troubleshooting Midi

[Federico Bruni]

Hi all,

Midi play in Frescobaldi stopped working all of a sudden.
Kmid and timidity work fine.

How can I troubleshoot the problem?

I'm using the latest git version on Debian testing (Gnome 3).

Thanks in advance,
Federico

[Richard Cognot]

Hi,

Federico Bruni a �crit :

> Hi all,
>
> Midi play in Frescobaldi stopped working all of a sudden.
> Kmid and timidity work fine.

When you say it stopped working do you mean it stopped for all versions
of frescobaldi or only for the latest git? More procisely does it work
with versions where it used to work for you?

> How can I troubleshoot the problem?
>
> I'm using the latest git version on Debian testing (Gnome 3).

First check that the midi port is correctly setup in frescobaldi
preferences. Also remember that to get a midi output on linux you need
to start (externally) a software synth, which kmid does (it usually
start a timidity in server mode). I personnally use fluidsynth (don't
forget to set its soundfont path correctly if you do) ans QSynth as a
frontend to launch it.

If no external softsynth is started, frescobaldi will default to the
standart pass-through midi port which basically does nothing.

Regards,
Richard.

[Wilbert Berendsen]

Op 22-04-12 23:44, Federico Bruni schreef:

> Hi all,
>
> Midi play in Frescobaldi stopped working all of a sudden.
> Kmid and timidity work fine.
>
> How can I troubleshoot the problem?
>
> I'm using the latest git version on Debian testing (Gnome 3).
>

At what moment it stopped working? Frescobaldi update (what date?) or
Debian update?

What does not work?
("No Ouput" message, or just visually playing but silent, or crash, or...)

Frescobaldi needs a MIDI synthesizer running as ALSA midi client, like
TiMidity -iA or FluidSynth. And the python-pypm or python-portmidi
package is needed. (If it's not there you get the "No Output" message in
the MIDI player display.)

Unlike KMid, Frescobaldi can't start a MIDI softsynth by itself, you
need to do it. Many Linux distributions can start Timidity as a deamon
on system startup. If you start a MIDI synth while Frescobaldi's MIDI
player is already loaded, go to the settings and press the 'Refresh MIDI
ports' button. This will cause Frescobaldi to re-initialize the MIDI
ports list.

Best!

[Federico Bruni]

Il 23/04/2012 10:06, Wilbert Berendsen ha scritto:
> At what moment it stopped working? Frescobaldi update (what date?) or
> Debian update?
>

While using other audio programs: I think it's a problem with ports or
maybe Pulse audio.
It's not about Fresco or Debian update, today at first start everything
works fine.

Here's a good hint: yesterday when I couldn't hear any sound while
playing Midi, I tried to play with the Midi preferences and Fresco could
see only Midi-Through port 0 (no timidity ports). Even if I refreshed
the Midi ports.

Today however it does see them and it works fine.
I'm trying to reproduce the problem but I can't.

> What does not work?
> ("No Ouput" message, or just visually playing but silent, or crash, or...)
>

It was just visually playing but silent

> Frescobaldi needs a MIDI synthesizer running as ALSA midi client, like
> TiMidity -iA or FluidSynth. And the python-pypm or python-portmidi
> package is needed. (If it's not there you get the "No Output" message in
> the MIDI player display.)
>

I have python-pypm installed.

> Unlike KMid, Frescobaldi can't start a MIDI softsynth by itself, you
> need to do it. Many Linux distributions can start Timidity as a deamon
> on system startup. If you start a MIDI synth while Frescobaldi's MIDI
> player is already loaded, go to the settings and press the 'Refresh MIDI
> ports' button. This will cause Frescobaldi to re-initialize the MIDI
> ports list.

Yes, timidity is started on system startup.

I've tried to reinitialize the MIDI ports list but for some reasons it
didn't work: I could see no timidity ports (as I said before).

Sorry, I didn't mention it in my first email as I didn't remember my
usual Midi settings in Frescobaldi (because I've never had any problem
so far).

Cheers,
Federico

[Federico Bruni]

Il 23/04/2012 21:56, Federico Bruni ha scritto:
> Here's a good hint: yesterday when I couldn't hear any sound while
> playing Midi, I tried to play with the Midi preferences and Fresco could
> see only Midi-Through port 0 (no timidity ports). Even if I refreshed
> the Midi ports.

Today it happened the same: no sound in midi and no timidity ports
available in Frescobaldi preferences.
I checked if timidity was running and it wasn't:

$ ps ax | grep timidity
17443 pts/2 S+ 0:00 grep timidity

So I started it manually:
# /etc/init.d/timidity start

And sound came back!

Now, I just wonder why timidity wasn't running.
It's in the list of services to be run at startup. I guess that
something else has stopped it afterwards for some reason.

Definitely not a Frescobaldi issue, but if you have any suggestion I'll
be glad to listen.

Thanks,
Federico

[Richard Cognot]

Hi,

Federico Bruni a �crit :

> Today it happened the same: no sound in midi and no timidity ports
> available in Frescobaldi preferences.
> I checked if timidity was running and it wasn't:
>
> $ ps ax | grep timidity
> 17443 pts/2 S+ 0:00 grep timidity
>
> So I started it manually:
> # /etc/init.d/timidity start
>
> And sound came back!
>
> Now, I just wonder why timidity wasn't running.
> It's in the list of services to be run at startup. I guess that
> something else has stopped it afterwards for some reason.
>
> Definitely not a Frescobaldi issue, but if you have any suggestion
> I'll be glad to listen.

Either timidity crashed (and I don't think it is automatically restarted
in that case), or some other application using it requested its closure
on quitting.

I can't really say, on Linux I've stopped using timidity in favor of
fluidsynth.

Regards,
Richard.

[Federico Bruni]

Il 28/04/2012 18:57, Richard Cognot ha scritto:
> Either timidity crashed (and I don't think it is automatically restarted
> in that case), or some other application using it requested its closure
> on quitting.

I think the latter is more likely, but I don't know which application
could have stopped it.
Anyway, now I know what to do when I have this problem.

Maybe I'll use fluidsynth

[bitt...@googlemail.com]

This is a late answer, but anyway: I had the same problem with Frescobaldi 2. I stumbled upon this thread here in search of a solution. I just want to communicate here, what I did to solve the issue: I put Timidity on my startup items list ( I use a GUI program to set up my startup items) with the command

 /usr/bin/timidity -Os -iAD

When I launch Frescobaldi, there is sound to play my MIDI files.

[Federico Bruni]

2012/8/2 <bitt...@googlemail.com>:

> This is a late answer, but anyway: I had the same problem with Frescobaldi
> 2. I stumbled upon this thread here in search of a solution. I just want to
> communicate here, what I did to solve the issue: I put Timidity on my
> startup items list ( I use a GUI program to set up my startup items) with
> the command
>
> /usr/bin/timidity -Os -iAD
>
> When I launch Frescobaldi, there is sound to play my MIDI files.

The problem, at least in my case, was that sometimes timidity was
stopped by some other program and I had to reload the service.
Even if timidity is in the startup items.

Eventually I decided to switch to fluidsynth