It find it unacceptable that when you update the firmware on the system it will change recall filters that you have previously set. This happens even if the scene is “locked” from changes or not. What recall filters the system changes from “blocked” to “allow” is “random” based on what the programmers might have changed behind the scenes in that update.
In essence, it means anytime there is a firmware update, you have to MANUALLY CHECK each and every scene that has a recall filter applied. You also have to remember what recall filters the scene is supposed to have because there is no warning or indication that the recall filter has changed. This means you have to take very good notes about what each scene recall filter is supposed to do and constantly compare those notes to what the system has randomly decided to “allow”.
If you fail to do this, you ARE GOING TO GET BURNED when you recall a scene during a show and it unexpectedly changed elements of the system that were previously blocked from recall.
A&H - either fix the problem, or add the ability to SAVE only certain elements of the system in a scene. By being able to save scenes this way, a user automatically builds in the “filters” and ensures things can’t be recalled that they don’t want to be recalled. This way I don’t have to rely on a “block” recall filter that is going to randomly get switched to “allow” during a firmware update because that element of the system was never saved in the scene to start with. You can’t recall what wasn’t saved in the first place.
I don’t currently use that feature often, but having used it on certain shows in the past, that is a BRUTAL oversight.
Theoretically, recall filters live in the show file, which should NOT be affected by the FW upgrade. +10000 votes - AH, please get this one done ASAP.
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Amen. Same thing for mixer config changes as discussed a lot of times.
Discussed and pleaded for to be addressed many times over the last years. Still a very valid point, but I do not have any slots left to vote this suggestion up. Which brings us to this now 18 months old “new” forum, that promised a lot but falls short the same way as the old iteration, when it comes to any sign of “being heard” by A&H as part of a community. Sad…
Yes please! This is absolutely overdue! Also had these cases, where seemingly random recall filters would vanish due to a firmware upgrade.
I am voting for this issue, because a reliable, predictable system is better than new features.
I also suspect that this issue extends beyond recall filters to (potentially) every other parameter of the system. It is my opinion that A&H programmers have made some “quick-and-dirty” (lazy) choices about data structures that are at the root of this type of problem. Putting in the work to fix this (potentially) systemic issue is important.
Here is an example of similar behavior: the South View settings. I had some shows that had been set with views for mix meters. When re-opened with a newer firmware version these show FX bus meters instead.
I suppose that something like this happened: The FX view was a new option (a good thing to have more choices). It makes logical sense to insert the new choice into the middle of the UI drop-down list, instead of putting it at the end. But the UI is ordering the options in the dropdown by the enumerated constants. So, to insert something into the list in the UI, the actual binary values of the parameters had to be changed. Now the same numerical value means a different thing in this firmware version. Old shows load with incorrect values. Someone either never considered this possibility, or decided not to put in the work to prevent these problems.
One way this could have been handled is that firmware 2.xx could:
- Recognize that the show file was created in firmware v1.9x
- Know that in 1.9x and earlier, a value of (for example) 0x1234 means “Mixes”
- Know that in 2.x “Mixes” is now represented by 0x1235
- When loading the show, translate 0x1234 to 0x1235 so it means the same thing.
- Do similar translations with specific rules for Every Single Parameter.
Another way that might have worked is to never change the meaning of a parameter. New options just get new numbers. The UI follows that (potentially strange) order, or else has other ways of deciding what order something is presented to the user.
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