[Solved] Can't get Axe Edit to connect to unit via USB

jasonwb007

jasonwb007

Inspired
I seem to be having a problem talking to the AXE FX II via USB. I installed the driver from the Fractal site and it appears to be enumerating properly because I do see some messages. Axe Edit doesn't see the unit for some reason. I tried two different computers. Same response on both - Status: Not connected. The option to select MIDI IN and OUT as the AXE FX USB MIDI is not present.

I am running Windows XP, SP3. Both PCs have a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 with 4GB and 2GB of RAM, respectively. The .net framework is installed, as is pretty much every MS required update.

Any thoughts? Could the PCs be too old? Could the unit's USB be defective? It does appear to enumerate, so I have to believe the USB HW is working alright. I have version 2.00c, Sept 20, 2011 in the Axe-FX II. Do I need to additionally connect MIDI through my Lexicon Omega?

All of these things were done in the last 2 days, so I know I have the most recent software.
 
jasonwb007 said:
The option to select MIDI IN and OUT as the AXE FX USB MIDI is not present.
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Where are you checking for this? If its in AxeEdit Settings | MIDI Settings | MIDI panel, then your USB drivers are not installed correctly.. get any error codes during the USB install? Did you follow install directions and IGNORE (and cancel out of) any MS messages about driver installs ?
 
Hi, yes, I did cancel out of the Windows-generated messages and installed the drivers downloaded from FAS. Also, I did this on two computers with no success. Is it possible the computer is too old? How can I tell if the Axe-FX II USB drivers are properly installed? I did see period messages pop up like, "Axe FX II detected" and "Audio Device detected" so I am pretty sure the USB communications are working at some level.
 
I had the same problem this morning, but I got " error 105 while installing usb audio driver". Tried another driver download & install with same results. Axe edit does not see the usb. Device mgr has a splatted usb device. I removed the device and reinstalled... no luck here.
 
I had problems doing a update this weekend and decided to try a different computer to see if that was the problem. I first tried another laptop I own that is running windows xp pro with service pack 3, never was able to load the usb driver on that one after several tries it did not load properly and Axe Edit would never see it. Went to a desktop after that that runs windows 7, I had to load the usb driver twice before the Axe Edit would finally see it and allow me to update. I do not understand why support told you to try a different port or what is meant by that. I had three different computers have problems with the loading of the Axe software so have to wonder if there is a bug. Like I said, mine finally worked so keep trying.
 
I just tried again and got the same error as before. I'm running windows 7 64 bit on 2.1 gig processor with 2 gig ram.
 
BTW, every time I turn on the unit, I do get a Windows message saying there was a problem with the installation of the hardwre.
 
USB issues

I never got my Axe Edit to recognize my Axe Fx when hooked up USB. I also tried it on multiple computers. I finally bought a midi interface and hooked it up midi.
 
lizzieusedaaxe said:
I had problems doing a update this weekend and decided to try a different computer to see if that was the problem. I first tried another laptop I own that is running windows xp pro with service pack 3, never was able to load the usb driver on that one after several tries it did not load properly and Axe Edit would never see it. Went to a desktop after that that runs windows 7, I had to load the usb driver twice before the Axe Edit would finally see it and allow me to update. I do not understand why support told you to try a different port or what is meant by that. I had three different computers have problems with the loading of the Axe software so have to wonder if there is a bug. Like I said, mine finally worked so keep trying.
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There are numerious threads about USB related issues. I've responed on several to weigh in with my story. I had intermittent problems with Axe Edit hangs and AE not seeing the driver in/out ports. I was running XP 3 on a desktop and decided to upgrade to Win 7. I installed a new hard drive since I wanted to upgrade that as well so it was a fresh install. This time around I had problems with the audio driver. The system was hanging when I referenced anything related to the sound/audio device set up dialogs.

So, I installed the driver on my wifes netbook (XP 3) as well as AE and that seems to be working OK, although I had a hang yesterday in AE where I had to do a hard reboot after which AE hung when I tried to set the MIDI settings. Had to do another hard boot and this time I also rebooted the Axe. Don't know if that was the answer, but it worked. I read where one of the fixes in 3.03 is for intermittend USB hangs, so I'm hoping that's what that was and it is now fixed.

Tonight I am going back in with the desktop. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling everything again and may even download the driver again since the one I successfully loaded on the netbook was a fresh download. It shouldn't make any difference, but at this point none of this does.
 
Fixed mine. Heres what I did. I tried everything quite a few times so after a few beers when it asked do you want windows to look it up for you I clicked hey why not. So then windows said found axe fx II. Went into axe edit and clicked midi and then it finally showed up axe II. Clicked the in and out and then updated firmware. First time for me. Hopes this helps.
 
yesfan said:
Fixed mine. Heres what I did. I tried everything quite a few times so after a few beers when it asked do you want windows to look it up for you I clicked hey why not. So then windows said found axe fx II. Went into axe edit and clicked midi and then it finally showed up axe II. Clicked the in and out and then updated firmware. First time for me. Hopes this helps.
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Didn't work for me. I've been getting an error about 25% through the usb audio load.
 
I was finally able to get at least the MIDI connection going, so that's what I'm doing right now...100% and counting! Programming... Verifying... rebooted! And we're at version 3.03!

But all my patches are gone!!!! Oh no, what do I do now???

I really hope this can be fixed because the Axe Edit SW is really great. It's one of the unique pieces of this system. And fortunately, it will probably be that the fix for this problem is on the USB driver, so I won't have to update the unit to handle it. I'm looking forward to this issue finally being fixed as I see a lot of people have problems. But I'm willing to have patience because as a software engineer myself, I know how troublesome USB can be...
 
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For goodness sake, that worked for me too! But I didn't have the beers :)

I still have a blank Axe-Fx II, so I hope the fact that it still says "Awaiting File" while Axe Edit says it's downloading firmware is not an issue. I'll keep everyone posted.
 
Tonemaster said:
So, I installed the driver on my wifes netbook (XP 3) as well as AE and that seems to be working OK, although I had a hang yesterday in AE where I had to do a hard reboot after which AE hung when I tried to set the MIDI settings. Had to do another hard boot and this time I also rebooted the Axe. Don't know if that was the answer, but it worked. I read where one of the fixes in 3.03 is for intermittend USB hangs, so I'm hoping that's what that was and it is now fixed.
Click to expand...
Ok all... let me try to explain how to avoid reboot's one more time:
  1. When you install the USB drivers, there are 2 parts to it.. Audio and MIDI.
  2. MIDI (on windows) by nature of the beast requires an "exclusive" device use when in use. IOW - you can't have TWO different software packages using it at the same midi "device handle" at the same time (even it that is two instances of AE).
  3. If AE hangs.. WIndows will [often] not release the MIDI device handle for some time. So do the following:
    • Start Task Mangler and see if you can see AxeEdit.exe (*32 on 64-bit systems) running. If it is, right-click on it and kill the process! It will likely not die immediately as it's trying to release the Midi device. If it doesn't die, I have seen it take up to 7 mins to go away. This is Windows, not AE (AFAIK). So you can wait or reboot. During this time, the settings file can become corrupted as AE tries to write last settings used to this file.
    • Wait until AE dies.
    • Restart AE
  4. If it hangs again (when trying to select Midi In/Out in AE) then the MIDI interface is still locked, so go back to 3 above.
  5. You can also delete the axe-edit.settings file, but that will make you to set them up again, including workspace and MIdi In/Out settings. On win7 that's under “<root>:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Fractal Audio\Axe-Edit 1.0 “
    Note that the last folder name will be the same as where AE installed itself.
    <root>:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Audio\<axeedit_install_dir>
  6. On Win7, also look for “audiodg.exe”.. that’s Win7’s audio manager.
    I have seen it cause issues with an AE start up.. try killing it before starting AE. Audiodg will restart itself later anyway.
  7. Restart AE.
  8. If it still hangs there may be something corrupt in your Workspace, so delete the Settings file again and select a different workspace and see if that fixes it.
This process has worked for me quite well.

FWIW - I have also installed the 1.29 and 1.50 USB drivers on XP SP3 PC also on XP SP3 and Hackintosh inside a Virtual Machine (VM under Oracles Virtual Box) and been able to connect thru the VM interface - over USB - to the Axe-II and load/save presets. True, this has all been on a Win7 x64 Ultimate OS, but it works.

I understand the frustration some of you are going thru, but there's often a simple solution. It works VERY WELL for me and I have not experienced the issues you are posting about here.

My fall back: - if all the above fails, and you can't get it working..
  1. UN-INSTALL everything FAS - including removing the directory structures. REBOOT.
  2. make sure you have the latest OS patches and drivers installed.
  3. Install USB drivers - follow instructions
  4. Install AE
Hope this was helpful.
 
Thanks for the info S0c9. I've pretty much followed steps 1-4, but I sometimes (after 3-5 minutes) just hard boot. I haven't looked for the audiodg.exe but will do so if I have issues with AE.

However, my problem now (on my Win 7 desktop) is not MIDI but audio. I do the driver install, which "seems" to go OK. I say that because when I check the sound devices, AXE II shows up and if I right click on it in Device Manager it says it is working properly. However, as soon as I set it as the default, anything referencing audio hangs. This includes the Audio Device dialog where you can click a speaker to test, Win media player, and of course the Axe. In fact one time I couldn't even open the Device Manager dialog. I kept getting error dialogs with hex characters...very strange.

I should point out that the driver install does not go smooth. I get window messages that there is a problem. The install experience on my netbook, which is working OK, was different than what I'm getting on my desktop. I forget the actual steps but it is different. One time the install dialog just hung with the progress bar. I tried to kill the process and got tired of waiting and rebooted. When I checked the audio devices, it showed as being installed OK, but the hangs I mentioned above occured.

I've tried multiple uninstalls/reinstalls, both with and without a clean reboot, but to no avail. Again, MIDI and AE seem to be working fine, it's just the audio. I'm going to contact support but figured I'd continue to seek forum help as well.

Thanks
 
Hi everyone,

I finally DID get this working and here's what I did. But before I explain, thanks to "yesfan" for the key suggestion of actually letting Windows install the driver (after the FAS USB driver) that seemed to solve the problem.

What I did was to install the FAS USB drivers and then install Axe Edit and it did not work. I did not see AXE FX II MIDI as one of the options. So, what I did was to turn the AF2 off and on and let Windows try to enumerate it again. It gave me the same "Do you want me to find a driver" message and, as YESFAN said, I went ahead and let it. Warning - this is in direct conflict with FAS recommendations, but for me and him, it worked!

I suspect that Windows was able to find part of the USB driver, as there are different drivers for MIDI, USB Audio devices, USB DFU (downloadable firmware), etc. Perhaps Windows just found the missing piece.

Also... make sure NOT to have the MFC-101 connected at the same time. I can't guarantee this is a problem, but it seemed to help.

Best wishes everyone. I am sure FAS will get these issues resolved pretty soon. Part of the reason they can move so fast is that we can help them with beta testing. If you're a professional, you may wish to wait a few days to see how the newest versions of SW go, but otherwise, it's pretty cool we can help this product mature quickly.
 
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