Problems with SONY CDP-CX255 and CDJ in General

This is a copy of a message I just sent to the nirvis help email address. Please forgive the text formating, it didn't paste very well from the original mail message but I really didn't want to manually reformat the whole thing. (Why can't text processors all have the same CR/LF handlers?!!)

Well, at least I got it hooked up....I think. The intro to this message will be long, and I'm sorry about that, but if I don't give you the info, how can you fix anything, right. Besides, I'm the one getting writer's cramp anyway. Pay particular attention to the italic blue entries, they indicate failures witnessed.

The system. Pretty straight forward. AMD-K62 MMX 350, 64M Ram running Windows 98. External modem on COM1, Slinke on COM2. Plain Jane video card. No sound card. No other software package running at any time for this effort.

Downloaded SYSUPDATE, installed it (7/18/99)

Downloaded Slinke, Installed it. (7/18/99)

Updated help file in \program files\nirvis\help with new slinke.chm file Colby sent.

Plugged in Slinke to COM2 using supplied DB-9 RS232 cable.

Used supplied 1/8 mono cable to connect S-Link 0 to my Sony CDP-CX255.

Powered up Slinke with supplied DC adapter.

Started CDJ, it found my player, it showed up in a window in the lower left.

RMB clicked on my CD player in that window, CDJ crashed. (I have since looked in the BBS to find this

problem noted several times, and added my 2 cents into the BBS). This was repeatable.

After getting CDJ back running (after a reboot), Executed a Search for all discs and queue for later internet

lookup, this finished (~175 discs).

Connected to Internet and turned CDJ loose to get discs. It found most of them. (Note, after the database

had been loaded up with data, the RMB crash from the CD player listing in the devices did not happen

again, until the next time the database was empty, see below)

Found the music timer, so tried it out. Found another problem. I had to input the time about 15 different

ways for it to finally stick. I am fairly experienced with MS Access, and I attempted to input the time in that

database fashion, that is to say, I tried terminating my input with Tab, Enter, by clicking other controls, you name

it. It was very annoying. Once I finally got it to take my input, it did work.

Day #2. It's time to control something else. Tried a couple times to find my Sony Amp (TA-AV460). Did not

find that exact piece, but did find ampir.cda under Sony. I could not find any info on file naming conventions, but

"ir" looked promising. (Perhaps a file naming convention would be a good addition to the help system).

Ok, I have now selected my amp. I start up the CD player with CDJ, hit the volume up button, nothing. The

volume down and mute buttons were equally as disappointing. After hunting around I did get the Slinke data

stream viewer / immediate command execution window up. I had called my amp "amp", so I typed amp:power,

and it shut off. Repeated and it came back on. I certianly hope there is a better way to control things than this.

I found that you could expand the device list, and see the commands for the devices you have loaded.

However, this proved to be quite unsatisfying since as far as I can tell the list won't actuall DO anything. I

double-clicked on lots of commands and nothing happened. Also, while the device was loaded, everytime I

turned on the CD player, it went to Disc 64 and would not play any other disc until I at least started playing

track 1 on disc 64. I went back and removed the amp device I added and this problem went away. An ok fix

today.

On to playing CD's. I pull up a CD that the internet lookup didn't find. Not surprizing since I recorded it myself