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R4 Sluggish Feedback

TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
in NetLinx Studio
Greetings,

I have been working quite a bit with R4s lately. I have noticed that feedback display can be quite sluggish.

I have scenario where the R4 is told to turn off feedback for a single button and turn on feedback for another. It takes four seconds for the feedback to change. During the lag time though, buttons on the R4 can be pressed and their programmed events occur immedately as expected. I have the R4 in a device array with an MVP8400 and the feedback changes as expected on the 8400.

I have been watching all of the in-use ports on the R4 in notifications and there appears to be no other traffic other than the feedback change that I am observing.

Has anyone had similar experiences?

Does anyone know of a way to look more deeply into R4 communications to further troubleshoot?

Thanks.

Comments

  • bcirrisibcirrisi Posts: 148
    Ohh Yaa... I have a couple of R4s that slow down and become very sluggish in the field. Everything is done to spec with the Comm_Module, and ZigBee channels (no repeaters) but every now and then they slow down. If I reboot them, they seem to speed up for a little while, then they eventually slow down. The only answer I have gotten from AMX is, "don't send it too much information"

    I tried a ton of things and got no-where. There never seemed to be a common factor that made them slow down. My most recent theory is that it is something in the R4 guts geeks out every now and then. But, I have noticed that it is happening less with newest ones I have in the field.

    Brian
  • mpullinmpullin Posts: 949
    R4s are slow in general. You have to know if you will have R4s in your program at the outset, you can't just stick them in an array with other touchpanels and expect them to work. They appear to process ICSP packets very slowly, so treat every channel change and line of text as though it were currency. Keep track of what page your R4s are on, and only adjust channels / send text if it will be relevant to the current page or a nearby page.

    Remember, you're battling against the client's expectation that this will work as quickly and effectively as an old-fashioned IR remote control AND give up to the second information like a touchpanel. So you have to compensate by making your programming as efficient as possible. Some kind of queuing takes place in the network, so that if you send too many packets to the remote, it may appear to lock up for several seconds. Check the notifications in NetLinx Studio to make sure you're not sending too much stuff to your R4s.

    I find the AMX Queuing module doesn't help very much, so I don't use it.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    It's not just a matter of slowness. I think they just plain miss variable text commands sometimes. With no other traffic at all, I've sen displays not update where the exact code updates an 8400 on the same system just fine. I've been taking to sending text fields to them twice - not something you would want to do on a busy system at all.
  • TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
    In my case, the queing module made no change, I think it may have even slowed it down a bit.

    What I find is that button presses on the R4 trigger their events imediately. However, feedback on the R4 can hang for several seconds.

    I have watched in notifications. There is no other traffic except that which I am aware of. Still my feedback is slow, but my button events get right through.
  • TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
    The latest ZigBee firmware helped quite a bit.
  • robswidrobswid Posts: 14
    R4 FB and page tracking fix

    Please try and turn page tracking on, then reboot. I have experienced this same issue where FB takes a few seconds to respond or responds immediately after executing any command to remote. It is like the remote is queing the FB until another command is received. Don't ask me why the page tracking trick works, but is solves my issue. You may have to turn page tracking back off, then reboot if you do not see any results. Re-downloading tp4 changes to the R4 may cause you to redo the entire process. This has been an issue from day one with me and all I know is flipping the state of page tracking somehow clears the FB issue. Please post if this fixes your issue.
  • TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
    robswid wrote: »
    Please try and turn page tracking on, then reboot.

    Very interesting! Thanks.

    What version of Zigbee and R4 firmware are you running?

    I will try your trick tonight.
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