HW Illumination hangs on FTP upload and system is now not usable

[DHK21]

I've got an old Homeworks Illumination system, Processor 01 O/S Rev : 01.64.00 T18 and HW Illumination 1.65.

I went to make a small change in my lighting system program and when I went to upload it, the upload hung in the FTP section.


After successfully uploading 2 files, it froze, my keypads have the strobing LEDs, and the system is non functional from the keypads.

I unplugged the HW system in my basement to reset it, and the same thing happened after power was restored.

I found the following commands to reset the system in one of my files and entered them:

updateinos
cleanmem, fffff
osstart

Still no difference. I tried restoring a different .hdf program file in case the one I tried to install was corrupted... same problem.


Any suggestions on something I can try?

[johnmax]

Did you try flipping dip switch #1 to on and then power cycling the processor then once its powered up flip switch 1 to off and then power cycle the processor one more time? Many of the these older processors need this once in a while.

[DHK21]

@johnmax Thanks, I'll keep that info on hand just in case, but I solved the problem yesterday. What I didn't mention in the original post, because I didn't think it would have a bearing, was that I'm running Homeworks on Windows 11 ARM on Parallels on an Apple M3 iMac, which configuration has run successfully for a year or more.

Don't know how I thought of it, but I wondered if a change to Windows 11 ARM or my Apple macOS could have caused the problem. Without going through the details of a 4 hour debugging session, I took an old Windows XP setup I had for Parallels and ran it on an Intel Mac that I have. Homeworks didn't work at first due to a problem with tabctrl32.ocx, but once I solved that, the system worked great and I was able to restore my HDF database file and all is well. Further details upon request.

[johnmax]

Glad you fixed it. But running on Parallels I would think is risky anyway. Illumination software is finicky on modern windows OS I wouldnt want to compound that by adding Parallels into the mix. I keep an older Windows laptop to use when dealing with old systems that my W11 laptop doesnt like. Although surprisingly I have very few issues with HWI on it- luckily I only have a few left out there to service.

[DHK21]

@johnmax I agree... I'm a homeowner and given the age of the system don't plan to make any further changes after this scare : )