Now that I've traced the problem to Sonar, it seems prudent to post it here.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2790052

I agree with the last poster that you need to now eliminate the firewire connection as the problem. At the very least, reseat both ends of the cable. Cables that are left in place for a long time to get oxidized and lose contact. 

this is a bizzare one bj.
are you indeed recieving audio signals through the audio part of the saffire 6 ??
and you do you use the saffire 6's mix control software?
 and you did say,its working as expected on another computer?

to me all leads are pointing to something in the saffire 6's mix control and/or something is blocking midi connectivity.
or power/signal is not being recieved from your controlers/bad cord.
(but you already ruled that out when testing it on another computer)

you did already try uninstalling/re-installing the drivers/mixcontrol software?

please keep us posted

Did you check device manager to see if they show up installed correctly?
Maybe a windows update hosed the drivers. 

joeb1cannoli


Did you check device manager to see if they show up installed correctly?
Maybe a windows update hosed the drivers. 

im not convinced this is the issue,he did mention he has hooked it up and the audi side of things are working perfect.
it is a good idea though joe..and it is worth checking out anyway.(matter of fact its the first place i would start as well.)
 
these units use one driver for audio/midi together as a whole unit.
but the older firewire saffire 6's had a software that came with them called mix control software i believe.
it for adjusting headphne mixes/output mixes to different sends,exc.
 
either 2 minds are better than one,so lets keep trying  :)
BJ is a good guy,and after his recent luck with his computer i feel very bad for him right now.

Hey Jonesy, You must have another DAW installed yes? Like Reaper or an older version of Sonar? That would rule out the actual Sonar version being the culprit. 

The weird one to me was that you even tried a USB midi connection, That bypasses a lot of other stuff. 

But because it works on the other laptop that totaly rules out any issues with your interface.. So it's a OS/software issue, either windows or sonar.

SOLVED!!

A few days ago i was going through the Windows Start up programs and services in msconfig.

i disabled Windows Sound and Windows Audio Endpoint Builder.

It seems that Sonar need both of these to be running to allow midi data to pass.


Thanks to all who chimed in

When I entered the world of software development some 20+ years ago, I worked for a Scottish boss who was quite pedantic about things (which I appreciated).  Each year I recognize his wisdom in two important items that were his mantra:

(1) if you make one change, however small, you have to re-test everything.

(2) if you're looking for the source of a problem for more than an hour, you're looking in the wrong place.

Sometimes I ignore these pearls of wisdom, and it's usually those times that I get burned ;-)

Yes <sigh>

I guess we're all guilty of it at some time or another.