My OSC Input Trigger Isn't Working, Is there another way?

OSC Input triggers are very powerful and easy to use, but can be incredibly frustrating when you can't get the triggers to work. This page should walk you through the steps you can try if your Input Triggers are not working.

  • Make sure OSC Input is enabled:

  • Make sure you are outputting on the correct port on your device that you are sending the OSC Message from

  • Make sure you are listening on that same port in Spikemark

  • If you are still having an Issue, try a different port

  • Make sure your firewall on both computers are not blocking the port you are sending messages on

  • You can even choose to turn off both firewalls for troubleshooting. It is a good choice to make sure you are not connected to the internet when you turn off the firewall.

  • Lastly, try using a second computer running Spikemark with an OSC Output Stagehand to see if Spikemark can send Spikemark the OSC command. If Spikemark can send Spikemark the commands, but your software can't, we may need to change how you are writing the OSC message.

Special Cases

In some situation, you may use a software that doesn't supply 4-byte null padding as apart of their message. For example this could be done if you are writing your own OSC script or sending a OSC message over UDP. In these situations, you may need to adjust how you send the command. Let's walk through an example on how you may make this modification. Let's Say you are trying send and OSC command to Spikemark. We want to Tigger Cue 1 to GO. We tell you to write an OSC message that looks like this:

/cue/1/go

However, you find that this command will work properly if you send it from Spikemark, but wont work properly if you send it from your specific software. The reason, is that we send this command using a 4-byte null padding format. This means that we are actually sending a message on the network that looks like:

/cue/1/go!00!00!00,!00!00!00

However, if you wanted to send a go to Cue 123, the message would look like this

/cue/123/go!00,!00!00!00

OSC operates on a pattern of 4 byte "DWORDS" so different parts of the message have to align with those 4 byte boundaries. The comma indicates the DWORDs before it represented the address, and the data after the comma represents parameter data. The comma is also part of a DWORD, so it has to be padded with null bytes as well. In Low Level Communicator, the convention for sending hexadecimal representation of null bytes is !00 so you would use this to "fill up" any missing bytes to make the DWORD alignment work.

| DWORD 00  | DWORD 01  | DWORD 02  | DWORD 03  |
| /cue      |/1/g       | o!00!00!00|,!00!00!00 |
| /cue      |/23/       | go!00!00  |,!00!00!00 |
| /cue      |/123       | /go!00    |,!00!00!00 |

Medialon Manager Configuration

Sending OSC from Medialon Manager to Spikekmark is one of these special conditions.

Medialon Manager has OSC Output Device, but the OSC Output Device adds in additional information into the command that Spikemark isn't expecting which causes Spikemark not to take the OSC action.

Do Not Use the OSC Output Device to send OSC commands to Spikemark. It will not work.

Instead use a Medialon Low Level Communicator Device instead of an OSC Output Decive.

Configure the Medialon Low Level Communicator Device as an UDP Output, and assign the port to match the listening port of Spikemark.

Then setup your Output Command with the correct Spikemark IP Address and Listening Port, and use the above structure to format the command using 4-bye null padding.

Other Software's Not Working

If you run into an issue where you can't send OSC to Spikemark, try using the same method outlined with Medialon. If that still doesn't work, reach out to us in Tech Support, and hopefully we can work on finding a solution to get triggers working for you.

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