I am trying to set up remote midi ports in Bome Network for the BomeBox.
I have a couple midi ports selected for remote midi, which created some virtual ports.
These are from the iConnectMIDI4+ connected to the BomeBox.
I have “Remove Virtual Port on Disconnect” disabled, this seems to cause an issue.
When I unplugged the iCM4+, every virtual port got installed again and numbered differently.
So some of those virtual ports now exist twice in windows device manager.
Plugged in:
Unplugged:
Not only does this this cause device disconnects when unplugging the BomeBox, it also creates a lot of extra hidden devices in device manager.
As you can see in the pictures, it’s port 1 and 2 switching virtual port assignments.
I tried deleting the virtual ports and adding them again, which fixed the problem with the 2nd port and the exclamation mark for the 6th.
The first port however, is always installing twice, causing the disconnect.
With hidden devices enabled, it now looks like this:
It looks like some ports have the problem, others don’t.
Are there ways to prevent this from happening?
Update:
Tried uninstalling all the ports and adding them again one at a time.
When I unplugged the iCM4+, the first 3 ports immediately got double installed again.
Update:
It gets even weirder, Port 1 actually switches assignment from [1] (8) to [1] (14) when unplugged, but Port [2] and [3] don’t. The extra created virtual ports [2] (15) and [3] (16) are never actually used.
Still, when I uninstall them they get re-installed every time the iCM4+ is disconnected.
Thanks, it’s lucky that you have the same interface, should be no problem to recreate the same setup.
The other virtual ports don’t behave like this, like the BomeBox DIN port for example.
Since you already gave me so much of your time, is there a way to wipe all the settings for the virtual ports and Bome Network? Because the previous problem was probably from an old installation, this might also be related.
You should be able to go to %APPDATA%\Roaming\Bome and delete the BomeNet-bmts file after shutting down Bome Network. Then restart Bome Network and it will create a clean blank configuration for you.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Hi @DreamXcape , thank you for the extensive description. Drivers sometimes behave in seemingly strange ways. Having many hidden devices is not a problem wrt correct functioning. Much of the driver handling is managed by Windows anyway. Sometimes, unidirectional ports (MIDI IN or MIDI OUT only) are used, causing two device manager entries per port. Additionally, our virtual MIDI driver must ensure that the internal port name (which you see in the device manager) is unique, that’s why it adds an index number in parenthesis. It can and will happen regularly that the same port will have different index numbers.
So the actual problem is that disconnecting the BomeBox with Remote Direct MIDI ports enabled will recreate one or more of the associated virtual ports, and therefore cause a disconnect in applications using those ports. Correct?
Thanks Steve, I found the config files, there were like 6 backups.
To be sure, I completely removed, then reinstalled Bome Network with the custom option to re-install the Virtual Midi Driver.
This removed every Virtual Port from my system but didn’t reinstall them.
Now both Midi Translator Pro and Bome Network tell me there is no Virtual Midi Driver
Thanks for the detailed description Florian!
I’m not so much afraid of it not functioning, more of the extra hidden devices pushing windows over the midi device limit.
Because I have so many devices, this happened before, and as far as I know hidden devices also get a reserved place in the midi device list. Please correct me if I’m wrong on that.
Exactly, in this case it causes windows to register 3 device disconnects and 3 connects.
This causes FL Studio to halt, re-discover all midi ports and resend some midi data.
Although disconnecting the BomeBox causes Bome Network to register a ‘stale’ connection, no disconnects.
The problem emerges when disconnecting the iCM4+ from the BomeBox.
Got it, I already noticed the errors from Bome Network when I did that last time.
I ran the Bome Network installation again, the standard install this time.
This gave me back the Virtual Midi driver.
To see if there would be a difference to the situation before, I repeated the process of adding 8 ports from the iCM4+ as remote direct midi.
This time, disconnecting the iCM4+ from the BomeBox duplicated every port instead of a couple.
The extra created ports are actually used now.
The numbering also makes a lot more sense:
edit:
I want to make a couple things clear.
First, I’m using the iCM4+ as a test case. It will be hooked up to the BomeBox but probably not as remote midi. I will be using a multi-port interface though, so circumstances will be similar.
Second, I think I understand now why this is happening and I know that you can not control everything, certainly not when it comes to Windows.
So, consider this a feature request:
Have the option to hide remote direct midi ports from the system(no virtual port in windows), but have them still visible in the router. This way I could use the solution Steve suggested by creating the virtual ports manually and using the router for the connections.
That way Bome Network handles all the disconnects/re-connects and I would be very happy
He also purchased Unlimited named Virtual MIDI Ports and will route his MIDI Direct Ports to his named ports so that when tie MIDI Direct Ports drop, his application will not notice, yet will just be connected to a virtual MIDI port that is routed to nowhere until his gear is re-connected.
Thanks Steve, I was just explaining exactly that in my edit.
I want to make clear though that I have not bought the Unlimited Named Ports license yet because I’m still testing the whole principle. And for just the remote midi ports, I don’t need any license.
Because this is part of a very expensive setup, I want to make sure that everything works well before I buy the rest of the components.
That said, I’ll probably buy both licenses anyway because I collect Bome products
I still have one question about the Unlimited Named Ports license:
Is it possible to exactly name virtual ports so I can trick editors into thinking the device is actually locally connected?
Some devices are in a separate room, so that would be a gamechanger.
Yes, I do this. It works with Most MIDI controllers, however there are a some controllers that used USB Audio and HID on the same interface as USB MIDI and for those, the computer is not tricked completely as MIDI is usually handled well but BomeBox does not pass USB HID or Audio Data over Bome Network.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
I bought a license for Unlimited Named Ports.
Don’t know what the limit was before, but now I can have more.
I’m aware of this, it’s actually one of the reasons I bought the iCM4+ and later the BomeBox.
I got tired of Windows messing up the audio settings every time one of those devices got plugged into a different USB port, like the Allen & Heath Xone:K2.
All my audio is handled by RME interfaces, no Virus TI, no Elektron Overbridge, just lots of cables…
Yes, I also bought the iCM4 primarily because I wanted more MIDI DIN ports. However it was a bit of overkill if you are running a project file on BomeBox so I bought a simpler 4 port interface instead and let Bome MIDI Translator handle all of the routing. I don’t think Amazon sells them anymore but there are lots of similar ones out there and a lot less expensive than the iConnectivity if all you want is more MIDI DIN ports.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
I actually got so tired of iConfig not detecting the iCM4+, that I once had a BomeBox hooked up to one of the USB device ports to do exacly that.
I keep it around for my iPad and the triple USB device ports.
Thanks for the additional info. I’m convinced that it’s some kind of a bug, because creation and deletion of virtual MIDI ports is a thing Bome Network controls.
We’re working on a different solution which will allow you to do the same without additional virtual ports. But that would require that the behavior with Remote Direct MIDI ports (recreate virtual ports when unplugging device) gets fixed.
Succes in hunting down those little buggers!
For now I will use Steve’s solution with the extra virtual ports.
Awesome, always good to hear that things keep progressing.
If you need someone to beta test this behaviour, send me a message. I’m still testing and setting up stuff here, so it’s no problem messing around a bit.
Same goes for BomeBox firmware in combination with this, my second BomeBox is unused right now untill I finish redoing the studio.
