MIDI Randomly Turns Off

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DonnieAlan
Posts: 271
Joined: 25 Jan 2017

06 Jun 2020

I've had an ongoing issue with MIDI on my system and I can't figure out what's going on. My studio PC is a Dell XPS 435T/9000 Win-10 Pro 24gig RAM
IntelCore i7 CPU 920@2.67GHz. Its an older system I know, but it has served me well for a good while. My main MIDI controller is a Yamaha Motif XS8 connected to the PC via Firewire. This setup has worked quite nicely 99% of the time over the years.

For the past few months I've had a new issue that simply makes no sense. When I first boot up my system, everything works normally. I can work on a session, playing VI's with the Motif as controller, laying down MIDI tracks, etc. All just fine. But, if I leave my system idle for a period of time and then come back to continue working, the MIDI is gone...the Motif is no longer talking to the PC and vice versa. Its like a switch went off somewhere.

The kicker is, the issue isn't tied to any particular software. The issue crops up even when I haven't done a thing but turn on the PC and then just leave it. The MIDI is normal at bootup. Come back an hour later to begin working on something, and "poof" its gone! Rebooting the system brings it all back. And its not consistent either. One time if I leave the system idle for 1/2 an hour its gone, another time I'll come back after 2 hours and its fine.

If I'm working on a session mixing and not using MIDI at all, just doing normal mixing stuff, and then decide to add a new part using MIDI...sometimes then the MIDI will be gone again because I hadn't used it for a couple hours, even though working on the session.

It doesn't matter if I'm working in Pro Tools or Reason, or doing anything else, or nothing, just leaving the PC on. Its like there's a switch that says "if MIDI idle for more than "X" amount of time, turn it off!

I haven't the slightest idea where to begin to trouble shoot the issue. All my drivers are right up to date as well as all my firmware for the Motif. Connections are all good, too. So where do I look to see where the "turn MIDI off" instruction is coming from?

I'm open to suggestions on this. Thanks.

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Delora Software
Posts: 134
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

06 Jun 2020

Perhaps a recent Windows 10 update enhanced its power savings profile and now manages the FireWire driver to power it down when idle? Desktop OSes have been getting more focused on energy savings. Maybe try disabling power savings and see if that helps?

If it is because there is no MIDI activity over the FireWire connection there might be a trick you can use. MIDI has a special command called “Active Sensing” that is automatically sent a few times a second when there is no other MIDI activity. The original intent was so that receivers could detect if a sender disconnected and take appropriate measures, like turning off potentially stuck notes. Active Sensing, if the Motif supports it, could be used as a way to try and keep the FireWire connection awake.

These days not many devices send Active Sensing, and those that do usually only do it if you enable an option. Yamaha was a big advocate of Active Sensing so you might find that the Motif has it buried somewhere in its Global options.
Doug

Douglas Kraul
Delora Software
Developer of rsTouch Pro for Reason, and rsRemote for Reason

DonnieAlan
Posts: 271
Joined: 25 Jan 2017

06 Jun 2020

Delora Software wrote:
06 Jun 2020
Perhaps a recent Windows 10 update enhanced its power savings profile and now manages the FireWire driver to power it down when idle? Desktop OSes have been getting more focused on energy savings. Maybe try disabling power savings and see if that helps?

If it is because there is no MIDI activity over the FireWire connection there might be a trick you can use. MIDI has a special command called “Active Sensing” that is automatically sent a few times a second when there is no other MIDI activity. The original intent was so that receivers could detect if a sender disconnected and take appropriate measures, like turning off potentially stuck notes. Active Sensing, if the Motif supports it, could be used as a way to try and keep the FireWire connection awake.

These days not many devices send Active Sensing, and those that do usually only do it if you enable an option. Yamaha was a big advocate of Active Sensing so you might find that the Motif has it buried somewhere in its Global options.
Power savings was one of my first thoughts, but as far as I can tell, its disabled. As for the active sensing, if that's a feature on the Motif I've never seen it and there no "on" switch that I can find for it. I'm familiar with just about everything on the Motif as I've used it since it first came out, but I've never seen that control.

Appreciate the suggestions, though. My suspicion is it lies within the PC somehow as the issue doesn't seem to be tied to any particular software, DAW, or other app.

One of my biggest beefs with M-Soft and all their updates is they often undo user selected optimization settings. As you know, optimizations for DAWs can be fairly precise and all it takes is one update to set some parameter or other back to "default" and you wouldn't know it. But, as far as I can tell, my optimizations are also all what they should be for my music apps, especially Pro Tools and Reason.

The unpredictable nature of the issue makes it that much harder to track down, too. Just today, for example, I left it idle with a Pro Tools session open for nearly 6 hours, and when I came back, the MIDI was working just fine. But last night, I left it idle on the SAME SESSION, for about an hour, and came back and no MIDI. I've had the same thing happen even when I haven't opened a single program. I was trying to locate the issue, so booted up the PC and checked that MIDI was functional, and then left it on, with no programs running other than the background stuff that normally runs. One time, I came back an hour later, and no more MIDI. Another time, after 4 hours, and the MIDI was just fine.

And it doesn't seem to matter if I'm online or offline to the internet either. I've tested both ways, and no consistency. Its a head scratcher for sure!

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