Simon has pretty much covered all the bases.

Although I would add that, I have seen this situation quite a few times before and it tends to be the switch, particularly when there are more than 1 in the system. 20 minutes of A/B testing will soon show if that is the fault(which I suspect would be the case). Dell switches are particularly troublesome.

Yes using Apple Remote desktop is very useful during rehearsals, but always have it running on the secondary network, and always turn any form of sharing off during the show. I would also mention that the web browser control is very good for a lot of catalyst remote duties(just not file transfers) and I use it pretty much every day.

And the ethernet side of things Cat5 and 6 technically are only good for upto 90m, without the signal needing refreshing. And anything over 100m I try and always use Fibre as it makes life so much more reliable.

Phil
Philip G Haynes
Live Visual Design and Direction