Issues with MIDI/USB losing connection [SOLVED]

[artnik]

Hey all,

Has anyone else experienced issues with 1.65 on Windows 10 losing connection with a USB mic, or USB MIDI controller?

I just got off a week long gig and had issues with Magic losing connection to the hardware, and or throwing runtime errors. I'm sure the two are related and I'm trying to track down the root cause.

I was using a Microsoft Lifecam Cinema for its microphone, and a Novation Launch Control controller.

I know that there are issues with Windows 10 shutting down the USB Root Hub for power management, but I turned that "feature" off thinking it was the cause, but no luck. Drivers are all up to date according to Device Manager.

Video card in the laptop is an older one (Nvidia 650M), and it's drivers are also up to date.

Can badly coded ISF modules do this?

Cheers!

[Magic]

No, it has nothing to do with ISF. That's completely unrelated.

Are you sure it isn't just a loose/bad USB cable?

Other than that, I'd definitely suspect power management settings. Have you tried making sure your power plan is "maximum performance" or "high performance"? I would never recommend running Magic in anything less than that for a serious gig.

The next thing I'd suspect is the USB controller. Since you said it's an older laptop, do you know if it's USB 2.0 or 3.0? 2.0 doesn't let you run a lot of high-bandwidth peripherals at the same time. Most computers I've tested can't even run two webcams at the same time on USB 2.0.

I'll see if I can think of anything else...

[artnik]

Thanks for quick response Eric. Here's the specs:

Model: ASUS N76VZ-QB71 - 17.3" - Core i7 3610QM
OS: Windows 10 Home Version 1607, Build 14393.351
Processor: Intel Core i7 (3rd Gen) 3610QM / 2.3 GHz ( 3.3 GHz ) / 6 MB Cache
Memory: 8 GB DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - 2 GB DDR3
USB: 3.0

Cables are good. Wiggling them does nothing, so ports are physically good. (Wireless mouse never drops in any port)
Restarting Magic brings the Novation controller back consistently.
Did more ferreting in Windows and found a second spot to deactivate USB Suspend (In Power Plan Settings and Device Manager).

(I was curious about ISF, because I wrote some code that uses a break inside a for loop. Seemed dodgy at the time and I don't know much about this yet, just learning.)

Is their a log of events I should be looking at? I'll run some stress tests with a combination of devices to see if I can reproduce the behaviour consistently.

[Magic]

Honestly I'm not sure what log would provide any relevant information.

But it's interesting that restarting Magic brings back the Novation.

Does the same problem occur if you don't connect the camera? I'd be inclined to think that the camera is causing the problem, since it uses more bandwidth, and probably isn't tested for extended live use as well as the Novation is.

Incidentally, doing a web search for "USB disconnecting" or "Asus USB disconnecting" does come up with a bunch of results.

[artnik]

I thought of that. I stress-tested without the camera overnight and it was fine with just the Novation. For the past few hours, I've been testing with both, and it seems stable.

I strongly suspect it was the Power Saving. The fact that there are multiple places to set USB Suspend seems like a poor design choice, and I'm confident it was the fault.

Thank-you!

[Terry Payman]

Glad the problem's solved

FWIW I found the NirSoft USB utilities useful when chasing (non-Magic) USB connect/disconnect issues under Windows.

USBLogView "a small utility that runs in the background and records the details of any USB device that is plugged or unplugged into your system. "
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_log_view.html

USBDeview "a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used. USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer, as well as to disable and enable USB devices."
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

[artnik]

Thanks Terry, those look very useful.

It's been a while since I worked on Windows, and I'd forgotten how many trip-ups there were in the nook and crannies. The other thing during the week that was a hassle was Windows 10 not letting me restart the laptop without forcing an update at one point. That was a nail-biter.