Unscheduled stop changes.

I have an issue with my Hauptwerk set up where every now and then stops just change on their own without me depressing any toe or thumb piston. The problem is intermittant and is transient but when this does happen it is always the same unplanned stop selection that reappears on my monitor. I don't think it's the Hauptwerk software. Has anyone had a similar experience and if so how did they correct the problem?

My Hauptwerk console is a mix of digital (Fatar Manuals) and analog switching (pedalboard, thumb pistons on bottom keyboard only, toe pistons and a row of manual couplers above the top manual) where I converted the analog switching to digital signals through two digital scanning boards (MKSC-1A and MKSC-1B from Classic Organ Works, Canada).

Has anyone had a similar experience and if so how did they correct the problem?

Antoni

[mdyde]

Hello Antoni,

You could temporarily turn on the "General settings | General preferences | Diagnostics: log all MIDI messages received and sent" setting in Hauptwerk, and OK the screen, and the performance warning(s) whenever they appear.

Then straight after the problem has next occurred (and being careful not to touch anything else first), use "Help | Create a diagnostic file ..." and save it somewhere for reference (in case you need us to look at it).

Hauptwerk's log (which can be viewed using "Help | View activity log", and is also included in the diagnostic file) would then show the specific MIDI event that that Hauptwerk had received to cause the stop change. From that MIDI event you could potentially work out which part of your console had sent those messages and why.

(Note that logging MIDI messages does cause poor performance, though.)

Hello Martin:
Thanks for the helpful information. I shall follow that procedure you recommended. It is an infrequent event, sometimes six months until it happend again. I suspect it might be my digital scanning boards as one (the MKSC-1A) is from June of 2002, and the other, (the MKSC-1B) is from Feb of 2011. I can't relate the event to overuse or possibly getting too hot. I thought it might be the wiring but I was careful with the wiring.
After shutting down the organ and retarting it several hours later the problem was gone. Hopefully your recommendation will identify the source of the probelm.
Antoni

[mdyde]

Thanks, Antoni. Hope you manage to track it down.

Hi Antoni,

I have the same problem, but I have managed to find the cause. I have a single touchscreen to control my HW set-up (in addition to pistons and a Launchpad). I live in a very rural part of South-West England, and for the past few years we have been getting an infestation of grass flies (Thaumatomyia notata) which come into the house in their hundreds of thousands every Winter to hibernate (we also get cluster flies and harlequin ladybirds, but they favour a different part of the house). These are tiny flies that look rather like fruit flies to the naked eye, and they are almost invisible when crawling across a touchscreen. Nevertheless, the screen still reacts to their presence, often resulting in an unexpected stop change.

I can't remember where you live. If it is the US, then you won't get T. notata, but I would think any tiny insect crawling over a touch screen could have a similar effect.

Hi Antoni
I recently had this problem developing over a few months and originally thought it was the touch screen playing up - there were a few other anomolies on one of my two screens with parts of that screen reacting when I was touching another part of the screen. This resulted in unwanted stop changes happening suddenly.
Then one day my computer PSU (Power Supply) went 'south' in the middle of playing. Replaced the PSU unit and all the previous problems disappeared. Obviously the fault was that the unit wasn't feeding enough power to some components.