Disaster at a gig last night

MikeBrooklyn

MikeBrooklyn

Inspired
Hi all

So last night when I went to use my FM3 at a gig, I noticed it defaulted to preset #1, the tuner wasn’t muted anymore, all my songs and set lists were blank, the default startup layout was reset to #1 and all my foot-switches were blank and non functioning. My presets and user cabs were intact though so I was able to assign the foot switches on the fly and I was able to do the gig but I was definitely in panic mode.

Any idea of what may have caused this? The only thing I can think of is that the unit was on when we were setting up and maybe a cable was laying across the unit and it pressed something?

I was able to restore from my latest backup but now I’m scared this is going to happen again.
 
And fyi the unit has worked flawlessly on many gigs since right before the pandemic hit. This is the first time something like this has happened
 
Regarding the latest 6.02b1, I've reported the issue to Fractal.

I have not had the problem with the official release 6.01?

The memory is all FLASH AFAIK, so not a battery problem.

Sucks, hope you figure it out!
 
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Joel.Brown333 said:
When you transported your FM3 to the gig, was it near any speakers or magnets ? One time I put my looper pedal in the back of an open back combo next to the speaker magnet and it wiped out half of all the loops stored in it.
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Didn’t know that! Thanxs for the tip
 
Never had a single problem live with any fractal unit that wasn't something bigger and upstream like power going out.

That said, as bombproof as the gear is, a backup unit is always wise. I had a Katana head ready to go as backup at every gig I've played since they came out. Never needed it, but it's nice to have a belt on those pants.
 
It sounds like something reset your system parameters. Restoring a System backup from Fractal-Bot should correct the problem.
There are other possibilities, but I was told by one of our engineers that shutting down the FM3 while it is writing system settings might cause this. As a best practice, I would recommend exiting the Setup menu and waiting a few seconds before powering off the FM3.
 
DJD100 said:
FLASH is not at risk from magnets AFAIK.
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Generally speaking, you're right. Common household magnets are not strong enough to do any damage. But very high-power magnets, like what is used on some FOH speakers or even guitar speakers, can cause harm to the FLASH controller or even generate electrical currents which can cause data corruption or loss. I had this happen to my looper pedal and half the files in it were lost. Setting the FM3 next to the cab won't cause any problems, but don't stick it right next to the magnet, like the inside of an open back combo. That's where I tossed my looper pedal, it didn't work out so well.
 
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