running into a problem doing an intial load

DTownSMR

DTownSMR

Inspired
Just unwrapped my MFC. Fired up Fractal-Bot and was able to received an initial sysx just fine. Saved off an archived version as my virgin sysx. I made a copy of the virgin sysx & make a few little modifications and I'm trying to send the modifications back down to the MFC. Go thru all the steps and the editor's SysEx Dumper says "ALL DONE" but the MFC never gets past "Loading Presets I". I've tried to do a search to see if this is a common issue but my search doesn't return anything.

I've tried upping the manual delay override as well as lowering it and the only change was when I lowered it, it got stuck on Firmware Info.

Running on a Macbook Pro running OS X 10.9.5
MFC-Edit 2.5
midisport 2x2 by midiman USB/MIDI interface
MFC FW 3.6

Any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks in advance
 
Hi;
For sure it's the delay. When it gets stuck at Loading Presets I the transmission is "just a little" too fast.
You'll have to experiment with delays and your interface because we haven't tested that one in our labs. Here's what I would do:
  • Set the manual delay to 115 miliseconds and transmit, if that hangs AFTER Presets I slow it down to 130 ms
  • If it fails BEFORE Presets I then decrease the delay to 90 ms and try that
Basically, you'll need to adjust the delay 10 ms at a time and keep trying. The smallest delay will be 60 ms and the largest delay will be 160 ms.

You might also want to try with Fractal Bot since the Mac Transmission support in your version of MFC-Edit is still actually pre-release. Version 3.0 will be out soon and transmission will be fully supported.

Let me know please how you fare, and what delay you wind up with.
Thanks
-G
 
bwanagary said:
Hi;
You might also want to try with Fractal Bot since the Mac Transmission support in your version of MFC-Edit is still actually pre-release. Version 3.0 will be out soon and transmission will be fully supported.
Click to expand...

I tried all the various delay settings in 10ms increments and they all fail. Fractal Bot isn't faring any better. :-(

>>UPDATE<< I am able to send the sysx (at least for the moment, reliably) via the Axe MIDI ports at around 130-140 delay.
 
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Well I'm glad that at least you can transmit via the Axe-Fx. The Axe-Fx as a midi interface will work at 115ms delay unless you have a really fast Mac Pro. I've done lots of testing with Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and it works fine. Not every USB/MIDI interface works well for some reason. The E-MU interface works on my Mac with a 90 ms delay. You might want to try 90 ms if you haven't tried that yet.
 
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Hey Gary,

I've hit a similar problem, but in my case the MFC gets stuck at "Loading IA Switches"... I tried both MFC-Edit and FractalBot numerous times (using a MidiSport UNO interface). I am able to load my initial backup just fine with zero issues... I'm able to load a different backup as well... just not the one I actually want to load.

FractalBot defaults to 300ms delay... I did not change the delay setting on MFC-Edit.

Hope you can help - I've spent the last 30 minutes becoming very irritated :(

I should also note that when the load does work, it blows through the IA switch load in a couple seconds.
 
Honestly, it sounds like there's something wrong with the IA Switches messages. Please open a support ticket and copy/paste the contents of the EXTRAS page Error Log pane into the support ticket, and attach the SysEx file you're trying to send to the MFC-101 and I'll take a look at it for you.
-G
 
bwanagary said:
Honestly, it sounds like there's something wrong with the IA Switches messages. Please open a support ticket and copy/paste the contents of the EXTRAS page Error Log pane into the support ticket, and attach the SysEx file you're trying to send to the MFC-101 and I'll take a look at it for you.
-G
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks - I will do that tonight.

Interestingly, both MFC-Edit and FractalBot reported a successful completion :(

Also, after posting last night, I used MFC-Edit to make updates (similar to the failed one) into my previous backup and was then able to load it successfully.

Thanks,

Kevin
 
unix-guy said:
Interestingly, both MFC-Edit and FractalBot reported a successful completion :(
Click to expand...

I think that's the nature of the beast with MIDI communication. It's a blast-it-down-the-pipe and hope it gets there. AFAIK there's no facility to acknowledge the receipt of a transmission by the receiver. Therefore, the utilities just have to blindly assumes that what it sends is received. Their "OK" simply means that the sender sent everything and why they mention "...and you'll see blah-blah-blah on the {your-receiving-device}" . (What we get for relying on an early 80's spec)

Some programs (like the FCB UnO Control Center) turn around and fetch a dump from the device and compare the two to make sure what was sent was received. Doesn't work when manual intervention is required to send/receive.
 
DTownSMR said:
I think that's the nature of the beast with MIDI communication. It's a blast-it-down-the-pipe and hope it gets there. AFAIK there's no facility to acknowledge the receipt of a transmission by the receiver. Therefore, the utilities just have to blindly assumes that what it sends is received. Their "OK" simply means that the sender sent everything and why they mention "...and you'll see blah-blah-blah on the {your-receiving-device}" . (What we get for relying on an early 80's spec)

Some programs (like the FCB UnO Control Center) turn around and fetch a dump from the device and compare the two to make sure what was sent was received. Doesn't work when manual intervention is required to send/receive.
Click to expand...
Yeah, MIDI isn't rocket science. Fire and forget protocol :lol However, with a little planning even a MIDI protocol could be more robust. A simple ACK from the receiver, or, the ability to send a tiny Sysex that requests the status of the last message would allow the software interfacing with the MIDI device to be much more robust. But if we're going to do all that work we might as well implement a USB port ;-)
 
"solution" of sorts

OK,it appears that the issue isn't with MFC-Edit or Fractal Bot but rather a glitch/bug in the MFC itself. It only rears it's ugly head when both the FASLINK connector from the Axe-Fx (what I use for phantom power) AND the MIDI IN & OUT from the USB/MIDI interface (for MFC-Edit) are both plugged in at the same time is. It seems that if I use the supplied power brick and the same USB/MIDI interface it works fine reliably. :-(

I can see this to be problematic/dangerous. You can't have both the FASLINK & the power brick attached at the same time for fear of risking damage. Add to that danger, I now will be power cycling the MFC a WHOLE lot more than I would have to otherwise as I switch between MFC-Edit & Axe-Fx since the typical use case is obviously going back and forth between editing, loading and then testing out the new configuration...sometimes a LOT!
 
Yeah. I test A LOT when testing the software And that means switching back and forth. I have my MFC connected to the wall-wart in a power strip and a usb/midi interface connected to my computer. FASLINK always connected to the Axe-Fx. Before powering up the Axe-Fx I turn off the Wall-wart and unplug the usb end of the interface. That's my system.
 
You can. If the Axe-Fx is powered up it may interfere. I haven't tested that, but I'll test it this weekend and post the results.
However, you probably should not have the Axe-Fx connected to the MFC-101 while its powered by the transformer.
 
bwanagary said:
You can. If the Axe-Fx is powered up it may interfere. I haven't tested that, but I'll test it this weekend and post the results.
However, you probably should not have the Axe-Fx connected to the MFC-101 while its powered by the transformer.
Click to expand...
On second thoughts, I'm not going to test it this weekend. I'm not taking the chance of blowing up a piece of my equipment :shock
 
EvilPhish said:
Sooo, we can't have the FASLINK connected to the MFC and Axe-FX while using MFC-Edit?
Click to expand...

You can (but as Gary already cautioned...do NOT also have the power on via the wall wart transformer). However, I could NOT get consistent loads that way. You may have better luck with your USB/MIDI interface then I did.

It would be super nice to be able to tunnel the MIDI traffic thru the axe but that isn't very reliable either. Works just enough to make you want to throw both units out a window. LOL
 
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