Ongoing connectiom problems using multiple ipads with lemur

[jbgeluid]

Also see my previous post, I can be a bit more specific as Ive been troubleshooting this for a long time now:
Using the lemur deamon with multiple ipads, multiple ports on both ipads results in ongoing connection errors, on all iPads.
(sometimes one of the out's doesn't work, sometimes it's the in that's not connected properly. Totaly random)

The only thing that helps 100%, is reasigning all ports on all ipads. After every reboot I have to do this again. VERRY unconvenient.
(4 ipads using 8 ports each in one studio, 8 ipads in the other...)

for example: I have two ipads, connected to a pc with loopmidi, each ipad 4x in, 4x out.
ports are named 1A,1B,1C,1D,1E,1F,1G,1H for the first ipad, and 2A,2B,2C,2D,2E,2F,2G,2H for the second ipad
After routing all is good, but after a cold boot ipad01>1G and ipad02>2G seem to be transmitting to the same loopmidiport;1G(??)
rerouting 2G to 2G again sometimes helps, but often enough the problem then shifts to other ports, sometimes on some of the other ipads, in an unpredictable way.
In most cases rerouting everything on every restart is the only reliable solution.
I have this problem on every location (4 different computers, routers, and so on) so I don't think it's related to my setup.
Using different port names does not help.


I really would like some help or support to get to the bottom of this. To me it looks like it's a deamon network routing problem.
Also I would be interested to learn where I cound find the deamon config files (PC), to investigate further.

Help please anyone?
I'm close to giving up on this project..

[midikinetics]

- Usually the errors you describe are related to connecting the same port to multiple places. This could be the same port to multiple Targets, the same ports to multiple devices, or the same ports to multiple software applications. Virtual MIDI cables are just like hardware cables.
- I would suggest trying LoopBE30 instead of LoopMIDI. I highly recommend against assigning custom names to ports. This isn't possible in LoopBE30.
- No reason to use the Lemur Daemon on Windows. Make your connections directly on your mobile device by tapping the cog-wheel icon and going to More Settings.
- Another source of these kinds of errors are your virtual ports not initializing before your other software applications.

[jbgeluid]

Ok, thanks, I will try LoopBE30.
30 ports is not enoug for my biggest setup, but maybe I can combine it with loopmidi or at least try with a smaller setup if it is loopmidi that is giving me problems. Also I need it to suport nrpn, the last time I checked it didn't (long time ago).

About the deamon: I'm connecting from the ipads, I was just refering to the pc part of the software as the part that's probably not working properly. When you try to connect from the pc side you loose your settings on reboot anyway.
Also as you probably know it's impossible to make duplicate connections if you connect from the ipads, the port will just switch.

I use startup delayer to take care of the proper startup sequence, the lemur deamon is the very very last in the sequence.
Why I think the problem is in the pc demon software;
It' takes care of the connection between the ipads and loopmidi on the pc. As soon as you select the proper port on the deamon everything is fine as long as you do not reboot. After a reboot some ipad ports do not send or receive or are connected to the same or other loopmidiports than selected on the ipad, while everything looks fine on the ipads. Reconecting evertything solves the problem, until the next boot. Also, very weird stuff hapens like midi from one of the ipad is not received/reflected by just some of the other ipads, while I can see it is received and send back by the pc. Using the same controller on an other ipad just works fine. (I have multiple ipads and BCR2000's connected to my cubase selected channel using a generic remote on different ports for each unit for example). Again, reconecting the problem port from the ipad (disconnect-reconnect) always solves the problem. Sometimes the problem then "moves" to another port (that was working properly before), so very often I just end up reconnecting everything just to be shure.
If properly connected everything works fine, no feedback or loops.

Anyway thanks for the fast reply, much apreciated!

[midikinetics]

Actually LoopBE30 is really 15 ports. It's 15 in and 15 out. With so much MIDI connectivity and stability issues, I'd highly recommend a device like an iConnectMIDI. MIDI being reflected somewhere else is indeed likely a MIDI port going somewhere you don't intend. I smell LoopMIDI being the issue but it could really be anything. There are lots of places in Cubase that this could happen. The usual suspect is the 'All MIDI' bus in Devices/Device Setup.

See if LoopBE30 fixes your startup issue. If it does, that's one problem solved. But it doesn't solve the problem of limited ports, which is where an iConnect will help. Sounds like an absolute monster of a setup! Are you running multiple DAWs on different machines? I know of one guy that runs his Cubase outs to a Pro Tools rig for mixdown and controls it all with 4 iPads running Lemur. You'd have to post a detailed schematic of your setup-- images, diagrams, screenshots, etc ---. and I can take a look to see if there aren't some places you could reduce the number of ports you need. Oftentimes Generic Remotes can be combined.

You could always just not shut down your machines

[jbgeluid]

Hi,

Some new findings:
I did not try LoopBE30 yet. (next step..)
But you did point me to something:(thanks!)

- Another source of these kinds of errors are your virtual ports not initializing before your other software applications.

I did experiment with the starup delay for some items, gave Loopmidi considerable more time to create ports, before starting Lemur deamon and Bome midi (both delayed one minute now).
Now I only need to reconnect the first ports of all ipads once on first startup.(opposed to all 8 ports every time!)
As long as I keep the ipads and my router on, I can now freeley restart my hostcomputer without loosing connection.
This is a major improvement to the previous situation.

Looks like the one problem left is now that on the ipad side there is some dificulty connecting correctly to so many ports on the host the very first time.
But I can live with that for now, reconnecting 8 ports once a day is different from reconnecting 56 ports every time you restart your computer..

[jbgeluid]

And to explain my setup:
I have have two edit locations connected to the same computer (split screen/keyboard/mouse, on different floors).
At every location I have 4 identical ipads, on which I can freely select what function they have in my setup (in relation to the connected ports, for example I cannot control plugins on ipads that do not have these ports connected:
two of those have 8 ports (4in,4out), for: Cubase generic remote 1 (general), MCU1, MCU2 (16 channels), Cubase generic remote 2:(Plugin control)
two of those have 6 ports (3in,3out), for: Cubase generic remote 1 (general), MCU1, MCU2 (16 channels). (No plugin control here)
two of those have 1 extra port for sending "normal" midi to cubase (visible in All Midi in cubase)

So 8 identical Ipads, 4x8 ports, 4x6 ports = 56 ports
Two more ports for controlling VSTi's = 58 ports. This is the maximum to my findings, create one more in loopmidi on the network and lemur deamon crashes. Creating other midiports on the host (other hardware) is no problem.
So checking out if I can intergrate LoopBE30 in this setup is certainly interesting. (for example: use LoopBE30 for plugincontrol (8in,8 out) and midi send (2 ports) on every ipad, and use Loopmidi for everything else..

look here;
https://www.jbgeluid.nl/en/jurmix/
and here: (outdated, working on that)
https://www.jbgeluid.nl/en/jurmix-updates-for-cubase-8/

[midikinetics]

Very cool! I see you have a lot of bidirectional controls. Another source of these kinds of issues are MIDI feedback loops. Make sure your controls don't update their state and transmit their values back out.

[jbgeluid]

That is taken care of already thanks. I just tested my previous findings in my biggest setup (the one with 8 ipads, the other one (in another location, where I did the previous test) has just four ipads): Same results. So much easier to connect, and stable after correcting the mentioned ports, as long as I do not disconnect the ipads or the router. But I can restart the host without problems now. Thanks man!

About the bidirectional thing: I use nrpn for all faders. Got the basic script from this group. I added a small script to the nrpn controllers that stops the "listen" (feedback) function on touch (Z). This solved the feedback loop problem on those knobs.

[midikinetics]

Beautiful! Looks like a very nice setup. Cheers.

[jbgeluid]

Thanks!