WO6 Show directory error

[BTSpy]

So i just thought i'd post up something we came across and try and find some answers to avoid this in future..

 

Here's a couple of pictures and a summary relating to the watchout issue we faced last week,

 

So we had a working show file, after our content builder had sat down with the client and made further changes (Text changes, inserting new videos ect) he had a signed off show.

 

After he shut down the machine to bring it into the venue from the production office on site and upload the show file to the servers, when trying to open the Watchout show file we got this error.

 

 

 

But when you relate this to the file path in windows you get :

 

 

 

 

Somehow it's saved it under a wrong path, all the backward slashes which windows uses have all been changed to forward slashes, the only way we got around this was to reload an autosaved version of the file from about 6 hours earlier and make those changes again.

 

Unfortunately you can't just create a new .watch file as all the data for positions and content on the timeline are stored in the .watch file so you end up with a blank show.

 

Anyone else faced this before?

 

Cheers

 

 

[jfk]

Those two screenshots appear to both show the same file name and path,

but they are expressed using different naming conventions.

i.e. WATCHOUT does not use Windows attached drive file and path naming conventions internally,

it uses UNC (Universal Naming Convention or Uniform Naming Convention). 

If you look in the media window you will see all file locations are shown in UNC format.

Microsoft uses UNC to specify the location of other resources such as shared files or devices.

There are no backslashes used in WATCHOUT's internal implementation of UNC,

they are converted into UNC format.

i.e. stop looking at the file name and path and start looking for windows file access or other issues.

[Mike Fahl]

While Jim is correct that those paths refer to the same file, this doesn't explain the problem you experienced. Nor does the error message you referred to say much. What was the actual problem you had? Were you unable to open the show file? Was that error message the only result of attempting to open it? I've never seen such an error message as a result of opening a corrupt show file.

 

If the show file is indeed corrupt, you may be able to salvage a working show file from one of the display computers that were used to play the final run of the show (Jim can fill you in on the details here).

 

As a side note, the path format used in WATCHOUT isn't really the one Jim refers to, but a home-made unified path format I originally devised back in the days when WATCHOUT ran on both Macs (which use UNIX style file paths, with forwar slashes and no drive letter) and Windows. That format is what's used internally in WATCHOUT to this day, even though it hasn't worked on Macs for over a decade.

 

Mike

[Essam Ahmed]

we have little issue with the display servers WATCHPAX  which have four display output and the other which have 6 mini-display outputs the issue that:

Before that When powering the display server from the rack switch the server start up directly without pressing the front start Bush button, and also we were able to Power down and power up the server from Watchout show through remote control submenu, but now the server doesn’t startup directly when powered till press the start Bush button and We can’t power up the server from watch out show but only can power down.

Please advise.