This is super-weird and I don;t know if it is something that everyone experiences. I’m on v1.40 of the octatrack:
I have started a brand new project
I have gone in and changed all of the Audio Tracks channels to be 9-15 (master off)
I set up all of my MIDI tracks so that they are activated and are on channels 1-8.
I trigger a note on each of the tracks successively.
I press play on the OT.
I view this in a MIDI monitor.
What I see:
Channel 5 continually sending out a note on / off event about 10 times per second, including when the sequencer is not playing and it looks like the rest of the MIDI events are not triggered either. By the way, this also happens even if any of the other midi tracks are set to channel 5. As I say, super wierd!!
Is this a known bug? Can anyone else replicate it??
Can you roll back to a previously saved version of your project and see if the problem goes away? usually when something on my OT stops working right and I haven’t made any changes it’s a corrupted project file that isn’t triggering an error message when I load it (usually if I get an error when I load a project it works fine, but if there’s an actually problem with the file saved on the card I usually DON’T get an error when I load it - neither one happens very often, fortunately). Backing everything up, doing a full (not quick) format of the card from a computer using a dedicated formatting utility instead of the OS, and then rebuilding my project from the most recent known-good backup version has solved everything and given me a few years before weirdness starts up again and I need to do another format. I’ve had to format my card (a 64gb SanDisk, not the factory one) three times in 8 years and the last one was at least 3 years ago. I’ve never had trouble with MIDI tracks, only audio tracks and input settings, but I also didn’t do much MIDI sequencing on the OT for the first 5 years I had it.
I’ve noticed over the years that the overwhelming majority of weird problems I’ve had with my OT (MKI, every OS version since 2017) involved track 5. I don’t remember EVER hving an issue that was specific to a track other than 5 honestly - if it’s not affecting track 5 it’s affecting something that isn’t connected to a specific track at all. It’s like track 5 is the third string on a guitar (if you play guitar you know what I mean), and I’ve always wondered why.
You may have also saved my week too. Having really weird problems with track 5 (thru track, no audio coming out despite inputs lighting up, and yes I checked everything). Worked briefly again when I reloaded the project and since then persists . Maybe I’ll have to try your formatting trick and a factory reset to boot …
Also getting weird clock drift. I hope that also gets fixed with a reset. I’m tearing my damn hair out
Not much to elaborate, every couple years I’ll start to experience unusual behavior with projects and in every case it seems to be from a corrupted file on the card that isn’t generating an error message. I’ve posted about it on here at least 3 or 4 times over the years. Sometimes parameters will actually be visibly different than they were when I saved, sometimes it just won’t work right even though everything appears normal, and in all cases the solution has been reformatting the card on a computer. Because the saved file is corrupted, I have to go back to the last known good backup of the project and then redo any changes that I made since that version was saved. After a reformat I get at least a year of regular use before I have any issues again, usually more like 2-3 years.
The first time it happened (after the card got left in an unheated car for almost two hours in sub-zero weather), the record parameters I had set for track one had been moved to track 5 the next time I loaded the project. I’ve also had sequence data from other tracks get moved to track 5 at least once.
There’s nothing to replicate because the symptoms are different every time. Since it has been an infrequent but recurring issue for me and reformatting on a computer isn’t that big a deal if you keep regular backups it never hurts to give it a try.
In general, when I’ve experienced minor bugs over the years, they usually involve track 5 and I’ve seen a disproportionate number of posts about weird behavior and sometimes replicable bugs that involve track 5, enough that it almost seems like there’s actually something in the firmware code that makes track 5 more prone to issues, but it’s probably a coincidence or confirmation bias. Just something I’ve always thought was interesting, but not directly related to the CF card reformat suggestion (except that when I’ve had projects get corrupted the symptoms tend to show up on track 5 for whatever reason).
