MIDI - Self Healing

[dudeltrieb]

I am using Chataigne to start Backing Tracks and sending timed MIDI signals to instruments for Program Change.
It is installed on a small Ubuntu Machine in our Live Rack without any monitor. Chataigne is started automatically when the system is started.

We frequently have the issue that I need to select the MIDI device manually via an Monitor or an VNC connection. I believe it is a kind of timing issue. Maybe the MIDI device is not present in the moment. Delaying Chataigne to start is not a working solutin. Sometimes it works but most times not. So on every startup of the computer sombody needs to configure Chataigne manually, not very useful in stressful changeover situations.

It would be nice to have a Self-Healing feature. Chataigne should automatically connect / reconnect to the MIDI Device. This would also be useful if sombody pulls the USB ports accidently.

[pruttelherrie]

Hi, in my experience Chataigne already is self-healing - however, this doesn't always work, it could be device-dependent? I'll do some testing tonight at rehearsal with a couple of devices and report back.

[benkuper]

yes it is self healing but linux tends to not have persistent ID for devices, or at least not the way i try to retrieve persistent device ID. so self healing doesn't work because Chataigne doesn't find 'same-id" device

[pruttelherrie]

I'm using an Intel Macbook with macOS and unplugging/replugging is no problem as far as I can see.

BUT we had some issues with the Valeton GP-5 guitar pedals: we have multiple in a switching matrix and they all enumerated as "GP-5" with the same serial number hardcoded in the firmware. So they all had the same serial number and no way to distinguish them. The result was that multiple MIDI modules in Chataigne would randomly be linked to the GP-5 pedals?!?

However, tonight I found out that I can rename the macOS MIDI name with the "Audio MIDI Setup" application and when I did that it seemed that Chataigne would re-connect the module to the correct device.

@ben: do you actually get any USB info (location?) in the MIDI module or is it just whatever the OS gives you from the MIDI device? I've gone through the source but I'm kind of lost here.

[dudeltrieb]

@benkuper Thank you for checking. That the id is changing was my idea too. Would it be possible to get a self-healing feature that is self-healing by checking the device's name? In my case it is a generic "USB Midi Interface". So maybe a checkbox "identify by name", or something else?