MIDIServer crapping out? (Long)

[Evan E]

[I would have posted this in the OS X Audio Forums, but they've been down all day.]

Is anyone else having a problem w/ MIDI services going out of whack? 3 out of 4 times when I try to boot up a MIDI app, I get an error to the effect that MIDI services could not be established.

• If I boot up Audio MIDI Setup, the MIDI Devices tab says "MIDI Setup is Empty";
• Metro's error message says "-10839: MIDI Server start error couldn't start the server",
• and MIDI Monitor says "Error: There was a problem initializing the MIDI system. To try to fix this, log out and log back in, or restart the computer."*

Booting up Process Viewer reveals multiple instances of a process called MIDIServer, one for each time I tried to boot up a MIDI app (even if I've closed out of the apps - if this was working properly, of course, MIDIServer would quit once the apps that need it quit). I can force-quit each of these (although it normally takes two or three force-quits before they go away), but the only chance I have of actually getting a MIDI app to work is to reboot the computer - logging out and back in will not work.

I have tried:
1) Creating a new user to see if something in my usual account got munged.
2) Running Disk Utility, both from the startup disk and the installer disk (doing both repair permissions and repair disk).
3) Uninstalling each MIDI driver I have installed and reinstalling them individually.
4) Reinstalling Jaguar via Archive and Install.

and every permutation of the above steps I could think of. Still no luck - once MIDI services have crapped out, the only chance I have of getting it to work again is restarting, and even that only has a 25% chance of working. If I can get MIDIServer up and running, Metro SE is a joy to work with under OS X, but it's getting there that's making me lose what little hair I have left. A reasonable workaround would be a way to re-initialize MIDIServer w/o having to reboot the whole machine.

My setup:

B&W G3 upgraded w/ an XLR8 G4/500, running OS X 10.2.4
Roland SC-8820 connected via USB (most recent drivers)
Tascam US-428 connected via USB (v. 3.20 beta drivers)
Opcode MIDI Translator II connected to a gPort Serial adapter (most recent beta drivers)

BTW, this started in 10.2.3 two days ago (hadn't done much in MIDI before, other than boot up Audio MIDI Setup and MIDI Monitor just to verify that things seem to have worked), and I upgraded to 10.2.4 at that point to see if that would fix things. And, yes, my first guess was the beta drivers for the MIDI interfaces, but this problem happened w/ no drivers installed at all after an Archive & Install of Jaguar, in a brand new account.

Any suggestions?
Evan Evanson

*is that a great, informative dialog box, or what? Three cheers for Kurt Revis.

[Jerm]

Evan,

That does not sound too good. Perhaps you should post an email to the core audio list. They require you to become a member before you can post.

coreaudio-api@lists.apple.com

[Evan E]

Thanks Jeremy; I'm now lurking on the list, but I think I've independently found a workaround. I'll post it here for the benefit of any others who might eventually be searching for similar situations:

Once Audio MIDI Setup recognizes your setup, NEVER QUIT IT.

I've found that if I start AMS right after boot up, it can usually "grab" my setup. Once I've succeeded with that, I just "Hide" AMS, and everything works hunky dory. I'm now on my fourth day of continuous uptime, and things are working great. I even had SE crash on me once (I rebooted my TASCAM US-428 while SE was running - must remember not to do that), but I switched to ASM, ascertained that the MIDI setup hadn't magically disappeared, hid ASM, and rebooted Metro to continue work. Once, I accidentally quit ASM instead of hiding it, but I rebooted it immediately, found everything was still kosher, and continued on my merry way.

Of course, there's always the possibility that this is totally unrelated to my MIDI server problems, and things are just randomly working okay at the moment, but previously my longest MIDI uptime was about 3 or 4 hours, so I think I'm on to something here.

Hope this helps others in the future,

Evan Evanson

[buserror]

Actualy, if you don't want to keep running MIDI setup, try any other MIDI application, like "MIDI Monitor" (freeware)
Keeping a MIDI app open also considerably speeds up the launching time when you open another one (like, your sequencer)

It's true that sometime, the MIDIServer goes bonkers, or starts forgetting about some plugged USB devices etc etc.