Blackmagic Frequently Asked Questions Open All | Close All
- My Spectrophotometer does not appear in the dropdown list when using a Blackmagic application
- Firstly, check the instrument you wish to use is supported by Blackmagic. If using a non-current release of Blackmagic, your version may not support new Spectrophotometer drivers.
The list of currently supported Spectrophotometers can be viewed here.
Note that some instruments, by design, are only usable by particular operating systems or for particular application functions.
Additionally, several Spectrophotometers will only appear for use when using Lab measurement mode. The list (see link above) details each instrument's compatible functions.
- The Epson HTM drivers and/or Canon (Printer's Screening) drivers do not appear in my list of available Output drivers
- Check your version of Blackmagic supports the use of the HTM drivers. Epson HTM support has been added in stages since Blackmagic v4.0. Canon (Printer's Screening) support was added in v5.1.02.
For information on specific HTM support, check our Release Notes or contact your Dealer.
If you have the current Blackmagic version installed or your version supports HTM but the driver still doesn't appear in the Output driver list, this generally means your upgrade or installation was done via software downloaded from the Serendipity Software website. The HTM and Printer's Screening drivers are proprietary software products and are very large files. They are not available for download from the Serendipity Software website. The drivers are only available on the Serendipity Software Blackmagic installation DVD and are installed automatically when using the DVD installer, or can be copied from the DVD into your existing install.
Ask your Dealer or email Serendipity Support for instructions on copying HTMs.
- I attempted to run the Serendipity Client on Windows. The Client failed to run and a Windows error message appeared stating "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."
- This is easily fixed; no reinstall of the Blackmagic software is required.
The later versions of the Client require a C++ Runtime library that can often be removed from Windows as part of its normal update process. All that is required is for the Libraries to be reinstalled on to your Windows machine.
The self-installing file - vcredist_x86.exe - is located in the windows folder of the Serendipity Blackmagic installation DVD.
If you do not have access to the DVD, download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package ATL Security Update from the Microsoft website.
- Where is Serendipity Blackmagic installed on Mac OS X?
- The default location for a Mac OS X installation is in the Applications/Serendipity/Serendipity Blackmagic folder.
Launch the Blackmagic Server first then the Client when starting the software. It is recommended you select the Keep In Dock option for both icons when they appear for easy launching.
- Where is Serendipity Blackmagic installed on Windows?
- The default location for a Windows installation is in the C:SerendipitySerendipity Blackmagic directory. The Blackmagic installer will place Server and Client icons on the Desktop.
Current Windows file permission and security policies for programs installed in the Program Files directory mean that Blackmagic will not function correctly if installed there. If changing the installation directory when using the Blackmagic Installer, be sure to install to the root directory of the drive, for e.g., C: or D: etc.
- I have Blackmagic installed on my C drive but want to move the spool directories to the D drive. Can I do it?
- Yes you can. You need to create the directories that you want to move on the D drive first. The ones to watch are spool, tmp and raster. If you move raster (this is where the processed jobs are held - the ones you see in the printer queues) then all the jobs that you have in the QueueManager at present will not be able to be printed.
Next, edit the file Blackmagic/etc/ss.conf - Look for the appropriate sections for these directories and change the paths. Make sure you read the warning at the top regarding line feed and carriage returns with the editor you use. If you make a mistake, delete the file and restart BM and it will be recreated with the default locations.
If you wanted to move the whole BM dir, then do that, delete the ss.conf file and start BM and it will be created for D drive. Same goes for the current jobs as mentioned above however.
Another place to look out for if you process PS files, is the system temp dir. This is located under system in the windows control panel.
Choose "Advanced" and select "Environment variables"
Look for where you have the temp and tmp dir configured. This is probably something like %systemroot%/tmp etc (they vary depending on the system) .
Just change it to read. D:TEMP and D:TMP (or they can point to the same dir if you like). Make sure that you have the directories created.
- Can I poll a Celebra RIP with more multiple Genstores?
- Yes - There are some conditions though. It is assumed that there is only one Celebra RIP and therefore one database. Also, each genstore must be visible to the same machine, ie the one being polled.
To configure 2 genstores of the following paths:
E:Ffeigenstorecpsirip
F:Ffeigenstorecpsirip
Set the path to: /Ffei/genstore/cpsirip
and set 2 stripe paths as follows
E:/
F:/
If you have more directories then add the extra stripe paths.
- I cannot poll a RIPs network drives using the agent.
- This is quite important, especially when polling a Celebra with multiple Genstores like in a multirip configuration.
When the agent is running on the RIP, it does not have permission to poll network drives. To fix this you must configure the agent to run as valid user of the RIP.
To do this go to the control panels and select "services" (this can be under the Administrative Tools).
Find the "Serendipity Remote Agent" and select properties.
Choose "Log on" and select the option "This account". Choose the same account as the RIP runs under, i.e. the log that you use when you start the computer and click OK.
You will need to restart the service so that it runs as the new user. It should now be able to poll the network drives.
- What does the message mean "maximum number of retries exceeded when resubmitting a job"?
- We try three times to get the file from the RIP. This is when we poll or spool after submitting. If we cannot get the file, we give up and give the above message.
There is probably a problem with the file. E.g. you submitted the job from the RIP monitor and the file has since been removed or it is locked.
- My Jobs get so far imaging and then fail with an error "failed to process - Check log"
- One of the reasons for this could be because the system drive fills up. This is only if processing PS/PDF files or rotating an image.
A common install is to install the Blackmagic Software on the boot drive which may only be 2GB. If this is the case, you should configure the TEMP and TMP folders to be located on the larger partition. This differs slightly between OS, but here is how you do it on a Windows 2000 machine:
1. Create a folder the large partition for TMP and TEMP
2. Go to the control Panel and select "System"
3. Go to the "Advanced" tab and select "Environment Variables"
4. Scroll down the "System Variables" until you see TEMP and TMP. Select one and choose edit. Change the variable value to point to the new folder location.
For example, if the disk is partitioned as C: System and D: large for spool files etc. your variable may read:
%system%TEMP
Change this to read: D:TEMP
5. Click OK
6. Repeat the same for the other variable i.e: D:TMP
Then save and exit out of the System configuration and restart the system.
- My server crashes and gives message "restarting in 10 sec". This keeps looping and I can't get my interface up
- This could be due to one of two reasons. Firstly, a job may have got stuck in the imaging folder. Go into the Blackmagic/lib/defaultss.dbd/ssjobs folder and remove the files that are in there.
Start the server and see if this fixes the problem. If not, then remove the files in Blackmagic/lib/defaultss.dbd/RIPqueues and start the server again.
If this does not work, you may have to remove whole defaultss.dbd directory and restore your backup and start the server.
- When Linux boots up I get a "Repair disk prompt" and the system does not fully boot up
- The computer was not shutdown properly, and Linux was unable to automatically repair all disks.
Here is what you do:
If prompted for a user password, put in your root password.
At the "repair disk" prompt type in: fsck -s -A
and press enter. When prompted for various repair options just press y
Once you are back at the "repair disk" prompt just type in: exit
followed by enter to reboot the computer
- How can I save my existing configuration and restore it if something goes wrong?
- This has been made easier from V2.5.3 onwards but it is still valid for all V2 versions. It is also valid for MegaRIP and GIS Print although just substitute the product name where applicable below.
We assume that Blackmagic is installed in Program Files/Blackmagic.
All of the configurations are stored in one directory which is: Blackmagic/lib/defaultss.dbd
This is the directory that should be copied to somewhere as a backup. If you are porting the Blackmagic to a new machine or restoring it after a crash, install the Blackmagic and then restore the defaultss.dbd directory into the lib folder. When you start the Blackmagic you should have all of your old settings in there.
If you have started the Blackmagic already, a default directory will be created. This can be removed when the Server is closed and your saved one put in it's place.
When you save your directory, we recommend just zipping it up as a directory. This way all the subdirectories are stored together and cannot be removed.
This is still valid for V2.5.3 and above, but there is a much easier way, which is to use the Database Manager. Please see the V2.5.3 release notes for more information on this.
- Can I drive a Fiery RIP?
- Yes - We have tested 2 Fiery's, the X12 and XP12 connected to a Xerox machine and both work. You need to select the Postscript driver from the printers tab. Then in the pagesetup, customise area, choose the paper size that relates to the job and output device and choose RLE compression.
It works equally well without compression but obviously is bigger.
- One of the plates from my proof from Celebra comes out rotated and low res
- The reason for this is because Blackmagic has picked up one plate as the low res preview file and included it in with the other plates for proofing. There are two possible reasons for this. Firstly, the Celebra database may have become corrupted and is pointing at the wrong files. There is a utility to re-build the database. The other is that the polling of the Celebra files is set too low in the directory tree and is picking up the preview file incorrectly.
The correct place to poll on a Celebra is Ffei/genstore/cpsirip. Some installs only poll to the Genstore point which will work but can cause problems. You will also find that polling is faster as there are less directories and files to look at.
- I poll my 1-bit Tiff files but they appear as 4 separate jobs in the RIP Monitor - Why?
- The reason for this is because the naming of the files is not recognised as part of the same job. There are two things you can do:
1. If it is a one off test, the best thing to do is to stitch them together in VirtualPress. Select the first job/plate and press the VirtualPress button. If it has not found the correct colour, move it to the correct colour with the mouse. Select the other jobs/plates, either separately or all together by holding the shift key and selecting the first and 3rd plate, and drag them into the VirtualPress. This should also assign the correct colours. Now submit the job.
2. If this is a repeated action, you can select the Tiff Based RIP (User Configurable) and configure a Job Genie to automatically collate the plates into one job. See the release notes on the Job Genie Editor for more information.
- My server takes a long while to start. In particular "checking for available printers."
- On the Mac Platform, if you have Classic running as well it can cause delays in the Server starting, as it shares the dongle port with Classic and takes a while to get the info from the dongle. It is always recommended that the Classic environment is not running when operating Blackmagic.
- My HP printer cuts the job a few centimeters from the bottom every time. What's wrong?
- This has been reported on HP 2500 and HP 3000, but may occur on other large format HP devices. The problem is that the Margins option on the HP control panel is set to "Extended". This should be set to "Normal" which fixes the problem.
- What is the best method to poll a Scitex Brisque RIP with a Mac OS X version of Blackmagic?
- The best method is to export the Volumes on the Brisque where the Jobs are held and mount them on the Mac using NFS. There is a help document that details the method to mount an NFS volume on Mac OSX at
ftp://ftp.riponce.com/pub/help_docs/NFS-Mounts-on-Mac.pdf
There is also an example of the NFS file on the Mac located at
ftp://ftp.riponce.com/pub/downloads/fornfs.tar
This can be used in conjunction with the pdf document.
- Why does my pagesetup not publish on Appletalk? I get an error message in the server window "Module atalk.c OpenPAPListeningSocket: Cannot register Tanglefoot Epson 10000 - Backlit:LaserWriter@* error = 10022"
- This is because the name of the pagesetup, which is the name that gets published, is 32 characters or longer. Mac's cannot view files 32 characters or more. To fix this simply rename the pagesetup to something less than 32 characters long.
- I have just upgraded my Blackmagic and I can't see new features in the customise window that are details in release notes (Version 2)
- The customise boxes are part of the drivers and therefore have to be reloaded. Customise boxes are found in the Pagesetup and RIPs tab of the control panel. The action is the same for both, just where "printers list" is mentioned below, substitute "Input Filters List" when reloading the RIPs one:
1. Make sure that you have more than one printer configured.
2. Open the customise box and make a note of your settings.
3. Close the customise window and select another printer from the "Printers List".
4. Wait until the interface has refreshed and select the original printer again.
5. Go to the customise box and you should now see the new items.
Note: If for some reason you do not see the new items after doing these steps, create a new setup by going to Project > New and select the printer you want to configure. If you do not see the customise features now, there may be something wrong with the upgrade.
- I get a red box in the middle of the screen titled "Catastrophic Notice - Error reading from socket - End Session or Ignore." What does this mean?
- This message appears when the GUI (Graphical User Interface) cannot talk to the Blackmagic Server. The chances are that the Server has crashed for some reason or someone has quit the Server without quitting the GUI.
If you End Session, you will close the GUI.
If you Ignore, you will leave the GUI open but it will not display any applications, as it is not connected to a Server. To re-connect, choose Utilities > Server Connection and either select the Server from the list or enter the Server IP address in the box. Select Connect. You can use the search button to look for a Server on the network. Note: The search does not work on the Mac Client.
- I get a GUI error complaining about the language kits like this: class ss.guikits.KitParser **Error::could not find language file ./lang/en_US/messagekit, using the default one class ss.guikits.KitParser**
- The error appears because the language - US - has been selected under the Launch Pad > Utilities menu, but there is no language enabled in the software. English should be selected as the language. To avoid this problem, navigate to the install directory of Blackmagic and go to the lib/java/lang directory. Remove all the directories within EXCEPT "en". Restart the GUI and you should now have the choices to select. If anyone wishes to add additional languages other than English, they should contact Serendipity Software for further information.
- I have installed the Mac OS X version of the Blackmagic polling Agent. The computer has restarted but the Agent has not started.
- You need to have installed the Eve3.pkg from the Blackmagic CD as it is required by the Agent.
- My LaunchPad takes a long time to come up. It says "retrieving GMT Offset" for a very long time.
- The reason for this is that the log file is large and it is taking a long time to read it. To remedy this problem, when the LaunchPad has completed its initialisation, go to Utilities and start the Server Log. Select the length of time desired to look at the log file, say last 4 hours, and select Trim Older Lines. This will reduce the log file size and the LaunchPad will start much faster next time.
- The sub windows of my GUI do not centre on the first go when running on Linux
- The problem lies with the window manager, e.g., KDE or Gnome. If you disable the "smart placing mode" of the window manager, it should work first time and every time. This can be turned off under the Preferences or Control Panel of the window manager.
- My Epson 10000 shows a command error and all the lights flash when I send a file to it.
- This is caused by sending a file with the wrong ink type to the 10000, i.e., sending a Pigment type file to a Dye machine. To change this, go to the customise section of the Pagesetup and set the Ink Type to the same as your printer and save.
