Troubleshooting IP-Driver GPIO

Scope

In some cases, Pathfinder PC, Pathfinder Core Pro, or similar is controlling the route of audio streams through the air chain based on output from an automation program. Most automation programs are able to control the Livewire GPIO pins within the Axia IP Driver and this is how the messages are conveyed to Pathfinder.

We will show you how to log in to the driver using a terminal / TTY emulator to view and control Livewire GPIO pin states for testing and diagnostic purposes.

Connect to the driver using a terminal

Using a terminal or TTY emulator like PuTTY, connect to the IP driver PC using a raw connection on port 93:

NOTICE: In this example, PuTTY and the IP driver being examined are running on the same PC. So we're using the loopback address here. If the IP driver being examined is running on a separate PC from PuTTY, use the driver PC's IP address.

Subscribe to GPI and GPO pin state changes

Commands must be in ALL CAPS. Press enter after each command.
  1. To log in to the interface, type the following and press enter:
LOGIN
If you are using Telnet to connect, you may need to send a single carriage return first to clear the telnet header out of the buffer. It will return a bad command error. Continue logging in from there.
  1. Type the following and press enter
ADD GPI

The device will respond with the current GPI states

BEGIN
GPI 1 hhhhh
GPI 2 hhhhh
END
  1. Repeat for GPO by typing the following and press enter
ADD GPO

The device will respond with the GPO states

BEGIN
GPO 1 hhhhh
GPO 2 hhhhh
END

In this example, the driver has two channels. If your driver supports more, you'll see more ports listed.

The normal state of all input and output pins are high. This is indicated by the lower case "h." State changes will print a new line and will indicate the pin that has changed using a capital letter:

Here, we can see that GPI pin 2 has cycled low and back high again.

Manually changing pin states

To change a pin state, enter the ID of the port you'd like to change and enter the desired sequence bits for the pin state. When you press enter, the terminal will print the state of the port to confirm the change. You can enter an "x" if you do not want to change the state of a particular pin and you can also truncate the string. For example, if you only want to change the state of pin 2, you can enter "XL" or "XH" for the pin bits and leave out the remaining 3 bits:

This tool is extremely useful when setting up Pathfinder or any other solution work flow that follows the state of a GPI or GPO pin. The ability to view and cycle pinstates makes the task of troubleshooting issues and testing new workflows becomes integral.

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