Over the years we’ve seen many people who think that the solution to every problem is to update their LOR Software. This, in fact, is the furthest thing from the truth. There are a few reasons why you would want to, and quite a few more why you would not.

In this article we’ll take a look at when you might want to update LOR software.

There are many files in use in the LOR environment. Here are a listing of some of the LOR file extensions in the software.

.LAS is an Animation Sequence
.LMS is a Musical Sequence
.LSV is what saves your visual preferences (zoom level, etc) within the Sequence Editor.
.LCS is the compressed sequence. You won’t edit this file. It’s created by the software.
.LSC is the schedule files. These are created/edited when you adjust your schedule.
.LSS is the show file. This is the file that contains information to run your show.
.LCC is the Light-O-Rama Channel Configuration file.
.SUP is a Superstar Editor file.
.LEE – Visualizer file.
.LFF – Visualizer fixture file
.LPF – Visualizer prop file
.LPE – Pixel Editor file
.LID – Intensity Data file

S5 Specific LOR file extensions
.LOREDIT – This is the file that is used in the LOR Sequencer.

.BAK is a backup file. It’s created every time you save a sequence. (Animation or Musical.)

If you have “Hide extensions for known file types” enabled, then you may not be working on the file you think you are.

Instructions for changing “Hide extensions for known file types” can be found here:

XP and others
Windows Vista
Windows 7

Each year there are stories of people who have lost all of their sequencing work (and family photos) because of a hard drive crash or other disaster. If they had a backup of the data, then restoring it would be easy.

However many people today do not have a backup solution and are at risk of losing their data. Imagine that you go home to find your house burned to the ground. Nothing left. Suppose severe weather hits and knocks your house down, and your locally stored backups are flung to some remote place never to be seen again. Or the worst case, your home is burglarized and and all of your computer equipment is taken. Would you be able to recover your data if this were to happen to you?

By now you see it’s possible to lose data in a number of ways. You need to backup your data in a way that is safe and reliable.

Please consider doing the following:

1. Backup everything in your Light-O-Rama directories. This includes audio and sequences directories.
2. Find a service that will store your data in the cloud. If you do not have a Dropbox account, please get one now.

The LOR Comm Listener is a program that runs in the background, allowing other programs (such as the Sequence Editor and the Show Player) to control LOR devices that are on LOR Enhanced networks, and also to control DMX devices. The Comm Listener must be running in order for those programs to control such devices. When it is running, you will see an application box open in your Windows Task bar.

The LOR Comm Listener is automatically started when the LOR Control Panel is started. However if your license level does not support it or if no Listener port is specified in Network Preferences it will not open. The Comm Listener is automatically shut down when the LOR Control Panel is shut down.

If you have E1.31 or Enhanced Networks make sure that the LOR Control Panel is running. so that you can control your LOR Enhanced devices and DMX devices.

In summary, the Comm Listener must be running for Enhanced and DMX networks to work. If you want the Comm Listener shut down, you must shut down the LOR Control Panel.

There are times when you will run across an “Unknown Device” error when using the Hardware Utility. The most common cause of this is using software that was published before the device you are using was released.

For example, when the first “S3” boards were released people using the “S2” version of software would get this error. Why? It boils down to a text file that doesn’t have the correct information in it. Your device will work, though you might not be able to update firmware in the future.

If you have the ability to move to a newer version of the software, it would be recommended.

The other work-around is to contact the Light-O-Rama Help Desk, and ask them to send you a file that will resolve this “Unknown Device” error.

People often ask if LOR will run on Apple software. The answer? Sort of, but with some help.

Light-O-Rama has to use some very low level device drivers to communicate between the computer and the various types of controllers available.  The Windows environment allows them to do this relatively easily, not so much in the Apple world.

Most Light-O-Rama Apple users use their Mac in a Windows environment via Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/) or VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html).

A good article showing how well these products work can be found at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704140104575057251096106096.html

Have you tried to use the Simple Show Builder (SSB), only to find out the SSB can’t locate your sequences?

When the SSB looks for your sequences it does so in only one location, your default sequences directory. This is usually c:\users\<name>\My Documents\Light-O-Rama\Sequences. If your sequences are not there, then the SSB won’t be able to find them.

Since it’s the ‘Simple’ show builder, you do not have the option of looking in other directories on your computer since the SSB doesn’t allow it. So, what to do?

There are two options. You can either move your sequences back to your default directory, or change the default directory. Search the LORFaq.com site for “LORPost” to locate the article.

If the musical selections you are using have different volume levels and you want to normalize them, thus making them all the same volume, consider MP3Gain.

This program will adjust the volume of your musical files so they will all be approximately the same volume.

Problem – Error message on install that says in part, “Error:path/file access error on step:install demos”

Resolution: Ensure that NONE of the files and/or folders in your LOR Data directory are set to ‘Read Only’.

This was posted to the LOR User Forums, by Dan, the owner of the company.

In order for the Light-O-Rama software to be activated by the license key, that software needs to be registered in the Light-O-Rama Database. By keeping a centralized record of the number of different machines a license is used on we prevent unauthorized use of the software.

In general when you register your LOR software, by entering the username and license key, the software will automatically use your Internet connection to contact the LOR license database and register. This is all transparent to the user.

However if your PC is not connected to the Internet then this automatic method will not work. How do you get to the LOR database? The software provides a manual method of registering. But even with this manual method, the target machine does not need to be connected to the Internet BUT there must be a machine somewhere connected to the Internet to complete the registration.

So here is how it works:

1. You go to register the offline machine and you will get to the “Register Light-O-Rama” window. In that window, there are fields where you can enter “Name:” and “License Key:” but that screen requires an Internet connection to work So at the bottom of the screen there is a link: “Need to register offline? Click Here”…

2. You click the “Click Here” on the “Register Light-O-Rama” window. A new window opens, the “Offline Registration” window. You enter your “Name” and “License Key” and click the “Show offline Registration Key” Button.

3. The system now displays to you the eight part offline Registration key. At this point you will need a machine that is online to complete the offline Registration of the machine.

There are a couple of ways to do the next step. You can call Light O Rama (the telephone number to call is displayed just below the offline Registration Key that was just generated)

The other way you can get the key is to go to another machine that is online and has Light-O-Rama installed. On that other machine you will run the offline Registration Utility program that is found in the Light-O-Rama Folder. (The offline Registration Utility program that yo have is the same program used by a Light-O-Rama Representative is you should make the phone call).

In any case you will now need to provide the offline Registration Utility three things, “Name:”, 8 part “License Key:” and 8 part “Offline Registration Key:”… Once you present those three fields to the offline Registration Utility program (or a Light-O-Rama Representative who will enter that info for you”, the Register button is pressed on the offline Registration Utility Program….

This will register your offline machine in the database, however your offline machine does not know that it has been registered yet! To let the offline machine know it has been registered, the 10 part Authorization key which was generated, must be entered on the offline machine.

If you are doing it yourself, then you can just write down the 10 part authorization key and go to the offline machine and type it in. If you are on the phone with a LOR rep then they will read it to you.

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Sounds kind of complicated but it only takes a few minutes in the real world. The biggest problem is that because you need to manually enter the keys typos can be an issue. Boxes will turn red if one part is incorrect but it does not cover issues like entering the same part twice, problems with capitalization of name, etc…