Ableton Forum

doc holiday wrote:doesn't that thing have midi out to get you by until you get it sorted?

Would be an option... but I'll need a midi interface then. Still the Behringer guys should fix it, because this happens a) on every USB port of the mac book pro b) though every other usb device I own works flawlessly

Machinate wrote:yes, except not - at least the laptop ones; They're notoriously underpowered... Several complaints, also on this forum, over the last couple of years, since the macbooks came out. Powered hubs are essential.

The BCR has its own power supply... shouldn't suffer from underpower issues, right?

The support telling me that I need to reinstall the OS (with no guarantee that this will change anything) looks like there's somebody from the PC sector with no idea what he is talking about, not willing to solve the problem really...

muthafunka wrote:On Mbooks apparently the left-side usb port is better powered. What have you tried in terms of trouble-shoooting? You could start by creating a new user and see if that has the same problems. Also try the BCR on another machine if poss.

Good idea, have to check both things (different user and different machine).

What I did is

a) rebooting several times
b) using different software (ableton, simple midi input monitor)
c) using different usb ports
d) powering off the BCR, switching presets...

No matter what I did, the BCR received MIDI just fine, but stopped sending data. I hope that my audio interface has a MIDI interface, if it shows the same behavior there, the unit is definitly broken.

The response is typical.

Steinberg would not even offer support on Cubase 4.1 (the first C4 upgrade that included sidechaining and a bunch of other features), if you had not performed a 'clean reinstall of your windows o/s'. They said that this is in the EULA for the upgrade to 4.1 and that they were not responsible for customers who had not made backups or done clean reinstalls if their computer goes 'poofffff'. Of course, the problems were entirely down to others and the windows registry system, not anything to do with Steinberg's bad code .... Even though many people who did have issues, did the clean reinstall and still had issues ... surprise, surprise !

They also blamed many problems since SX1 on 'windows registry issues' and quite often denied bugs, claiming 'you need to do a clean reinstall of windows and be able to duplicate the problem after a clean reinstall for this to be classified as a bug'

The windows registry is a database, and as long as Cubase itself loads its data from there, it should be clear that it is in fact a Cubase issue, not a windows one. (Even if windows f*cks up registry entries good software should be able to handle that... there are people stating that good software won't even use the windows registry)

Behringer claims that there is a problem with the USB port in OSX (between the lines), however I run a lot of devices on that port.... never had any problems, not even a glitch.

Hopefully the device will show the same behavior on the MIDI port, so that I can send it back.

Save some time, don't argue about reinstalling the OS just tell them the problem is occuring on more then 1 machine. Then they will move beyond that step in the troubleshooting guide.

Edit: sorry someone beat me to that advice. As lame as their sugestion sounds, if the device is class compliant and your macs drivers are hosed, then the fastest fix WOULD be to do an archive and install.

Though for power issues it doesn't sound likely.

Homebelly wrote:

Machinate wrote:yes, except not - at least the laptop ones; They're notoriously underpowered... Several complaints, also on this forum, over the last couple of years, since the macbooks came out. Powered hubs are essential.

Mac Books, or Mac Book Pro's?
My MBP has given me absolutely no trouble what so ever.

Got to back up what Machinate is saying. I can only use my Audio Kontrol 1 on the left hand USB port on my MBP - it doesn't get enough power on the RHS to work reliably.

Homebelly wrote:

Machinate wrote:

Poster wrote: apple usb ports always work like they should..

yes, except not - at least the laptop ones; They're notoriously underpowered... Several complaints, also on this forum, over the last couple of years, since the macbooks came out. Powered hubs are essential.

Mac Books, or Mac Book Pro's?
My MBP has given me absolutely no trouble what so ever.

aah.. MBP here as well.. maybe its just the MB..

i am not surprised, that is behringer for you.

got a bcr 2000 myself and i am happy with it, but i don't expect anything from that company, absolutely nothing.

Have you checked the OSX logs? Open Console (in the Utilities folder) and check for messages when it disconnects/reconnects. If it is a USB problem there will be some.

doc holiday wrote:imho if your going to run a bunch of hardware you depend on off of one usb port it really makes sense to power that hub.

I agree.

but the problem is more along the lines of "do not plug a device that needs power into the right hand side."

i had a microtrack and thought it was broken because i was plugging it in to the right hand side of my computer.


that said, it is not such a horrible problem. 1 port provides proper power and i was always going to need a proper powered hub at home.

"it's never the hardware's fault..."
hardware venders always blame the software first
if it was the software it would never work

Surreal wrote:

doc holiday wrote:imho if your going to run a bunch of hardware you depend on off of one usb port it really makes sense to power that hub.

I agree.

but the problem is more along the lines of "do not plug a device that needs power into the right hand side."

i had a microtrack and thought it was broken because i was plugging it in to the right hand side of my computer.


that said, it is not such a horrible problem. 1 port provides proper power and i was always going to need a proper powered hub at home.

i actually have never plugged anything in without powering it.. now that i look my mpb , powered hub is on the right, soundcard (can't be bus powered) on the left.

Surreal wrote:that said, it is not such a horrible problem. 1 port provides proper power and i was always going to need a proper powered hub at home.

No evidence to back this up, but I think both ports provide power within the USB spec, it's just that many devices these days are needing more power than the spec officially provides.

Exactly the same problem here. This time with three different BCR2000 machines. All of them exhibit the same problem. Power it up, works for x amount of seconds, then stops working. Power down, power up again, works for x amount, etc. I've tested this on a 1st gen mbpro, a 3rd gen mbpro, a normal macbook. All running 10.5.6 and ableton 7.14 .. Same problem in every configuration. Also with different users, usb cables, etc.
The thing is, the only thing that stops working is the midi controls for ableton. It's not like the connection is broken .. Everything looks fine, bcr shows up in audio/midi utility panel, shows up fine in the ableton prefs, usb connection lights up on the bcr controller itself .. It's very strange .. sometimes it has allso worked for a day on straight without any problems .. now it's back to it's default x seconds .. It's allmost like ableton somehow sees midi coming flooding in and decides to close the pipes on that input .. ?

dlf wrote:Exactly the same problem here. This time with three different BCR2000 machines. All of them exhibit the same problem. P

are you using a usb hub?