Read a fixture's report

The report is everything the fixture says about itself over RDM, in the order a repair goes: who it is, whether anything is wrong, then the detail behind that. Read the rating at the top and the Device state section first. Most of the time the answer is in one of them.

Taking a report

Select the fixture in the sidebar and open the Report tab. A report is taken when the fixture is first found. Take a fresh one after changing something with Fixture → Take Snapshot (⌘S) (macOS). Fixture → Scan All Fixtures takes one of every unit on the line.

Each report is kept in the bench’s captures folder, so the next visit can be compared with this one (Fixture → Compare with Previous Visit…).

The header

The fixture’s name, its label and software version, its counters (device hours, lamp hours and strikes, power cycles) and one rating for the whole unit: OK, WARNING or ERROR. The rating is the worst of the fixture’s own status messages and its sensors measured against their limits.

When the brand reads brand by UID, the fixture did not give its manufacturer’s name. The name shown is the one ESTA registered for the first part of its UID.

Came in for

Under the header, Came in for is what the customer says is wrong: wrong colors, flickers, doesn’t follow the desk, won’t home or moves wrong, overheats or shuts off, dim or no output, or answers on the wrong channels. Choose one or more from its menu. The report then opens with a Came in for section that lists, for each complaint, the lines further down that explain it, with where each one is. Nothing is hidden: every line in it is also in its own section.

When nothing the fixture reports explains a complaint, the section says so, and says what RDM cannot see. For flicker that is usually the cable, the termination or a ground loop, which is the cue to stop looking at the fixture and look at the line (see Line faults).

The complaint is kept with the unit as a repair note against the report on screen, so its next visit opens with it too. Choose Clear Complaint from the menu once it no longer applies.

From the command line, rdmbench-cli snapshot --symptom flickers reads a report for that complaint and files it, and --symptom can be given more than once. rdmbench-cli note 4D50:0A1B2C3D --symptom dim sets the complaint for that unit without taking a report, and --clear-symptoms clears it.

Device state

Things that make a working fixture look dead or broken: a shipping lock, a power state other than normal, a preset playing back, or the fixture identifying right now. These sit near the top because they explain a symptom rather than record one. Identify is rated OK, since you may have just turned it on.

What each of these means, and what to do about it, is in A working fixture that looks broken. A count of bad frames on the fixture’s DMX input is listed here too, and points at the cable before the fixture (see Corrupt frames: check the line).

Notes from discovery also sit here. A proxy (a splitter or gateway) may have answered for the fixture, so what follows may be the proxy’s copy of its state. The unit may itself be a proxy, with the fixtures behind it listed as their own units, or one port of a unit with several.

Some models are known to report something wrong. Where the bench has that model’s profile, this section reads the value the right way round and says what the model gets wrong, who observed it and how. The stored reading is never changed.

Sensors

Every sensor the fixture reports: temperatures, voltages, fan speeds. Each shows its value, the normal range and full range the fixture declares, and the lowest and highest it has seen. A reading outside its normal range is flagged.

Fixtures report temperatures in °C. To see them in °F, open Settings (⌘,) (macOS) and choose Temperatures under Display. A saved report keeps what the fixture reported, so it shows in whichever unit is chosen when it is opened.

DMX configuration

The DMX start address, the personality (the fixture’s word for its mode) and how many channels it takes. The Channels list is what each channel does in this personality, from the fixture’s own slot table.

A wrong address or the wrong personality is often the whole fault: a fixture showing the wrong colors with no error code is usually patched on the desk in a different mode from the one it is in. Compare the channel list with the desk’s patch (see Wrong colors: check the patch). Where the bench has GDTF files, this section also says what a desk calls this mode (see Find a fixture’s desk mode).

Status messages

The fixture’s own faults and warnings, in words: the standard’s for standard messages, and the fixture’s own description for the ones its maker defined.

Changed at the device

Settings changed at the fixture’s front panel since the line last asked. In practice, this is a record of what the last person to touch the unit did.

Further down

• Sub-devices: modules inside the unit that answer for themselves, each with its own rating. A module with status reporting switched off, or set to report errors only, is said under it: its faults, or its warnings, are missing from the status messages, which is not evidence that it is healthy.
• Self-test: the tests the fixture can run on itself, if any, and any it reports as running, failed or finished with a result. A failed test is the fixture’s own verdict on itself.
• Device details: serial number, product category and details, the maker’s web addresses, and other identifying details.
• Parameters: every parameter the fixture supports, standard and manufacturer-specific, for digging deeper.
• Text that is not printable ASCII: shown only when the fixture sent stray bytes in its text, with what came off the wire. That is a firmware fault, not a fault in the unit.
• Problems during read: anything the fixture did not answer. A required parameter it ignores is listed here.

From the command line

rdmbench-cli snapshot prints the same report for the first fixture found, or for the UID given. --json prints it as the document the app reads, and --sim runs it against the simulator with no hardware.

To light the fixture while you read it, see Send DMX.