sleeping the computer and launchpads

I recently switched my HW configuration to a dedicated mac, and am experimenting with the best way to have things working: for now the best for me seems to be having the power button set as sleep / wake (so the computer is always asleep, but can be woken easily, and can be put back to sleep also easily) and HW always running

This works well for the keyboards, but I am hitting an issue with the launchpads where if the computer is off for a while, they will 'hang' and seemingly not send anything to HW in terms of registration, as well as not receive anything from HW either (they turn back on with the same stops as they were when they turned off, but no further changes to those are possible), even doing a start/stop of midi/usb in HW does not seem to help, although I *think* (have to do more testing) that stopping the audio/midi before putting the computer to sleep and starting it after, might help, I am testing it right now actually

Once 'hung' only unplugging and replugging them to the computer fixes things, it does not matter if they are plugged in directly, or via a hub, or via an unpowered hub with the power left on while the computer is asleep.

For people that sleep their computers with launchpads attached, what is your experience? anything specific you do? if stopping audio/midi works, do you have an applescript to do that to avoid using the menu to do it? what is your experience?

I'm no expert on Macs or Launchpads, but I'd be surprised if the problem has anything to do with audio/MIDI.

Nick

Thinking out loud with no details, I would think a MIDI controlled relay (hardware) could be made up to interrupt the MIDI connection to the LaunchPads actuated when MIDI output is available from the computer. This might at least be an automatic work around. Have to think about tha some more.

Rgds,
Ed.

the easiest solution is to get a 2-port USB switch and just flip it back & forth once when resuming from sleep to cause the reconnection, but I was wondering if anybody else is using launchpads and sleeping the computer and has any suggestions

[mdyde]

[Topic moved here since it's an issue with the hardware/drivers, rather a a technical support issue with the Hauptwerk software itself.]

thanks for moving this Martin, I guess the HW angle is that if I stop audio/midi, sleep, then unsleep and start audio/midi again, then the launchpads don't hang on restart: since you wrote the support for them, any idea why they would be doing this? is it that normally they require a poll or something but when in midi off they don't?

I am very new at applescript, is there an easy way to have applescript tell HW to start/stop audio/midi or do I have to go through the accessibility way and figure out the menu hierarchy for the right option? The idea would be that I would create an applescript to stop audio/midi and one to start it, then via something like sleepwatcher have it be automatically run on these events. Of course if HW was able to detect the sleep and stop midi-audio / start midi-audio on sleep/wake it'd be the best, but this should make it possible even without it

[mdyde]

Hello Marco,

I guess the HW angle is that if I stop audio/midi, sleep, then unsleep and start audio/midi again, then the launchpads don't hang on restart: since you wrote the support for them, any idea why they would be doing this? is it that normally they require a poll or something but when in midi off they don't?

It's just a MIDI device/port, as far as Hauptwerk's concerned; Hauptwerk doesn't send any periodic messages to it. Some audio/MIDI devices/drivers don't seem to have any issues with a computer being put to sleep while there are active connections open to them, but others do have issues with that. I don't why, or what they're doing internally -- you'd probably need to contact Novation (its makers) for that.

I am very new at applescript, is there an easy way to have applescript tell HW to start/stop audio/midi or do I have to go through the accessibility way and figure out the menu hierarchy for the right option? The idea would be that I would create an applescript to stop audio/midi and one to start it, then via something like sleepwatcher have it be automatically run on these events.

I can't help you with that, I'm afraid. I don't have experience with AppleScript myself. There's no way within Hauptwerk to trigger those functions except by triggering their menu items via the menu. (It wouldn't make sense to trigger them via MIDI, for example, since a sleeping computer wouldn't normally receive a MIDI message, and definitely not if audio/MIDI had been stopped.)

Of course if HW was able to detect the sleep and stop midi-audio / start midi-audio on sleep/wake it'd be the best, but this should make it possible even without it

Yes -- we do have that logged as an enhancement request to look into at some point in the future.

thanks for the reply Martin, and yes, definitely would not be useful to have it as a midi command as of course if the midi is off it wouldn't be received I will give it a try to write a script to click the menu items and using the program I was mentioning to get it to fire at sleep/wake and see if it helps until you come up with the actual feature.

I don't think novation would necessarily be that helpful as the use we make of the launchpads is very niche...

actually today despite stopping the midi/audio before sleeping the launchpads were again frozen unfortunately, I guess the easy way forward is to just get a 2x2 USB switch and every time I unsleep the computer I will just briefly toggle it to unplug/replug the launchpads without having to physically unplug the cable (which would damage it eventually I am sure)

[mdyde]

Hello Marco,

Thanks for the update. I do still think it's worth you trying contacting Novation for support anyway.