Akai APC Key25 mk2 driver

I think I found another bug:

  1. change to Device-Moder
  2. Navigate to ZynSeq
  3. Enter the Pattern Editor of one of the Pads
  4. Go back to ZynSeq pad view.
    Now in my case the Pad I’ve viewed in Pattern Editor lights up on the APC where normally the mixpad-view is. I am still in device-mode, and I cant remember this happening before. Adittionally the four green Soft Keys corresponding to Encoder-Press aren’t lit up anymore but they keep on functioning.

Thanks for the info, @Jojo_Action. Please, could you submit an issue with these details? We can keep track of it there, and I will not forget it… :slightly_smiling_face:

Just trying to reproduce to get the issue into the system but that doesn’t seem to be that easy tonight :face_with_raised_eyebrow: I will try for a bit, but maybe it was just a strange occurrence…

No, i cannot reproduce it. And just read the post of @jofemodo underneath while editing…I wish I had saved the snapshot from yesterday but I already deleted it :frowning:

I was trying to get into the same situation from yesterday, but I couldn’t get the bug show up again.

Next time I will try to catch it :upside_down_face:

Hi @Jojo_Action and others!

Reporting issues is very good because you help developers to improve the software. We really love to receive reports of issues, specially if the report is properly done and include all the needed context details and steps to reproduce the issue, etc.

In the other hand, to avoid generating noise and wasting time in reading/thinking/answering reports about “strange occurrences”, it’s always good practice to try reproducing an issue “from scratch” before reporting it. When reporting a new issue, it’s very important to include all the details (each time you report!): software version, hardware setup, MIDI controllers, etc. If you can capture the issue inside a snapshot, this is fantastic for us.
When you report a new issue, don’t assume developers remember something about your setup / use-case from previous conversations. Perhaps you think it’s redundant, because you know well what is your setup, but developers can’t remember the setup for each user.

Ahhh! And every detail is important for us. Devil is in the little details … :japanese_ogre:

All the best!

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Okay it happened again, and I managed to save a snapshot and take photos:

I was trying some stuff from the driver’s User-Guide just to learn more about the driver’s modes and workflows.
And after some time I had the same case as I described in my post above, but I want to try to give a bit more detail:

  1. I was trying to enter some patterns with the Step Sequencer mode and reading along with the Guide. I cannot really tell what exactly, but I guess normal usage…
  2. I changed to Device-Mode, when I was in the Sequencer’s ZynPad-view where you see all the Pads.
  3. I entered the Pattern Editor of one of the Pads, in this case the top of the second column from the left (the one you also can see in the first picture below). I was navigating there with the courser buttons and bold-pressed the the lowest Soft Key corresponding to encoder press on ‘select’.
  4. Now the selected Pad was highlit on the APC where the Pad would be located in Mixpad mode

I took this pic for the record:

Then I saved this snapshot:
001-APC driver 01.zss (33.0 KB)

I then removed all, by Main -> Remove all and reloaded the snapshot.
I was surprised with this on the APC:


Navigating to the ZynPad, It looks like the Grid-Size was saved as 8x8 which was 4x4 before:

I changed it back to 4x4 and could still reproduce the described procedure to get a pad from the Mixpad mode be highlit in Device mode

I hope this helps. If you need more info, please let me know.

EDIT: Filed an Issue: Issue: Akai APC Key 25: Driver: Pads from Mixpad mode are visible in Device mode · Issue #1216 · zynthian/zynthian-issue-tracking · GitHub

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Thank you @Jojo_Action for taking the time to, very well, document this issue. I’ll have a look as soon as possible!

It happend again:
Hiere I post another 002-faulty APC driver 02.zss (25.3 KB)

Thanks again for the info, and sorry for not being fixed yet… :face_exhaling:

Oh no stress…I can work on it anyways…
But I wonder if others can also reproduce it.
If not, why?

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Would it also be possible to support the first version of the APC Key25 ?

It would certainly be possible. The major problem is it’s a little hard to develop without the kit in hand, so it’s probably best attempted as modifications of an existing code base by someone who has the piece of kit.

There is a fairly detailed breakdown,assuming no prior knowledge, of the process of actually getting to a position where you can start to code here

Even if you don’t actually progress the code base having an understanding of quite how the magic is and can be performed is enlightening for everyone. . .

You also get less rook soup doing this so that’s got to be an advantage. . . .

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Hi all, I’m trying to write a driver for the first version of the akai APC Key 25. I made a copy of the zynthian_ctrldev_akai_apc_key25_mk2.py into zynthian_ctrldev_akai_apc_key25.py. In this file I properly changed dev_ids = [“APC Key 25”, “APC Key 25 MIDI 1”] according to the output of dmesg and amidi -l, finally I added the corresponding entry into init.py

I finally systemctl restart zynthian, but unfortunately nothing happened!

Suggestions to debug?

Thanks in advance, Andrea

I think your best bet is to manually start Zynthian and see the logs in the terminal. Also, setting the log level to 10 may draw more information. I’m not near my unit, so I can’t tell you exactly how. Let me know if you didn’t find it. :slightly_smiling_face:

EDIT: Maybe something like this:

systemctl stop zynthian
cd /zynthian/zynthian-ui
export DISPLAY=:0
export ZYNTHIAN_LOG_LEVEL=10
./zynthian_main.py

Mmm, thinking of it, maybe something is missing, because the Zynthian service starts the X server, and so you won’t have one. In my case, I use Xnest on my host, and then connect to Zynthian using SSH with X forwarding, and that’s why it works for me…

What I did for an other driver is to take the pdf file of the manufacturer made for the developers. Then play at the game of the 7 errors to see how different the two devices are (launchpad mini k3 and launchpad X for example).
You can try again like that, and us a lot Ctrl+F ;+)

Thanks a lot … I tried the following

systemctl stop zynthian
/zynthian/zynthian-sys/sbin/zynthian.sh

During the boot

INFO:zynthian_ctrldev_manager.update_available_drivers: Ctrldev driver 'zynthian_ctrldev_akai_apc_key25' for devices with ID 'APC Key 25'
INFO:zynthian_ctrldev_manager.update_available_drivers: Ctrldev driver 'zynthian_ctrldev_akai_apc_key25' for devices with ID 'APC Key 25 MIDI 1'

So the drivers are at least considered … but it is not clear to me whether are properly loaded and how to check it

Might it be that the mapping of mk2 is completely different from the first version?

How can I check the driver indeed intercept the events generated by the keyboard?

Thanks

Can you see the device available in Midi Input Devices? Look for the “keyboard” icon.

Do you mean? … there is no “keyboard” icon

On the Zynthian screen you can the the device two times. One with the little keyboard is the device with driver, and the one without is the classic midi device as it.

I don’t know if that can be enabled using the webconf. What i mean is this:

There is no keyboard icon! but apparently the driver is loaded