contact A&H Support team at: Support@allen-heath.com
For servicing your failing unit (After identifying which one is failing), please contact your nearest A&H distributor partner: https://www.allen-heath.com/where-to-buy/

Cheers,
Rafael

20

Any chance you can share the power down/power up sequence? I think I’m having the same issues you are. Thanks!