GrandMA2

What it's for — CueSync drives a grandMA2 console over its Telnet command line: cue GOs, executor control, macros, faders, fixture levels, blackout and freeze, plus continuous timecode into one of the desk's eight timecode slots. There is also a file lane that hands a whole Theatre cue list to the desk on a USB stick as a macro.

Connect the console

grandMA2 implements Telnet on port 30000. That is the interface to use.

1. On the desk, enable remote login: Setup → Network → MA Network Configuration.
2. In CueSync: Network → Outputs → Add Output, choose grandMA2 (Telnet), and enter the console's IP. The port fills in as 30000.
3. Under Console login, enter the MA2 user and password CueSync should log in as. Leave both blank to use the factory administrator / admin.
4. Save, then connect.

Discovery can find the desk for you: Network → Inputs → Network Discovery can find the console and offer it as an output. (The Outputs tab shows a Scan for Devices shortcut to the same place, but only while you have no outputs yet.)

About the login

grandMA2 auto-connects every Telnet client as guest, and guest prints a command prompt while refusing every command with "Please login !". So a session that looks connected can still be unable to execute anything. CueSync logs in after the console greets it and only reports the output as connected once the console confirms the login. If the console drops your session to guest mid-show (a second operator taking the user account at the desk, a console-side timeout), the output goes red and reconnects rather than staying green over a session that can do nothing.

Your credentials are stored securely on this machine, for that output only. They are never written into a show file, a network preset, a venue profile or a diagnostic bundle. When you edit an existing output the boxes start blank — leave them that way to keep the stored login, or type a new one to replace it.

A login is sent only to the address it was saved for. A password you retype for an output is tied to that output's address. A login CueSync holds that is not yet tied to an address is not sent until you agree once: the output connects without it, and a notice asks "Send the console login to …?". Your OK remembers that address. If the console reappears at a new address, the Re-point question moves the output; a login typed for the old address is then asked about at the new one the same way. A login that arrives inside a show file fills an empty slot only and never replaces the one you stored for that output (Network Outputs has the questions in full).

If the login is wrong, the output fails with "Login failed — incorrect username or password" rather than a generic connection error, so you can tell a bad password from an unreachable desk. Correct it in the same Console login boxes.

grandMA2 (OSC) — read this before choosing it

grandMA2 has no native OSC input. OSC arrived with grandMA3. A stock MA2 console or onPC ignores everything sent to the OSC transport, and because UDP sends always succeed at the socket, every cue would report green while the desk did nothing.

This transport is only usable against a console running a third-party OSC bridge plugin (OSC_Mate, SendOSC or similar), and the address space is that plugin's, not the console's. It is not a fallback for a Telnet login that will not take — there is nothing to fall back to. Use grandMA2 (Telnet).

If you do run both transports to the same console, CueSync fires every action down both of them — a Go+ advances the cue list twice. The Add Output dialog warns you when you are about to create that situation, but it does not stop you: keep one of the two, or disable the other.

What a GrandMA2 action can do

Add a GrandMA2 action to a cue or a Cue Pad and pick one verb from the selector. The Sends: strip above the selector summarises what the action will do — and warns you when a second field you filled in is being ignored, or when a box you left empty means the cue will fail instead of firing.

One verb per action. The action carries one instruction; a second field filled in is discarded. That is what the selector and the command strip exist to make visible.

Blackout and Freeze are explicit states, not toggles. A pad that turns blackout on should use Blackout off for its release — the built-in Blackout pad does. Sending Blackout twice re-asserts it.

Value ranges are the console's: pages 1–999, executors 1–90, macros 1–9999, cues 0–99999, levels 0–100. The editor clamps as you type, and a cue carrying an out-of-range value from an imported show is refused before it reaches the desk rather than failing at the console.

Fixture selections are the ones you would type on the desk — 5, 1 Thru 10, Group 5, 1.1, 1+3+5. Characters outside that set are stripped, so a selection made only of punctuation is refused.

Lua

Switch an action to Lua Script mode to build a Lua "gma.cmd(…)" line from a template — grouped fades, chases, variable reads, BPM writes. This is grandMA2's own plugin API and does not exist on MA3.

Timecode

An MA2 output can receive continuous timecode. In Timecode → Output Routing, enable the MA2 row and pick one of the desk's eight slots. CueSync then keeps that slot on the show clock as it runs, and a cue can also start or stop a slot as an action (Go Timecode <slot> / Off Timecode <slot>). See Timecode.

Export a cue list as a macro

File → Sync, Import & Export → Export GrandMA2 Macro… writes an MA2 macro XML that builds a Theatre cue list on the desk, plus a README. Nothing touches the console — it is a file you carry over.

1. Pick the Theatre track to export (CueSync asks when the show has more than one).
2. Choose a folder. You get CueSync Export MA2 <seq> - <track>.xml and a README with the same base name.
3. Copy the XML to a USB stick under gma2/macros/.
4. On the console: Setup → Show → Import/Export → Import → Macros, and pick it into an empty macro slot.
5. Run the imported macro once. It labels the target sequence and Stores + labels every cue into it, with fade times.

Names are written as plain text: a semicolon, backslash or control character in a cue or sequence name is removed (a tab or line break becomes a space) and a double quote becomes an apostrophe, so a label on the desk can differ from the name in CueSync. The export needs a working licence: a read-only install is told "Subscribe to export a grandMA2 macro — you're in read-only mode" with a Subscribe button before it picks a folder, and nothing is written.

What the macro does not carry:

• Cue trigger / follow times. MA2 trigger syntax varies by console software version, so the macro leaves it out. Set timing on the desk, or let CueSync fire the cues live over Telnet.
• An executor assignment. The sequence arrives unassigned; assign it on the desk.
• Look content. The macro builds the cue structure — numbers, labels, fades. The LD programs the looks against those cue numbers.

The macro targets the sequence you exported to (900 on a new show), a scratch sequence. If that number is in use on your show, edit the XML — it is plain text. Store uses /o, so re-running the macro re-stores every cue and overwrites what is programmed in them. CueSync warns you in the export message when the cue numbering could not be kept stable, which is when that overwrite matters most.

The macro follows MA2's own export format and the documented Store / Label / Assign commands.

If something is not reaching the desk

• Output is green but the desk does nothing — check you are on grandMA2 (Telnet) and not the OSC transport. Then read the console's Command Line History: it shows what actually arrived.
• "Login failed — incorrect username or password" — exactly that: the credentials are wrong, or remote login is not enabled on the desk. Fixable from the output's Console login section and the desk's MA Network Configuration.
• "No grandMA2 command prompt" — something answered on that port but did not greet like an MA2 console. Check you are pointed at the desk and at its Telnet port (30000).
• "Could not establish the connection." — nothing answered at all. That is a host, port or network problem, not a login one.
• Cues stopped firing part-way through a show — the console may have dropped your session to guest. The output goes red when that happens; reconnect it.
• The console stopped reading — a Telnet console that stops accepting data does not freeze CueSync's sends: the stuck send is released and the connection is closed, so the output goes red and reconnects.
• A cue reports a send failure and the output goes quiet — after repeated failures CueSync pauses that output so a dead desk cannot stall the show. Fix the cause, then click Restart Failed in Network Outputs.

See also Network outputs and Diagnostics.