Monitor Calibration Issue

[plinden]

I've been happily using my sony artisan (CRT) display since 2004. Lately it refuses to calibrate; "calibration error" is reported each time I try.

Is it plausible that the phosphors may have degraded to the point (over 5 years) that calibration is impossible -- i.e. the CRT is worn out for color management purposes?

Thanks for your comments,
Peter Linden

[horseoncoboy]

software problem - did you install any updates which could have triggered the problem ?

you should try another software package to test if your measuring devise is working.

after 5 years of heavy use it is very likely that your monitor reached end of life but i'm not sure if this causes your problem.

[plinden]

Thank you for your reply.

I posted the question on another forum, and for those who may come across this thread in the future the following comment solved the problem:

Peter Linden
------------------------------------------------

1. Are you Mac or windows?
2. Is this the first issue (not able to calibrate?) since you installed the monitor in 2004

Why I ask,
Karl Lang wrote a fix for the artisan script, actually a few years ago, here is a link:
http://www.lumita.com/
This fix corrects many issues, one of which your monitor may or may not be affected by. The
fix seems to work fine on Mac's but I was never able to get it to work in a XP environment, even
the most current version. You might try this first.

If this doesn't fix the problem, I would be curious if you have any other Mac or PC (again depending on
your environment) that has never had any of the Sony software installed on it. Take a few minutes, and
try to install the monitor on a different machine, you may be surprised by the results. However if you get the
same error, then it's safe to assume you do have a physical issue inside the monitor.

Lastly, you might try to use another device to calibrate the monitor, like an eye one. You will need to uninstall
all of the software from Sony first, but you still might be able to save the monitor for a while longer.

I am still using a Artisan from 2003, most likely one of the last in service from what I can read on this
forums and others. And the technology has come a long way since the monitor was sold. Surprisingly I
have been able to dodge several "fatal errors" over the years, mainly by upgrading my machine.

The single biggest issue on the Artisan I know of is the time lag error. Over time, the script will take
longer and longer to run, then eventually just error out like you mentioned. This particular error has nothing
to do with the monitor, it's the script and the timing of what the script is looking for. Over time the monitor
slows down considerably on certain responses and thus falls outside of the set times the script looks for, Karl's fix
changed some of the parameters to allow for the older monitors to keep working. What is strange, is that if
you take the same monitor and move it to a machine that has not had the software installed before, most times
the problem goes away for another year or so.

IMO the easiest fix would be to hack the software to allow the current setting, what ever was your last good reading to
stay longer than the set 30 days. Yours like mine is way past 3 years old and so is long outside of the original specs
that the script was written for.