GS3 "forgetting" midi ports?

[williemyers]

here's a strange one I've encountered (a few times) this week.
I have GS3.04 running correctly on all 8 midi ports, receiving midi from a MOTU MTP/AV, using a parallel connection to the PC. All's fine for a couple of hours or so, I see all of the Midi Port Display red lights flashing as I send data to the PC. Then - for no particular reason - I lose most of my instruments and notice that only one of my Midi Port Display red lights is receiving. I open System Settings/Hardware and all Midi In Ports show up correctly. I hit "Apply" and ... kaBoom ... I've got all 8 midi channels receiving again.
So it's not a deal breaker, but an incredible pain to have to repeat this 4-5 times during a full day of work. Just wondering if any of you have encountered a similiar quirk?
(I'm running a Pentium 4/1.4 Ghz,1 Gig RAM, Windows XP home (SP2) and GS3 is showing about 75% memory usage when this quirk happens)

thanks,

bill myers, composer

[JonFairhurst]

I get this kind of situation when I change something about the USB MIDI connection. For instance, I move the computer to play with friends. I happen to plug the MIDI box into a different USB port. I open Giga and the previous ports are gone. (It makes sense. The OS thinks my MIDI ports are different than before.)

I think I've also had the situation when the computer is on, I unplug then re-plug my USB MidiSport. I start Giga. Again, MS thinks the previous MIDI hardware is gone and new hardware has shown up.

I would guess that something in Windows is losing connection to your MIDI ports for a split second. Windows re-discovers your MIDI hardware as a new device, and Giga acts accordingly.

If you're using the parallel port (latency city!) there may be some other process pinging the port. You might see about shutting off all unnecessary processes. Also, there may be a driver update for your MIDI hardware.

I think Giga is showing the symptom, but isn't the underlyin problem.

-JF

[meroveus]

If you're using the parallel port (latency city!)

Parallel ports have latencies measured in microseconds.
Which is why I have a Egosys 4140, and won't be moving to a USB MIDI interface any time soon.

[cmm]

I'd second Jon's comments. I used to have this issue and it drove me crazy. Then, due to another problem, I was forced into a re-installl of Windows and the problem disappeared.

Andrew