Are there any commonalities about when it freezes, like when starting a mode or a multiball? Was it freezing before you did the playfield swap, or is this a new symptom since you switched playfields?

I'd encourage you to check all the cable connections, including both sides of the USB cables between the CPU and the I/O boards, and connections out of the power board. This just kinda has the sound of something getting bumped partially loose when you switched playfields, so it works until vibrations (whether from nudging the game, or solenoids/etc in the machine itself) jostle <whatever> enough to cause a problem. Perhaps interrupting power to the CPU? I note that all three screens in your photo are totally black, which makes me wonder if the CPU is turned off -- if the game software hung, I'd expect all the screens to be frozen with whatever the last thing was they were showing.

Good luck, let us know if you find anything!

There have been multiple reports of multiballs with infinite (or at least exceedingly long) ball savers. Unfortunately, I can't reproduce this problem on my game. We are trying to get field data to help identify and fix the problem. If anyone encounters what seems to be an infinite ball saver or infinite multiball and want to lend a hand, it'd be very helpful if you:

- Jump into the operator menu (during the game, while it's infinite multiball-ing)

- Insert a USB thumb drive into the game's computer. (Not sure how easy or difficult this is, e.g. if they've run an extension USB cable to somewhere near the coin door...)

- Select Reports > Debug Report. It should advise that it's writing pinprog.log to your USB drive.

- Once it exits back to the menu, you can remove the USB thumb drive.

- Put the thumb drive into your regular computer, where as promised you should see a file called "pinprog.log". Mail that to me at alien<at>joe.tater.org.

The only cause I'm aware of for infinite ballsaver is a hyperactive outlane or trough switch, but if there's some other issue (like a software bug), I would love to fix it ASAP. Meanwhile, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks!

Thanks, I’ll touch base with Brian.

I don't think this has been posted here yet... there is now a service bulletin for Alien, written by the brilliant David Thiel, that gives guidance on how to adjust your Alien's amplifier settings to get the best results from the audio system, and also ensure that the coin door volume controls have a reasonable range.

http://www.heighwaypinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/AlienAmplifierSettings.pdf

We're working with MightyGrave to figure out what happened and get the machine back up and running.

The reason for the can’t-update-Pre-1.0 prohibition is that some game hardware changed between early games and production, and the post 1.0 software doesn’t drive the old hardware correctly. So work with Helmut at Heighway to get the required production hardware for the game, and current software will come along with it.

Sorry, I’ll have to defer this one to Helmut, since I don’t know exactly what you’ve got... I’m really at a loss to understand how you could have code 0.96 on a current CPU and playfield. (And Nov 2017 should certainly be current for both.)

Should be fixed in 1.2, currently in testing.

Yeah, the weird inverted switch glitch is (we hope) fixed in v1.2, which should be coming along soon.

Coming soon!

This is on my queue to fix in a future code update.

The lighting is indeed on a serial chain, so if one light on a chain is loose in its socket or otherwise malfunctioning, it could take out the rest of the “downstream” chain. Try using the Single Lamp test to identify the first light that’s not working properly, and then suspect that light or the one immediately previous. Certainly something could have shaken loose during transport.

When the UR flipper dies, do lights in that area also “freeze” (not necessarily go dark, but stop updating)?

Next time the flipper dies, try immediately hitting the operator Enter button, and let it scroll through the info pages... it should indicate if an IOBoard is missing.

The team kinda informally agreed that we would label it as 2.0 when it was *done*, when everything we'd imagined was in place. 1.2 isn't quite there, but it's close.

Hmmm, OK. So continuing the same line of thinking, at that point can you try going into coil test and activating the UR flipper -- does it fire that way?

And since you didn't mention otherwise, I assume when the game gets into this state, the other three flippers work as expected, it's only the UR that's inoperative, is that correct?

I'm aware of this. The solution is just to power-cycle the game.

I suspect both of these issues are due to poor quality USB cables. If a USB cable wiggles enough to interrupt its connection, a full USB reset of the associated IOBoard needs to take place, which takes a few seconds... while that happens, all elements (switches, lamps, coils) on that IOBoard will be unresponsive.

I have also heard customer comments that this problem can be caused by a poor power supply connection to the IOBoard... I don't have personal experience with that. I'd at least give a shot to swapping USB cables if you're having this problem on a chronic basis.

(If you do replace the USB cable, I need to give my standard disclaimer: be VERY CAREFUL when handling the USB cable going to the IOBoards. The mini-USB port on the IOBoard is only held on with a couple solder points, so it's relatively easy to rip the USB port off the IOBoard... obviously, that would pretty much kill the IOBoard.)

Good luck!

This is fundamentally a hardware design problem. However, version 0.9 of the IOBoard firmware tries to work around that hardware problem, and on most machines it's totally or almost-totally successful at doing so. If your IOBoards have older firmware, you should be able to update them via the operator menus, if you have game code 1.2 installed.

Brian did this and it’s working fine AFAIK. (This was a necessary part of the intended game swap system.) He’ll have to comment further as I had nothing to do with Full Throttle.

Mentioning Queens Nest may be a clue... do you have the backbox beacon? If so, try disabling it in adjustments, and see if that helps. Could be a power problem.

First thing I’d check is if the sensors are securely seated in their PCB. If so, a faulty sensor is certainly possible... not sure if they’re available from free-play.se (listed there as “limited supply”) and/or if TimeBandit reproduced them.