NEWB with weird xlights preview and chaotic lights

Hello everyone, this is my first year to attempt a DIY led display. and i'm running into some head scratching hurdles in my set up. any veteran help is greatly appreciated!

My entire display is ws2811 lights. I have 2300 lights.
I am using xlights and espixelsticks (newer version 4 – downloaded from web installer)
The controller is a quinled digquad ae+. I am using four of the seven output ports.

• Output port one: 600 lights.
• Output port two: 600 lights.
• Output port three: 700 lights.
• Output port four: 400 lights.

Problems:

First problem: xLights preview is wacky. in xlights when I preview my sequence, some of the effects are projected incorrectly onto the house. This problem includes:

• Some lights missing from a model ( for instance, a gutter line will have every third light missing or something like that)
• models will be half one effect, half another effect
• Some models will be dark with no effects at all.
• some models will be half lit.

weird fact: This projection problem only lasts until I go into the sequence and click on any effect, then all the weird elements are “healed” and it previews correctly.
This did not happen when I was designing this show. Everything was fine until I assigned lights to output ports on the controller and clicked “output to controller” That is when everything got wacky.

Second problem: lights don’t light correctly. Night one of connecting lights to controller the problem was that the lights on output port one appeared to light correctly, but lights connected to other output ports were just solid white. I determined this was because I had failed to click “output to controller” in the controller tab after assigning all the lights to output ports. So I did that. Clicked “output to controller” and now the problem (in addition to the one described above) is that the lights do not follow instructions, they are random colors doing random effects. All of them. Every light on every channel is just acting wacky.

And here’s a weird quirk to this: I have a second top board (forgive my poor lingo if I misuse words – I’m talking about the “chip” on the digquad that you can remove to flash wled/espixelsticks onto it) that is flashed with WLED. When I replace the ESPixelSticks board with the WLED board, everything works as WLED instructs it. Beautiful red with sparkles all over the whole display.

Any idea what on earth is wrong with my set xlights/espixelsticks setup?

Sadly i don't think you'll get many if any reply's here (kind a the wrong forum for this kind of help)

anyway couple of tips...
yes you'll be able to do what your doing on a digquad, BUT your pushing the pixel numbers and may get large frame rate drops
WIFI wont totally be your friend and id change it out for a Ethernet version (still do able on WIFI just be warned it could lag)

Double check you have the right color order set for your light in Xlights RBG, GBR, BGR, etc
Render your sequence and SAVE (this is the MOST important thing) if you make ANY CHANGES you'll have to render save and reupload your controller config each time
DELETE all channels and pixels off the quad (save and restart)
Re-upload your channels etc from Xlights to the quad (double check it set the port numbers right)

all in all xlights should be the one config your controller... I'm picking xlights and your controller are seeing two different sets of info, hence mixed up channels

xLights channel layout ≠ ESPixelStick channel layout​

When those two maps don’t match perfectly, xLights starts previewing garbage, and real lights go full “Vegas casino malfunction.”


The fact that WLED works perfectly proves the wiring and hardware are solid.
So the only thing broken is:

• channel order
• pixel count assignment
• universe/DDP settings
• r output numbering on the ESPixelStick firmware

Let’s hit the symptoms one by one.

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Problem #1 — xLights preview goes bonkers until clicking an effect​

This happens when:

xLights thinks your controller has outputs that don’t match your model assignments​

When you hit Output to Controller, xLights rewrites the channel counts + start channels in your controller.


If the controller layout no longer matches the layout stored in your sequence, the PREVIEW freaks out:

• missing pixels
• every 3rd pixel wrong
• half model blank
• half model different effect
• effects split across outputs
• models dark

This is 100% a channel mapping mismatch.

And here’s the kicker:

Clicking on an EFFECT forces xLights to re-render using your MODEL data​

So the preview heals itself…
…until you run it again and xLights tries to use the mismatched controller definition.

Same symptom happens to tons of people using ESPixelStick v4.

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Problem #2 — Real lights doing random colors / solid white​

Classic ESPixelStick issue when:

The number of pixels per output isn’t defined correctly

• Or the start channels overlap
• Or universes overlap
• Or DDP and E1.31 are both enabled
• Or the ESPixelStick firmware is outputting gamma/interpretation wrong

WS2811 can tolerate jacked-up data, so bad mapping = random colors, strobing, white, chaos.

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Weird clue: WLED works perfectly​

This is the smoking gun.

That means:

• wiring = good
• power = good
• data direction = right
• ports = fine
• pixel order = correct
• controller hardware = perfect

So ESPixelStick firmware is either misconfigured or xLights is feeding it mismatched channel positions.

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THE REAL FIX (the steps that actually solve this 99% of the time)​

Use DDP only​

disable everything else.

In ESPixelStick:​

• Disable E1.31
• Disable ArtNet
• ENABLE DDP
• One DDP channel block for ALL 2300 pixels
  • 2300 × 3 = 6900 channels

In xLights:​

Controller Tab → Add Ethernet → Type = DDP
Start channel = 1
Channels = 6900 (or 7000 to be safe)
No universes. No splits.

---

Set each port correctly​

In ESPixelStick:

Port 1: 600 pixels
Port 2: 600 pixels
Port 3: 700 pixels
Port 4: 400 pixels

The order matters

Do NOT let it auto-detect.

---

In xLights, assign start channels cleanly​

Port 1: starts at 1
Port 2: starts at 600 × 3 + 1 = 1801
Port 3: starts at 600×3 + 600×3 + 1 = 3601
Port 4: starts at 1800 + 1800 + 2100 + 1 = 5701


Leave no gaps
Leave no overlaps

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Pixel order = RGB (not GRB unless they KNOW otherwise)​

ESPixelStick often defaults wrong.
WLED tends to auto-detect correctly.


Mismatch causes “random colors doing random effects.”

---

Gamma & color correction​

Disable everything until it works.


In ESPixelStick:

• Gamma off
• Brightness 100%
• White balance neutral

---

Make sure ESPixelStick firmware is recent​

ESPixelStick had early builds that scrambled DDP channel order on multi-port setups.


Update using the web installer.

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If you want the easy path…​

try this EXACT test:

1. Disconnect all lights
2. Plug one 50-pixel test strand into each output, one at a time
3. Run test mode from ESPixelStick
4. If test looks good → xLights mapping is the problem
5. If test looks bad → ESPixelStick config is wrong

WLED working tells me test mode WILL look good.