Problem setting Velleman Control Offline/Online with command

[Havenstad FM]

Hi Bernd,

This is the situation:
Because we use two pc's with PFOA which might be used simultaneously i want the Velleman Control to be online only on the system that is actively used by the dj. That gives us the possibility to use one PFOA to play the nonstop broadcasting program (routed directly to the transmitter) while the other pc is running PFOA connected to the external mixer and responding to the start/stop signals from that mixer.

That is why i put the GPIO_START_VELLEMANSERVER command in the OnUserLogin event and the GPIO_STOP_VELLEMANSERVER command in the OnUserLogoff event. This seemed to work perfectly. Only the system with a logged in user will respond to the Start/Stop signals from the external mixer.

Only in the case where i start PFOA with the following commandline:

ProppFrexx ONAIR.exe -usbReg -config <local config path> -globalconfig <global config path> -streaming stop -scheduler stop -slave

the OnUserLogin command is fired, but the Velleman Server is still not connected. Can you verify and perhaps fix this?

My guess is the Velleman server is not running at the time the login window is presented, because with the -scheduler stop argument the login is presented in the beginning of the start process while the -scheduler start argument will first start up PFOA, read in the media libraries, create a playlist and then finally shows the login window.

With kind regards,

Jack Reitsema
ITC Havenstad.FM

[radio42]

Guess there is nothing to fix.
The problem seems that the Velleman card can only be used actively by one application at a time.

Not sure what you mean by Velleman Server?
Is that your server. Or do you mean the ProppFrexx GPIO Server?

If you mean the GPIO Server. Just activate the Velleman Server by default on startup. That should do the job?!

[Havenstad FM]

Hi Bernd,

This is our studio setup:

Studio_Setup.png (138.12 KiB) Viewed 5624 times

Our axum mixer is connected thru 2 Velleman K8055 kits to both computers. The Start/Stop signals are send to both computers. If both PFOA's are running i want just one of them to react to the Start/Stop signals. The only thing that is certain on both PFOA's is that in only one of them a user will be logged in. The other pc is running the scheduled playlists unattended.

Therefore i chose the OnUserLogin/OnUserLogoff event to activate the GPIO_START_VELLEMANSERVER/GPIO_STOP_VELLEMANSERVER commands. If i activate the GPIO Velleman Server by default on startup both systems will react to the Start/Stop signals.

Kind regards,

Jack Reitsema
ITC Havenstad.FM

[radio42]

And what if you use the OnMaster/OnSlave events?

The issue is, that the GPIO Ext. Service application is always started asynchronously in the background, so it can never be 100% guaranteed, that it is already started when a certain event at startup occurs.

[Havenstad FM]

Hi Bernd,

Ah, that thought never occurred to me, but indeed, if i use the commandline options -master or -slave the corresponding OnMaster/OnSlave events will fire as well. I will give it a try (don't hold your breath, i won't be in the studio 'til later this week).

Thanks and greetz,

Jack Reitsema
ITC Havenstad.FM

[radio42]

Let me explain, why OnUserLogin will never work:

When starting up ProppFrexx and you have UAC enabled, a valid user is needed to initially start ProppFRexx, e.g. to restore the layout, to load certain user config settings or to eval the user rights a user is needed!
This user must be available BEFORE the config is evaluated and the GPIO Ext. Service is started!

In case you auto start the scheduler, the provided 'Default' user from Scheduler options is used initially!
But when you do NOT auto start the scheduler, the user login must manually be selected beforehand all other settings are loaded/started.

That is why in your case (NO auto start of the scheduler) the 'OnUserLogin' event will be triggered BEFORE the GPIO Ext. Service is started - as in this case the login MUST happen before.

[Havenstad FM]

Hi Bernd,

That is exactly what i meant in my first mail's guess. (I wrote about the Velleman server, but i meant the GPIO server)

Very well, i managed to solve the problem by writing a powershell script to start PFOA. I first start the GPIO Client with the Velleman set to connect at startup. In the global setup of PFOA i removed the GPIO Client.exe, but left the GPIO Server enabled.

Then i start PFOA with -scheduler stop and now, although the 'OnUserLogin' event fires before the GPIO Server is started, the Velleman will be connected as soon as the GPIO Server is running. And when i logoff/logon again the commands in the OnUserLogon/OnUserLogoff events will correctly disconnect/reconnect the Velleman connection.

This seems to work the way we want it to work. More extensive testing will take place in the coming weeks as i will be instructing our dj's to work with PFOA. But i am confident that we made the right choice for PFOA.

BTW, i tried to start the GPIO Client with the -config commandline argument, but it is not working. Are there any options when starting the GPIO Client?

With kind regards,

Jack Reitsema
ITC Havenstad.FM