ABR800 optical trigger not working?

I hadn't used the ABR800 ring light in a while and did a test with it over the weekend. I had a 580EX off-camera in a beauty dish, set to fire with a PW II and a PW II on the camera hot shoe. I was using the ABR800 as my fill light, and I was remembering (it had been a while) that if I plugged nothing into the ABR800 sync port, it should fire automatically as soon as it saw the flash. Well, I fired the 580EX a bunch of times and the ABR800 never fired. The modeling light was on and working correctly. The test button would fire the ABR800. However, the optical trigger didn't seem to be working. Is there something I'm missing or not remembering? Might anything else prevent it from firing? This was in the studio (indoors). Thanks.

Did you have any sort of light modifier on it? I know I've had issues when the lights where in soft boxes and I was trying to trigger them with a speedlight, but I had the speedlight turned down too......

I have the same problem with one of my AB 800's. I will be watching this thread closely....

Aim your Speedlite directly at the optical sensor of the ABR800 and hit the test button on the Speedlite. Does the ABR800 flash?

That's a good idea about aiming the speedlite right at it. I'll have to try that. The speedlite is in a Kacey beauty dish and at full power (no sock on the BD). The ABR800 has the 30" moon unit on the front of it. Actually, I can also try test-firing some 600RX strobes I have set up in the room to see if they trigger the ABR800.

Bear in mind you've only got about 50-60ws coming out o the speedlight. I couldn't trigger my b1600s with a speedlight when they were in my hilight, but they trigger just fine when they only have the reflector on and the speedlight is nearby.

That must be it because when I tried it with my 600RX strobe, even on pretty low power, it triggered the ABR800 just fine. This was a worthwhile experiment then. I wouldn't have predicted this to be a problem.