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Electronic Theatre Controls Inc

How to perform a P-ACP No Load or Abort Boot on your Paradigm Architectural Control Processor

Issue

After uploading a config to a PACP, it will no longer boot, either locking up after loading the config or rebooting itself repeatedly.

Explanation of Issue

It's possible the configuration uploaded to the PACP is corrupted, causing it to fail to boot or run incorrectly. As a troubleshooting step, you can perform an Abort Boot (aka No Load) on the processor to skip loading the potentially-corrupted config and allow you to upload a fresh one.

Solution

There are two methods for No Loading a P-ACP. The first method is the easiest:

  1. Power off the P-ACP.
  2. Power the P-ACP back on while holding down the (<) button until you see "Booting..." below the Paradigm logo. Shortly thereafter you should see "Load Suppressed" below the config loading progress bar, indicating that the processor is not attempting to load a configuration.
  3. The P-ACP will finish booting, showing the "Arch Config Failed to Load" error, and assign the last-used IP settings
  4. Proceed to load the config via USB/SD. If the problem persists, try again and reload an earlier version of the configuration.

The second method is more complicated and is outlined below:

  1. Using a Windows PC, right-click on the desktop and choose New -> Text Document.
  2. GIve it the name "PACP_NO_LOAD" without quotes, and delete the .txt extension
  3. You will see a Windows error which states "If you change a file name extension, the file might become unusable. Are you sure you want to change it?" Choose Yes.
  4. Place the newly created file onto the root of a USB drive.
  5. Insert the USB drive into port on the front of the P-ACP.
  6. Press the recessed reset button to the right of the USB port with a paperclip, pen, or similarly fine-tipped object.
  7. The P-ACP will reboot, and when finished booting will show "Arch Config Failed to Load", and assign the last-used IP settings.
  8. Proceed to load the config via USB/SD, or LightDesigner (only available to ETC Authorized Technicians
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Windows 10 userse will need to delete the .txt extension via Advanced Properties if "File name extensions" is not checked in their WIndows Explorer. Search "file extension" to find this option.

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