reassigning driver names?

hi gang--
 
yesterday i moved my computer to the other side of the room. in doing so, i unplugged my midisport 8x8 and of course, plugged it into a new USB port.
of course sonar threw a fit about this, and wants me to rename every port, etc, because they are all now named "2 midisport 8x8" instead of just "midisport 8x8" like before.
 
any suggestions?

When using Win 7 it is supposedly preferable to stick to one USB port for each device. The reason being that Win 7 only allows up to 10 USB MIDI port hubs which basically means you could only have ten MIDI devices going at once. Not a problem for pretty much anyone because who has ten devices hooked up at once? The problem is once you install your device Windows creates the USB MIDI hub for that device and associates it with the port you originally installed it to. If you move it to another port it wants to create a new USB MIDI hub thus taking up another of your ten available hubs. It keeps the original hub in place so that's why your are getting the [device name]2 message when plugging it into the second port. This ends up causing problems for users who have a lot of devices or buy new devices because all of a sudden they ran out of MIDI hubs within Win 7 and can't create a new one for their new device. Unfortunately MS decided we as the end user are too dumb to be allowed access to those port names and settings (at least not easily) and apparently you can't even access them through the control panel (I tried just out of curiosity and no... I could not find any access through usual channels). However M-Audio supposedly has a MIDI port fixer software that supposedly will let you delete old unused hubs so you can use them with other devices but I have no need for it so have not tried it. I stumbled across this info a few months back trying to get my padKontrol up and running on my laptop. I may have some terminology wrong and I'm sure there are those smarter than I that could indeed tell you how to access those port/hub names and mess with them but as far as I know it is not really something the average user would be able to figure out easily. So the moral of the story is, when using MIDI controllers or other MIDI devices with a Win 7 system choose your USB ports wisely and always use the same port for the same device whenever possible. It will save headaches. If anyone has more info on this I'd like to hear it because it does seem to be a semi obscure tech topic and it took a bit of digging for me to find details on the subject all those months ago. Peace.

It's the actual MIDI USB that has ten. Like synth keyboards, MPC units, drum triggers... stuff like that. Mice and QWERTY keyboards don't use up the MIDI USB stuff. I'll try to find the article again. I thought I had it bookmarked but I ain't seeing it... really gotta clean up these bookmarks. lol

There is a limit on MIDI ports with Windows but its been upped since win XP. I can't remember the new number but its more than ten. BTW this has nothing to do with USB.

Edit I was wrong. Read This.

What I forgot is that Vista and Win 7 have no limit on MIDI ports. XP did and it was 10. after SP2 it was raised to 32. 

well googling led me back to me. unfortunately the winxp korg driver viewer doesnt work in win7.
so after about 30 min of plugging into other usb ports, i got them matched.
i went through 6 ports before i got them. funny, win7 appended a number in front of each one.

Actually, John... do you know if uninstalling the device driver frees up the MIDI driver lane (or whatever it's called) that it was using in Win 7? Or does it stay there and when you reinstall the driver it creates a new lane/hub/thingy/whatevs? (really gotta get my lingo down, sorry)

Fair enough. But seriously if you start digging around for those USB MIDI things in Win 7 they just aren't there through the regular control panel options. At least I couldn't find them. I might have better luck through the Windows GodMode panel I found out about recently. However I have more pressing issues at hand... mostly meatworld ones which are far more obnoxious and boring than PC ones. ;-p

That looks to be more about general USB type stuff like mice, QWERTY's, printers, etc. I really need to find the bookmarks I had about this stuff because something is just ringing in my head about USB MIDI limitations in windows. Like specifically USB devices. It's an obscure issue but would effect people who cycle through many USB MIDI devices on the same system (like a studio perhaps) and they just can't install above a certain amount because they have too many previous instances of USB MIDI controllers. IDK... my bookmarks are the virtual equivelent of Fox Mulders desk at this point so I'm not gonna hunt around. I'd bet that Jim fellow who builds computers would know what the hell is up. It might vary between OS versions too. Like there is a certain limit within Win 7 Home and another within Pro. That article is interesting though because it seems to allude to PnP devices not actually just plugging in and working but they take up a specific little segment of Windows for themselves and if you plugged in enough devices (like over 130) you would run out of USB hubs/lanes/whatever they are called within Windows and then have to clean things up a bit. Again though... more of a tech brain teaser than something that really effects me or most users. Perhaps I'll ask my wicked smart friend if I think of it. Peace.

But specifically MIDI through USB ports is what the issue seemed to be. Not MIDI in general. It was a big thing the guys on the Korg forum were on about. I remember seeing like charts and everything. IDK... maybe it was a dream or something. God knows I've been cramming my head with far more of this tech crap than can be healthy. lulz... Anyway, I gotta eat. Take care, John.

Okay... and really this is probably just crazy talk from scrounging the bottom of the intertubes and I am not saying this is at all factual it's just what I remember reading but what I'm saying is... MIDI in general can have the amount of lanes/hubs/drivers (whatever we want to label it for our discussion) that you are saying within Windows. That would mean through whatever MIDI connection like Firewire, PCI, regular old MIDI connections AND USB.... BUT only a certain amount of those lanes/hubs can be affiliated with actual USB ports. Once you have attached and installed enough USB MIDI devices those lanes fill up and you have to remove a previous device. You could still attach a MIDI device via other connections like a PCI card or whatever. Maybe that's a little clearer... perhaps not sane or based in reality but at least an explanation of what seems to be bouncing around in my little monkey brain. Now I will definitely have to dig through my bookmarks to find this topic. I swear I've got it in there somewhere. Man, I must sound like a lunatic. lol...

Beepster


But the point is... everyone should pick a USB port for their MIDI device and stick to it. All that other crud shouldn't effect most people anyway.

I'm on XP and have Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 and Sonar Home Studio 7 using an M-Audio USB MidiSport 4x4.  I recently updated the driver and kept the device plugged into the same USB port.  The result was that the name of the device changed a bit.  This caused SHS7 to demand that I fix up the midi device assignments on every project.  However, Pro Audio 9 was happy to keep using the midi interface with no changes needed on my part.  Yahoo!


I was using "friendly names" in SHS7 but they didn't help.  The issue seemed to be with the device name the friendly names were associated with.  Grrrrr......


--Larry

Beepster


@larrymcg... Well that just sounds infuriating. I'm glad you shared that story because if it had happened to me I wouldn't have known what the *^&$ was going on. So if I'm reading that correctly you had used a "friendly name" to rename your device, then updated the driver which changed the device back to it's factory name thus making all tracks/channels associated with the friendly name no longer work properly? I don't think I'll be using the Friendly Names option if that's the case.

If a driver is unavailable for an input/output, for whatever reason, you will be asked at project load time if you wish to reassign that to another driver. You can either choose to do that if it's for a permanent reason such as a different driver instance (i.e. 2 - Midisport 8x8) in which case the reassignments will be made for you within that project. Alternatively if it's temporary change such as a device that you've just left disconnected you can choose to ignore the reassigment request in which case Sonar will reinstate the driver next time the device is present.

The whole MIDI driver assignment issue was vastly improved a few versions ago. V8 IIRC - either way I've had no assignment issues for a long time and I run several MIDI ports (12 or 13+) and I also use friendly names.

I'm glad they've got it set up to hold our hands a little. With me if something dumb can go wrong it likely will so I try to make things as idiot proof as possible. In this case I think I could avoid any potential problems entirely by just leaving things on the same port. I'll probably only be using two controllers anyway so it should be very easy. pK and eventually a keyboard controller. It is possible I might look into a regular console controller at some point but as far as I can tell the pK does a pretty decent job as a stand in. I'm kind of wondering if I'll have any problems moving the pK from the front panel USB to a port directly on the MOBO. I haven't used it on any tracks though so I think all I'd have to do (if anything) is uninstall the drivers, move the pK to the new port and reinstall the drivers. But that is some fun for another day. I've got too many meatworld issues breathing down my neck at the moment.

unfortunately this has flared back up for me.
After trying (unsuccessfully) to get my Virus TI new OS5 loaded in Win7, its now showing "4-Virus TI" instead of just "Virus TI".
coincidentally, i probably unistalled and re-installed it 4 times. argh.
has anyone figured out how to uninstall or delete registry settings for these stupid numbers that show up in front of USB devices.


this is so frustrating.

You should have paid more attention to my post #12 above. In it I said much the same thing. Go to system devices.