Troubleshooting LISY

If you got problems with your hardware platform we first recommend to read our troubleshooting guide. Here are some hardware platform specific steps:

Run Hardware Scan

Using mpf hardware scan you can find out if your LISY based platform is talking properly to MPF. Additionally, it will show you details about the hardware:

$ mpf hardware scan

LISY connected via network at localhost:1234
Hardware: LISY1 Lisy Version: 4.01 API Version: 0.8
Input count: 88 Input map: ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', '16', '17', '18', '19', '20', '21', '22', '23', '24', '25', '26', '27', '28', '29', '30', '31', '32', '33', '34', '35', '36', '37', '38', '39', '40', '41', '42', '43', '44', '45', '46', '47', '48', '49', '50', '51', '52', '53', '54', '55', '56', '57', '58', '59', '60', '61', '62', '63', '64', '65', '66', '67', '68', '69', '70', '71', '72', '73', '74', '75', '76', '77', '78', '79', '80', '81', '82', '83', '84', '85', '86', '87']
Coil count: 9
Modern lights count: 0
Traditional lights count: 40
Display count: 5

See mpf hardware (command-line utility) for details about the command.

Enable Debugging

If you got problems with your platform try to enable debug first. As described in the general debugging section of our troubleshooting guide this is done by adding debug: true to your lisy config section:

lisy:
  debug: true
This example is tested to be valid MPF config. However, it is not integration tested.
lisy:
  debug: true

This will add a lot more debugging and might slow down MPF a bit. We recommend to disable/remove it after finishing debugging.

Coils Are Not Firing

What to do if your coils are not working?

Check if Your Hardware is Working at all

Sounds stupid but this is a good start: Is the hardware working at all? Do you see switch hits in the logs? If not, check our section Your hardware is not working at all.

Check the Watchdog

If switches (or other features of the platform) are working but coils are not we have to dig deeper. Most hardware platforms have some kind of watchdog. Often there is some LED which indicates if the watchdog is received. The MPF log might also contain clues (especially if you have enabled debug and run MPF with verbose flags -v -V). If the watchdog is not received by your platform it will not enable coils.

In most cases watchdog related problems indicate wiring problems. Check if your boards are properly wired.

Test Your Coil Numbers using MPF Service CLI

Hardware is connected and generally working, watchdog is good but still your coils are not working? Maybe something with the numbering is odd. Lets tests that using the MPF Service CLI. Alternatively, you can also use service mode if you have already configured it. Both ways work similarly.

To use service cli:

  1. Open two consoles
  2. Start your game (e.g. using mpf both)
  3. Start the service cli from within your game folder using mpf service.
  4. Type list_coils and press ENTER to see a list of coils.
  5. Type coil_pulse your_coil and press ENTER to pulse it.

Does it work? If not check the log and try verify the coil number. If you do not specify default_pulse_ms MPF will use 10ms which might not be enough for some mechs. Try to increase that gently (maybe 20ms or 30ms).

Reducing light update rate

If you got a lot of lights you might run into bus contention issues. You can reduce the light update rate in MPF:

mpf:
  default_light_hw_update_hz: 30   # defaults to 50
This example is tested to be valid MPF config. However, it is not integration tested.
mpf:
  default_light_hw_update_hz: 30   # defaults to 50

If you set this too low fades will be less smooth but otherwise it should not affect your game.

Your hardware is not working at all

If your hardware is not working at all make sure that you removed the options -X, -x and --vpx from your mpf both or mpf game command line. Those options will overwrite the settings in your hardware section and MPF will not even try to connect to your hardware. If you got config errors we suggest you add -X to figure things out without interfacing real hardware all the time. Just keep that option in mind.

Another stupid thing to check: Is your hardware connected to your PC? We know it is stupid but a loose USB connector has happened to most of us.

Run MPF with verbose flag

See general debugging section for details. TLDR: run mpf both -t -v -V.

Report Your Issue and Ask For Help

If you cannot find the issue yourself please prepare some information about your issue according to our troubleshooting guide and ask in our forum.

Consider Improving the Documentation

Did you solve your issue but found that some relevant information in the documentation is missing or should be linked/located elsewhere? Either tell us in the forum or consider improving the documentation yourself to save future users some troubles the same way others saved you some troubles by writing this documentation.