Hi,
I’m able to load 2 4 port hubs (MIDIBOX and MIDIHub) in addition to an Arturia Beatstep via unpowered USB hub and everything shows up so I do not think there is an 8 port USB device limit.
I now have 9 USB ports plus 1 MIDI DIN Pair, plus 1 network attached port to my PC.
How are you powering the BomeBox? If via USB, see if you can use a different power cable or adapter or even better still POE (which is what I use as the higher voltage seems less susceptible to voltage variations.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
More than eight class compliant midi devices in general — they’re mostly synths, argon8, minitaur, etc. I’d rather run stuff on USB midi than cables if I can; less wire to deal with. I pulled the ESI out of USB 3 mode, but no change in the behavior. If the Bome doesn’t support USB 3, it would have to be auto-negotiating down anyway, but I guess it’s good to eliminate that somehow messing up the whole USB stack or something. I also confirmed again that I get the same out of audio devices kernel message even with only single-port class compliant devices plugged in.
So, the situation here would be more like plugging in 9 midihubs or 9 keysteps via a powered USB hub. When I say I get an error with more than eight USB ports, I don’t mean USB midi virtual devices, I mean actual class compliant USB midi hardware boxes. The Bome is bring powered off the factor USB cable, plugged into a 120W Belkin USB power supply that guarantees 2.4A per device.
(And the powered hub I’m using is the Startech industrial hub that has a 60W power supply; no signs that anything isn’t getting enough power on that side, either, and no other notable kernel errors)
OK,
I now have the following hooked up through 2 powered USB hubs (cascaded)
2 - MIDI Fighter Twister
1- Arturia Beatstep
1- Novation Launch Control
1–Novation Launch Control XL
1-Korg NanoKontrol2
1-Novation Launchpad MINI
1-Novation Launchpad MINI MK3
Whoops that is 8 let me add another. So much for my math skills
All 8 are physically attached devices are recognized by my BomeBox but not the 9th
2 of these devices have more than 1 virtual MIDI port exposed so I have 11 USB MIDI ports exposed as well as 1 network port and the MIDI DIN Port.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Hi, we have run tests with many devices (including multi-port devices), but there is a pending bug report of a user hitting a limit of, I think, 32 devices. We had not prioritized that bug, because 32 USB devices is plenty already. But 8 is definitely not enough!
I have just run a quick test with a USB 3 hub and indeed, I can confirm a maximum of 8 devices.
It could be an accidental reconfiguration in one of the last BomeBox firmware updates.
A bug report is filed.
Just to be clear. If we have less than or equal to 8 physical USB devices, we are OK, even if there is more than 8 logical USB ports (within the physical devices). The issue is if there are more than 8 “physical” USB devices attached.
For instance, with 2 USB interfaces and 1 device (3 physical devices), it works fine even though 2 of the USB interfaces each have 4 logical devices ( 9 logical USB devices total).
I think the key question is how many physical USB devices should be realistically configured (maybe 16)?
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Yes, it seems that this is due to the linux kernel setting CONFIG_SND_DYNAMIC_MINORS . If it is not set, the kernel only allows 8 USB devices (no matter how many MIDI ports each device provides). If it’s set, we’re back to 32 USB devices.
I’ll run some tests tomorrow.
Great — I thought this would have to be a regression, or it would have been mentioned in the docs. 32 devices would be great, and would be plenty of headroom.
No rush of course — I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of stuff to juggle, but when you get there, it’d be great to have a heads up on how long you think it’ll take to ship a fix, especially as we’re getting into the holidays (and I hope you’ll get some time off). If it’s going to be more than a week or two, I’ll either pick up a second box or some more midi interface ports so I can run off DIN for the time being.
