1st Kronos freeze in live performance!!

ashboe · Post by **ashboe** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:05 pm

Had a nightmare matinee set yesterday. A very heavily sequenced musical ground to a bit of a halt when the Kronos froze moving from one sequence to another using a switch pedal. Never had the issue (had it a fair bit using the M3 which is why I moved to Kronos). The 2 min 20 secs load time were an absolute age!! Lucky the cast had a bit of dialogue and the presence to continue, but managed to restart only seconds before the 'big' sequence of the first half.

Can't replicate it, so much have been just unlucky!

slowtrain · Post by **slowtrain** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:09 pm

I'm sorry you had to go through that. Have you thought about getting a UPS? Like this one: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00095W91O
I'm not sure what a good size would be, but I've heard good things about using them with unstable power.

danmusician · Post by **danmusician** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:13 pm

I never play out with out a UPS. A few months ago, I forgot to take it with me. Thankfully, nothing went wrong, but now I always check to be sure it have it before I leave...

psionic311 · Post by **psionic311** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:16 pm

Sorry to hear about your ordeal there... 2 and half minutes is a long time under pressure live. Probably the only way to get out of a frozen Kronos is to reboot.

However, I'd also recommend a good UPS, not just to save your Kronos from reloading due to a power fluctuation, but also because it can give you cleaner and more stable power. It could have been a power glitch that contributed to your Kronos freezing.

Bertotti · Post by **Bertotti** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 2:07 pm

Mine has locked up once and several times it would hang on a piercing quell when switching to different combos and or programs always the same combos and programs.
I opened the bad girl up reseated the ram checked all connections tightened the whole things back up paying particular attention to keeping the keyed squared up and centered then bought a UPS. No problem has ever come back in over 18 months.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 3:41 pm

If the OS freezes on a certain action, there's no UPS that would solve that issue, really, that's up to the OS. UPS would just counter voltage overs/unders, which could lead to blown fuse and/or Kronos restarting out of the blue. Two different things there.

I'm not saying one shouldn't use an UPS (it's always a good thing), but that solves only a part of all the possible issues in a complex software system that Kronos is.

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 4:12 pm

This thread reminded me, now that I am about to start gigging again, to order a UPS for the Kronos

I went for this one, which seemed a good price. Ultimately you don't need it to hold power for too long, just stop the temporary dropouts, brownouts, surges and glitches so even if it held power for just a few minutes that's fine. I went for APC as we used to use them in work and never had trouble with any of them.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002RX6NY0/r ... 71_TE_item

I was a little unnerved through the other day, I had my first big crash on the Kronos whilst practising whilst playing a sequence, and the only option was a reboot. The message (I forgot what it was) implied an internal error that was caught. I can only hope that they are rare, and maybe that this event was the result of a power glitch corrupting some memory? But I'll never know. A UPS of course will remove the risk of it being caused by power issues.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 4:41 pm

I have that same one except with euro sockets. It's been super reliable and I can also easily run the Kronos for 30mins to check some sounds before there is power or to line check at a festival before going on (which usually means disconnecting power again).

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 5:54 pm

SanderXpander wrote:I have that same one except with euro sockets. It's been super reliable and I can also easily run the Kronos for 30mins to check some sounds before there is power or to line check at a festival before going on (which usually means disconnecting power again).

Sounds like I made a good choice then. 30 minutes is more than enough!

HangoverIan · Post by **HangoverIan** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:11 pm

Derek, I went for the slightly less powerful 400VA version simply on the grounds that it weighs less. Every gram counts these days!

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 6:21 pm

It's pretty heavy, true!

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 7:16 pm

HangoverIan wrote:Derek, I went for the slightly less powerful 400VA version simply on the grounds that it weighs less. Every gram counts these days!

The 400VA was actually more expensive!

I am used to lugging 25KG of Yamaha EX5 about!

aron · Post by **aron** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:10 am

The UPS does not stop a bug. It just prevents the keyboard from turning off when losing power. I guess a line conditioner might help, but this sequence problem could be anything. A bug or ???? Hard to tell. That long load time can be stressful for sure!

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:49 pm

aron wrote:The UPS does not stop a bug. It just prevents the keyboard from turning off when losing power. I guess a line conditioner might help, but this sequence problem could be anything. A bug or ???? Hard to tell. That long load time can be stressful for sure!

For sure

. but a UPS will remove the risk of bugs being caused my memory corruption or program operation due to power glitches.