What happened? HX Edit or a coincidence?

[codamedia]

I have an LT... most of the time I just edit on the device itself and I never have any issues. 

 

Yesterday I opened up HX Edit and encountered a problem. After 5 - 10 minutes of editing. one of my presets lost all of it's snapshot settings and any changes to snapshot controllers were sticking across ALL snapshots, not just the ones I was editing. I couldn't do anything to regain control of the patch. Thankfully, I always have a safety copy of everything I am working on (plus backups) so I copied the safety over, started over, and had no issues completing what I needed to do. 

 

But what happened? Has anyone else encountered something like this? Does HX Edit act up on occasion potentially corrupting a preset or was my use of HX Edit pure coincidence? 

 

The Helix has been rock solid and stable, last nights gig was no different. I'm not implying any "stability issues" at all with this post - I'm just hoping to find out what caused this glitch while editing. 

 

EDIT TO ADD: I know this question will come up so I'll address it now... both the LT and HX Edit are running the same versions... 2.80  (..........................    just kidding,.. 2.71)

 

 

[DunedinDragon]

I can't say I've ever experienced any problems with HX Edit similar to what you experienced..or any at all for that matter.  But like you I rarely use it for editing, and when I do I'm extremely diligent about making "saves" to the preset I'm editing.  By saves I mean making the changes permanent on the Helix hardware the same as pressing the hardware Save button.

[rd2rk]

Sub-atomic particles from deep space are constantly bombarding earth. They pass right through most substances with unknown effect.

They are likely the cause of the old saying - "$h1t happens". ;-)

[codamedia]

22 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

"$h1t happens". ;-)

 

I'm a firm believer of this... especially with anything regarding cars or computers :) 

 

57 minutes ago, DunedinDragon said:

By saves I mean making the changes permanent on the Helix hardware the same as pressing the hardware Save button.

 

I certainly save all the time, especially since I "discard" snapshots. If I don't save things from snap to snap they get lost. 

That said... I only hit "save" in HX Edit when I am working there. Maybe I should be using the "save button" on the unit instead when using HX Edit. 

[Verne-Bunsen]

I recently encountered an issue where my Helix was randomly and frequently forgetting all controller assignments, everything controlled by a footswitch or expression pedal. It was not in conjunction with using HX Edit, but it sounds like a pretty similar kind of glitchiness. I worked with Tech Support and ended up doing a full reset, re-installing the firmware and then re-building all of my patches from scratch to avoid potentially re-importing the problem. It was a nightmare while it was going on and a pain in the rear to get it resolved, but it has not happened since.....

[jmp22684]

This is extremely frustrating. Unit is up to date, drivers are up to date, hx edit is up to date, patches have been rebuilt, unit has been reset, etc... It's been done.

 

 

 

I have this kind of stuff happen A LOT! To the point that editing patches I just sort of expect it and have to check and double check that everything works. I have my set list always saved, backed up, and then duplicated in the helix on another set list slot so that when the entire patch goes wonky I can just copy and paste it from another set list. 

 

Things like... if I move a distortion block in path A while on snapshot 1 the send/return block will be off on snapshot 3 and then suddenly off again when I switch back to snapshot 1.

 

And this one is really fun!:

 

I use an expression pedal to control a volume block at the VERY end of ALL patches. It's generally always at 69% (because our sound guy said that was a good number for some reason), with a minimum of 20%. It works as my just in-case $hit happens. Well... edit a patch, pack up my rig and PA,  drive to gig, setup, play and suddenly in the middle of the second set the guitar is SCREAMING through the amp and PA and in ear monitors and EVERYONE is shooting me "I'm going to f*ckn kill you" looks.... I look down... hmmmm... why is my volume block OFF?!?! It's never off... this is the kinda stuff you lose work over and this is the only thing I do for a living so... kinda bothersome.

 

Oh Its off for the same reason the send/return block is off.... I happened to move a completely different block on the same path.

 

This stuff happens almost 100% of the time. And while I'd love to get it taken care of... the helix is at the center of my rig and I could only do this if I knew 100% that I could ship it Monday and it would be back at my door the same Thursday so I could play my gigs.

 

At this point... I'm waiting until I can duplicate gear for backup and this will be one of those items I'll just need to own two of.

[DunedinDragon]

53 minutes ago, jmp22684 said:

This is extremely frustrating. Unit is up to date, drivers are up to date, hx edit is up to date, patches have been rebuilt, unit has been reset, etc... It's been done.

 

 

 

I have this kind of stuff happen A LOT! To the point that editing patches I just sort of expect it and have to check and double check that everything works. I have my set list always saved, backed up, and then duplicated in the helix on another set list slot so that when the entire patch goes wonky I can just copy and paste it from another set list. 

 

Things like... if I move a distortion block in path A while on snapshot 1 the send/return block will be off on snapshot 3 and then suddenly off again when I switch back to snapshot 1.

 

And this one is really fun!:

 

I use an expression pedal to control a volume block at the VERY end of ALL patches. It's generally always at 69% (because our sound guy said that was a good number for some reason), with a minimum of 20%. It works as my just in-case $hit happens. Well... edit a patch, pack up my rig and PA,  drive to gig, setup, play and suddenly in the middle of the second set the guitar is SCREAMING through the amp and PA and in ear monitors and EVERYONE is shooting me "I'm going to f*ckn kill you" looks.... I look down... hmmmm... why is my volume block OFF?!?! It's never off... this is the kinda stuff you lose work over and this is the only thing I do for a living so... kinda bothersome.

 

Oh Its off for the same reason the send/return block is off.... I happened to move a completely different block on the same path.

 

This stuff happens almost 100% of the time. And while I'd love to get it taken care of... the helix is at the center of my rig and I could only do this if I knew 100% that I could ship it Monday and it would be back at my door the same Thursday so I could play my gigs.

 

At this point... I'm waiting until I can duplicate gear for backup and this will be one of those items I'll just need to own two of.

This is the kind of stuff that totally mystifies me.  I'm coming up on 4 years with my Helix and have well over 200 presets I've built, and I have yet to lose one or have problems during the editing, building or performance of my presets.  Granted I don't go crazy with tons of snapshots or stomps, and I only assign effects blocks to stomps if I need to use them during the course of the song... and maybe that's it.  Since I have a preset per song they tend to stay pretty simple with no more than 3 snapshots and a couple of stomps.  Other than that I really do most, if not all of my editing on the Helix itself.  And I do constantly export my individual presets and restore them when I'm getting them ready for a gig each week.  So maybe some of that process has saved me from this anguish, but I can't explain why I've never run into these types of problems.

[rd2rk]

6 minutes ago, DunedinDragon said:

This is the kind of stuff that totally mystifies me.  I'm coming up on 4 years with my Helix and have well over 200 presets I've built, and I have yet to lose one or have problems during the editing, building or performance of my presets.  Granted I don't go crazy with tons of snapshots or stomps, and I only assign effects blocks to stomps if I need to use them during the course of the song... and maybe that's it.  Since I have a preset per song they tend to stay pretty simple with no more than 3 snapshots and a couple of stomps.  Other than that I really do most, if not all of my editing on the Helix itself.  And I do constantly export my individual presets and restore them when I'm getting them ready for a gig each week.  So maybe some of that process has saved me from this anguish, but I can't explain why I've never run into these types of problems.

 

I've occasionally run into seemingly inexplicable behavior, and a couple of presets have somehow become corrupted but for the most part, HX Edit has worked well for me. It's also not clear whether the problems are with HX Edit or with Helix itself. I use MIDI through Command Center a lot, and I KNOW there are a LOT of problems in that area, whether programming with HX Edit OR on the box itself.

 

Hoping for improvements all around with 2.8.

 

Open! Open! Open! :-)

[jmp22684]

I don't know if it's a glitch because my patches are extremely old. 

 

Edits come from a change in equipment, or cleaning things up here and there. For the most part they're pretty simple: deluxe comp > teemah! > chorus > effects loop > delay > gain (boost) > volume pedal

 

I don't know.

[codamedia]

16 hours ago, jmp22684 said:

This stuff happens almost 100% of the time. And while I'd love to get it taken care of... the helix is at the center of my rig and I could only do this if I knew 100% that I could ship it Monday and it would be back at my door the same Thursday so I could play my gigs.

 

Maybe it's just me... but if I had a piece of gear that was malfunctioning 100% of the time I wouldn't have it centering anything. THE END!

It sounds to me like your Helix is faulty. I'd be identifying and fixing the problem before going any further with it. 

 

As I stated in my opening post... my Helix is stable. The only time I had any issue with it (besides my own case of user error) was when I had it connected to HX Edit which is why I am here :) 

[jmp22684]

Well that's when I have the issue is during edit. And mine is WAY out of warranty and in no financial position, due to a few life events all happening at the same time, to replace or pay for repair.

 

So long as I catch the issue before I go out... as a daily driver it's relatively reliable. Though the other day I had it freeze up on me for the first time since I got it. This unit was bought used from guitar center when there was a waiting list after the first batch of helix's sold out. So I would bet this is from one of the first batches of units shipped. So there's definitely no warranty service available for me.

[codamedia]

5 hours ago, jmp22684 said:

Well that's when I have the issue is during edit....

....So long as I catch the issue before I go out... as a daily driver it's relatively reliable.

 

That is very different from how your first post in this thread sounded.... you made it seem like it was failing you all the time in a live setting. 

 

If I now read you correctly.... the issue is that you are not catching the problems until you are live. Why you don't notice until you are live is a different discussion, but it is interesting that you appear to be having a similar problem with HX Edit. That's the first time I've encountered it, but I also don't use HX Edit very often.