Troubleshooting

No light on stage, a cue that plays back wrong, output that will not send.

Ordered by how often each thing turns out to be the answer.

The one command to reach for first

INSPECT FIXTURE 12
INSPECT FIXTURE 12 CAP intensity

INSPECT (alias WHY) prints the whole stack for one fixture - every layer that has an opinion about it, and which one won. Most of the questions below are answered by it in one line.

Nothing is happening on stage

Something is stuck in the programmer. It sits above everything, so a value you are still holding beats the cue you just fired. SHOW PROGRAMMER, then CLEAR PROGRAMMER.
Blackout or Emergency is on. Both toolbar buttons light up when active.
The grand master is down. MASTER GRAND RESET.
No output is enabled. SHOW ARTNET, SHOW SACN, SHOW USB.
The universe is disabled even though the protocol is on.
Wrong network. A broadcast address that does not match the subnet, or the machine sending down Wi-Fi while the node is on the wire.
Something else is winning. On sACN, a higher-priority source takes the universe.

More detail: DMX output.

The cue does not look like it did when I stored it

The programmer. Again. Clear it and GO again.
Tracking. A value the cue does not restate is still coming from an earlier cue. SHOW CUE <n> RESOLVED shows what the cue actually produces once tracking is taken into account. Tracking
A fader is contributing. RELEASE ALL FADERS and try again.
An effect is still running. SHOW LAYERS lists every active contribution.
The group changed. A value stored against a group in reference mode follows its membership - which is usually the point, but it does mean adding a fixture to the group changes an old cue. Groups

The fixture will not go where I aim it

It has no position. Fixtures without a position cannot be aimed and do not appear in the visualiser. SHOW FIXTURE <id>, then set one - see 2D stage layout.
Its position is wrong. The drawing said one thing, the truss did another. Calibrate it.
The target is out of reach. WHERE TARGET <id> and CONFIG TARGET UNREACHABLE ON|OFF|FADE decide what happens when it is.
It is aimed, not captured. AIM points once and lets go; CAPTURE keeps the fixture tracking the target. Targets

The colour is wrong

Generic library profiles declare white emitters, so RED 100 on one is white light. Use a real manufacturer profile.
A colour palette stored in RGB on a CMY fixture is converted on application, not stored per model - that is expected, and it is what makes one palette work across a mixed rig.
A palette at less than 100% blends onto what is already there rather than replacing it. Palettes

The visualiser looks broken

A fixture outside the walls - stage coordinates start at a corner, so a negative X is genuinely outside the room.
An invisible beam - a fixture whose zoom reads 0 gets a 0.2° beam. Set a zoom, or set VISUALISER BEAMANGLE.
No beams at all - haze is off. Without something in the air there is nothing for a beam to light. VISUALISER HAZE ON.
Only some lights matter - CONFIG MAXLIGHTS caps how many the viewer shades with. The default is 256; older versions were far tighter.
One fixture draws its body and nothing else - check its mode. A mode with no dimmer, no colour emitter and no CMY mixer has nothing the viewer can light it with, and patching one prints a note saying so. Re-patch it in one of the profile’s other modes. See modes marked “(not lit in 3D)”.

3D visualiser

It is running slowly

In order of effect:

VISUALISER RESOLUTION 0.75
CONFIG MAXLIGHTS 16
VISUALISER SHADOWS OFF
VISUALISER HAZE DENSITY 0.3
CONFIG PRIORITY HIGH
SHOW PERFMON
SHOW VISPERF

MIDI does nothing

LIST MIDI - is the device there?
CONFIG MIDI "<name>" - is it open?
DEBUG MIDI - is it sending anything, and on what channel and number?
SHOW MAP - is the mapping the shape you think it is? A bare number means CC; a note mapping needs NOTE.

MIDI and keyboard mapping

I cannot save

Autosave needs a saved showfile - save once with Save As first.
You cannot autosave while working from an autosave - Save As to a real file.
A previous save is kept beside the file as <name>.lmx.<timestamp>.bak; rename one back to .lmx to recover it. Files

Licence problems

The first problem of any kind offers Continue anyway; that pass stays spent until the licence is next confirmed, and a second problem before then is a hard block. Reconfirming the licence clears it. Licence and activation

I undid something and it did not come back

UNDO covers show-data changes - patching, stored objects, cue edits. Playback actions are deliberately not undoable: taking back a GO is not something an operator ever means. SHOW UNDO lists what is on the stack.

Getting a clean slate

PANIC       # kill all cue lists, release all faders, stop all effects,
            # clear the programmer

PANIC does not touch your show data - only what is currently running.

None of this is it - reporting a beta problem

REPORT

Opens a window that takes a one-line description and a longer account of what you were doing, and offers to send two things with it, both ticked:

Your recent commands - the tail of the command pane’s own log, which is the reproduction you would otherwise have to write out from memory.
Your showfile - the rig and the cues it happened in. A report about a fixture rendering wrong is nearly unusable without it.

The two halves of a report are read by different people, and the window says so beside each. What you type - the description and the account of what you were doing - is visible to every beta tester on the issue list, under your name, so keep anything confidential about your show or your client out of it. The two attachments are the opposite: compressed, sent to the LMX team alone, and invisible to other testers, who cannot download them or see that they exist. Untick either if the show is one you would rather not send at all.

Reports appear at lmxlighting.com/reports, under Beta Issue Reports in the user menu, where you can follow the status and add notes to your own. The machine has to be signed in to your LMX account for this to work: an offline activation has no account credential to file under, and the window says so rather than failing on Send. Licence and activation