Running the tests

This describes how to run the RDM Responder Tests from the command line. A similar guide exists for running the tests from the Web UI. Before starting you may want to read the Responder Testing FAQ.

This assumes you've already got OLA running and have patched the RDM controller to a universe.

Warning: The tests send SET messages to the broadcast UIDs. This means that they will change the start address, device label etc. of all devices connected to the controller. Think twice about running this on your production lighting rig.

Discovering Responders

Run ola_rdm_discover from the command line, you should see the responder's UID appear:

 $ ola_rdm_discover -u UNIVERSE_NUMBER
 00a1:00010003
 7a70:ffffff00

Running the Tests

The tests are written in Python and run using rdm_responder_test.py. Below is the output from a typical test run:

 $ rdm_responder_test.py --universe 1  00a1:00010003
 Starting tests, universe 3, UID 00a1:00010003
 SetManufacturerLabel: Passed
 SetSoftwareVersionLabel: Passed
 GetManufacturerLabel: Passed
 GetSoftwareVersionLabelWithData: Failed
 ...
 ------------- Warnings --------------
 ------------ By Category ------------
   Product Information:  7 /  7   100%
       RDM Information:  1 /  1   100%
    Core Functionality:  2 /  2   100%
      Error Conditions: 10 / 16   62%
          DMX512 Setup:  3 /  3   100%
 -------------------------------------
 29 / 30 tests run, 23 passed, 6 failed, 0 broken

Be sure to read the Guide to interpreting the test output for an explanation of the logs.

Useful Options

rdm_responder_test.py has some options which can assist in debugging failures. For a full list of options run with --help

-d, --debug

Show all debugging output, including actual & expected responses.

-l, --log

Log the output of the tests to a file. The UID and timestamp is appended to the filename

-t Test1,Test2 , --tests=Test1,Test2

Only run a subset of the Tests. Only the tests listed (and their dependencies) will be run.

-w BROADCAST_WRITE_DELAY, --broadcast-write-delay=BROADCAST_WRITE_DELAY

Some responders take time to write state changes to memory. When using broadcast SETs, the controller doesn't know how long to wait before sending the next message. This setting adds a delay after (in ms) to wait after sending broadcast set commands.