what cause my surface geometry to change?

[Jacob Keough-Mishler]

2 Epson projectors blended across a 3-plane wall to make one (2048x768) surface. 

Mac Mini.

Thunderbolt 2 to HDMI adapters (x2)

HDMI port to local monitor

Several times now the geometry has been wrong when I fire everything up and play the test screen cue. Reboots of QLAB have fixed the issue twice, but today the problem persisted. With limited time to open the house, I just had to quickly remap the surface as best I could. Any thoughts on what could cause this behavior? 

I'll add the workspaces (original and today's edit) after the show... 

Thanks all!

[Mike Post]

One possibility is if your HDMI adapters don’t provide EDID, which is a way for the Mac to know what your projector is.  I see this often in cheaper VGA adapters.  If the Mac thinks it has a different projector than what was defined, it abandons it’s current arrangement and starts over which makes your surfaces invalid.

It could also be you’re pushing past the capability of the graphics on the Mini.  3 HDMI signals could be too much for it. I see unpredictable behavior in that situation too.

Hope that helps.

Mike Post

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[Jacob Keough-Mishler]

Thanks Mike,

The adapters do seems to be providing EDID; MacOS recognizes both projectors as "Epson PJ" and the arrangement in preferences has stayed consistent. 

Also, I had it wrong in the OP; the adapters are TB3 to HDMI, not TB2. It's a 2018 Mac mini with Intel UHD Graphics 630, 16GB RAM, and a 250GB SSD.  Per the Apple spec sheet: 

• Support for the following combination of maximum concurrent display setups:
  • Up to three displays:
    Two displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz connected via Thunderbolt 3 plus one display with 4096-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz connected via HDMI 2.0
  • Up to two displays:
    One display with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz connected via Thunderbolt 3 plus one display with 4096-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz connected via HDMI 2.0

The projectors are 1024 x 768 each and the monitor is 1920 x 1080, so I should be well within the graphics capabilities, yes? 

Looking at the workspaces here, inside the "ALL WALLS" surface I had to adjust the origin on both axes of both projectors significantly to achieve the edge blend. 

Any further thoughts on what's happening would be appreciated. Thanks! 

[Mike Post]

The only other thing that comes to mind is the order you turn things on.  There’s a difference of opinion here, but my rule of thumb is to turn on all peripherals (projectors et. al.) before I boot the Mac.  For me it seems to give the most stable context.

Mike Post

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<A DOLL'S HOUSE PART 2- 2_13_22 edit.qlab4><A DOLL'S HOUSE PART 2.qlab4>

[jimsta...@zoho.com]

I've recently had this sort of problem with my new(er) edit machine.

Actually closer to the problem mentioned in another thread, but they seem related and this thread has more responses.

"Multiple Video Projectors recognized in random order"

https://groups.google.com/g/qlab/c/36BTSwWetTc

This 2018 Intel MB Pro 15 came with various HDMI dongles. 2 Tripp-Lite HDMI and some no-name thing with VGA.

None of the cheap dongles would find the Focusrite USB audio device either, although it should work fine on a port labelled USB 3. Had to install an old Focusrite USB 1 driver.

Replaced the dodgy dongles with a single CalDigit TB3-MiniDock-HM like we use on the show computers. Fixed!

At US$150, not an expensive fix.

Jim

[Richard Williamson]

We yesterday had all of our surface origins change without warning while outputting to an X4 from an M1 Mac mini - very frustrating. I would much prefer Qlab to break the cues with a warning rather than change my surfaces setup in this situation 

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[Chris Ashworth]

Hi Richard,

We’ve heard isolated reports of this, and have never been able to get to the bottom of it — it’s not something that QLab is doing by design or intentionally. 

We have not been able to trace down a reliable cause, but the advice we have at the moment is to be 100% sure that everything in hardware is turned on and configured correctly before launching QLab 4.

You may find a benefit in using this tool before launching QLab to ensure that the external displays are configured the way you expect:

https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer

Best,

Chris