Multiple layers + external midi controller + stage piano?

Using Zynthian
41

This may be a sympton of a bug that affects LV2 plugins where the interface with the host module (jalv) gets unsynchronised. It manifests as long timeouts in communication with log entries similar to:

ERROR:zynthian_engine.proc_cmd: Can't exec engine command: preset file:///zynthian/zynthian-my-data/presets/lv2/Dexed.presets.lv2/1234_COPY.ttl => Timeout exceeded.
<pexpect.pty_spawn.spawn object at 0x68e17df0>
command: /usr/local/bin/jalv
args: ['/usr/local/bin/jalv', '-n', 'Dexed-00', 'https://github.com/dcoredump/dexed.lv2']
buffer (last 100 chars): b'preset file:///zynthian/zynthian-my-data/presets/lv2/Dexed.presets.lv2/1234_COPY.ttl\r\n'
before (last 100 chars): b'preset file:///zynthian/zynthian-my-data/presets/lv2/Dexed.presets.lv2/1234_COPY.ttl\r\n'
after: <class 'pexpect.exceptions.TIMEOUT'>
match: None
match_index: None
exitstatus: None
flag_eof: False
pid: 15154
child_fd: 38
closed: False
timeout: 20
delimiter: <class 'pexpect.exceptions.EOF'>
logfile: None
logfile_read: None
logfile_send: None
maxread: 2000
ignorecase: False
searchwindowsize: None
delaybeforesend: 0
delayafterclose: 0.1
delayafterterminate: 0.1
searcher: searcher_re:
    0: re.compile(b'\n> ')

Ir’s a nasty little bug that @jofemodo and I have been trying to track down for a while. It is on the high-priority hitlist so we will be taking aim at it very soon. It has to be fixed and may require some drastic action. Stay tuned!

42

Ok, thank you @riban . Then the new audio mixer acts similar like a real mixer. I will take a closer look to Zynthians core concepts and available docs and wikis in this point for better understanding.

43

Yes, it is designed to mimic a stereo summing mixer. Each layer is a chain of MIDI / Audio processing which feeds into a stereo mixer channel. Each mixer channel allows solo, mute, balance/pan, mono and level control before feeding a main mix bus which has similar parameters to the channels. The output of the main mix bus feeds the physical audio outputs. (We are working on adding an effects chain to the main mix bus too.) I designed the mixer to emulate a familiar stereo summing mixer because it is quite a simple way to handle audio that most musicians and certainly sound engineers will understand. I purposefully kept it simple to avoid complexity and confusion. It is able to replace my physical mixing desk (with the addition of a multichannel audio interface). You can think of the mixer as a (up to) 16 to 1 stereo mixer with inserts on each channel (and soon on output too).

1 Like
44

Mhmm, after playing a few days with the test version from April 12th and although I changed the zynthians configuration (stage mode, less layers, working with snapshots to switch from song to song), the error splash screen is back when trying to power off. First, when you try to power off, the display freezes and there are no more reaction to the knobs. The only chance you have is connecting via WLAN and try to shut down via remote connection. Then the error splash screen comes up. Should I open up a new topic or am I the only one with this kind of bug?

45

Certainly keep Discourse threads on-topic so discuss a different subject in a new topic. If it is a bug report then post to GitHub issue tracker.

Testing branch has advanced a lot since 12th April so defo worth updating to get all the new goodness. Try to grab logs when this occurs, e.g. ssh to device and run journalctl -ru zynthian which shows more recent log entires first or journalctl -fu zynthian which shows the live log starting 10 entries back.

46

I can confirm the issue during shutdown. Although this recent fix in stable a couple of weeks ago, my zynthian with 4 layers still doesn’t shutdown and reboots again.
Furthermore I found out, that loading the FS on startup could result in strange zs3 behaviour. the file would load, but the UI stuck at layers view and I have to press the select but ton once more.
That’s why I always clear all layers manually before I shutdown. Haven’t had any issues so far with that routine.

1 Like
47

Since using the last stable release from september last year I tried out this workflow and it wasn’t working maybe because there have been two different problems. A second FS layer crashed Zynthian when loading this setup or snapshot. Now I reduced the number of layers and avoid a second FS layer and today I tried your workaround to completely cleanup the configuration before shutting down Zynthian. This works also for me, thank you.

48

It seems there is some problem when restoring the “last state” snapshot with several FS layers. Please, open an issue for this.

Have you tried to disable “last snapshot” restoring from webconf and delete your “last snapshot” zss file? This should also work and you would avoid to having to delete your layers before powering off until this is solved.

Thanks!

49

Interesting idea, thank you. I haven’t had in mind that you can select loading the last state or not.

At the weekend I will take a look at GitHub. Until now I am not registered on Zynthians GitHub project.

Have a nice evening!

50

And please add a ticket to the issue tracker including a copy of a snapshot for which this error occurs. We can try to fix things if they are reported with supporting detail :smile:.