SQ-6 can't (quite) overwrite an existing scene. Empty slots are fine

SQ SQ Troubleshooting
1

Hi. Per the topic title.

My SQ-6 is on FW 1.6.0.

The other night I went through a soundcheck and saved a bunch of scenes, about half of which were over some older existing ones.

All seemed normal… until, mid-show, I got to the first scene that had (supposedly) overwritten an old one. I got back everything (AFIKT) from the old scene… strip names, main mix, which FX were loaded, etc. It really seemed that only the scene names were updated.

The scenes that went into previously-empty slots recalled just fine.

There were no per-scene filters active. No cue lists, either.

The behavior continued later that day at another show, after a power cycle. Thankfully I’d figured out the pattern and saved things to a block of blank slots.

I suspect the unit’s scene storage is hopelessly confused by years of firmware updates, or something like that.

I’ve saved the show to a thumb drive. Before I factory wipe the desk and update the firmware to 1.6.3… can anyone think of a ‘good’ reason this might be happening, or anything else I should do to preserve the evidence if this is/should be a reportable bug?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

2

Global filters?

Have a look in the firmware manual and see what is physically stored in the scene and what is stored in the show.

EDIT: Scene Filters are stored in the scenes. Global Scene Filters are stored in the show.

Dave

3

I’m pretty sure that this isn’t being caused by either Global or Scene filters, at least not in an obvious way.

Reasons as follows:

  1. Scenes that do work (ie, ones saved to empty slots) recall just what I want (strip names, main mix, FX assignments, etc).

  2. Scenes that don’t work (those saved to previously-used slots) also recall just what I want… except for the not-so-minor detail that the recalled data is of the old scene.

  3. There are no scene recall filters on any of the scenes involved… the scene manager GUI isn’t showing anything other than a checkmark symbol (as opposed to the ‘filter’ icon) next to the scene name.

I do have a few mixes & specific channels safe-d, but again, I get just what I want from a scene newly written into a blank slot, so I don’t think the safes or scene recall is the issue, at least, not if things are working as intended. If that logic is faulty, please let me know.

I think the problem lies with something interfering with the writing process, presumably due to some sort of data corruption.

I just wanted to check that there isn’t some new setting that I’m unaware of that somehow (silently??) write-protects a scene even if you say ‘yes’ to the overwrite warning. Seems unlikely.

I’ve filed an issue with A&H and sent them my show file… I was just being impatient and was hoping for early feedback from the group.

I’ll report back with the resolution either way.

Thanks!

4

Hello!

Are you really sure, that you actually overwrote the scenes?

What has always puzzled me about the saving process on A&H consoles is that you can give a name to an empty scene without actually saving the parameters.
The same applies when overwriting – in that case, there’s no visual indicator (green tick) either, as the contents of the old scene are still present.

Kind regards,

HP

5

OK, so I just wrote back to Alex @ A&H support and 'fessed up. Might as well do so here, as well ;-(

I’d just gone through the ‘bug’ scenario and written up some steps to reproduce, and made a video.

Then I watched the video to make sure what I’d written was accurate. Oops.

As you’d suspected, when I thought I was “overwriting” existing scenes, I wasn’t. I was really just renaming them.

With an empty scene selected, the act of naming it and hitting OK really does save it, with no additional action required.

But on an old scene, you need to rename it and then also hit Store, where you’ll get the overwrite warning. I was systematically skipping that step.

Not sure if the ‘rename’ workflow has changed recently, but somehow I’ve gone 10+ years on the Qu and SQ without ever being bitten by this mistake, and I’ve overwritten hundreds of scenes. Then suddenly, I did it a dozen times in a row. And posted it on the Interweb ;0)

Luckily, the scenes I’d chosen to overwrite were not massively different from the ones I’d intended to save. They were both vocal shows using a similar board layout, and the new act happened to be smaller than the old one.

When I recalled the bogus scenes mid-show, the results weren’t embarrassing, just confusing. Lost some EQ tweaks and song-specific FX, but I had good notes and just mixed it by hand once I figured out what was up. Could have been a lot worse.

Egad, sorry for the distraction!

Tony

6

It’s very kind and helpful that you’re admitting it here anyway, thus helping others avoid making the same mistake.

Perhaps it’s also partly due to a recurring inconsistency, since Shows (left in the image) and Library entries (center) have an extra “Overwrite” button.
And I wonder if there’s a good reason why Scenes only have a “Store” button instead of “Store New” and “Overwrite”…

sqrs
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Differently and, in my opinion, more logically is it in the “Mixing Station” app:
If a scene slot is empty, there’s only a “New” button.
Only if a slot is already occupied, there’s “Overwrite” (and of course Load, Delete, and Rename).

7

You’re not the first person to be baffled by the confusing logic, and you won’t be the last…

:wink:

8

That said, the absence of an “Overwrite” button must serve a more meaningful purpose; after all, even on more expensive consoles (including the dLive) there is only the single, shared “Store” button, whereas on the CQ, “Overwrite” is present - and, sensibly enough, even grayed out for empty scene slots. )

cqow
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9

I have NEVER trusted this feature from day 1.

I always enter a scene name then (separately) SAVE the scene. Belt and braces!

I have also configured the desk to ask for all of the annoying confirmation boxes to make sure it is doing what I ask of it!

Full marks for filling in what the problem was in the end though!

Dave

10

I usually happen to hit ‘save’ on a renamed/reused scene right away, and often thereafter, but not always, on a new one. Sort of a muscle-memory thing, but apparently that memory is fallible ;0(

On the night in question, sound was running behind schedule, and I was typing up the scene names after each song’s sound check was done, instead of ahead of time and (as is my habit) ‘saving’ several times as the mix evolves. I do that because a mistake I have made repeatedly is to space out and move on to the next song without saving a scene at all.

I doubt it will happen again, but I do think the UI could make it a lot more difficult to screw up the way I did.

One approach would be to add at least one more button to the main screen and grey things out as appropriate. Like the CQ’s UX team decided to do, apparently.

It could also be handled in the “Are you Sure” dialog box afterwards… it could have three choices instead of two: “Rename Only”, “Save and Rename”, and “Cancel”.

Even better, IMO… give us those three choices right inside the text edit box where you change the scene name… there seems to be plenty of room for it, and that’s the only place where the various ‘rename’ scenarios are relevant.

Either way, I think if you’ve changed the mix and the name of the currently selected scene, enable “Rename Only” and “Save and Rename”. If only the name differs, grey out “Save and Rename”. If you’ve changed the mix but not the name, grey out the “Rename” button and call the second choice “Save Scene”.

You guys think that’s worth a feature request?