[Solved] VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

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Posts: 7
Joined: July 12, 2017 - 19:22
[Solved] VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

Hello,

I've just installed virtualMIDIsynth on my laptop running Windows 10 1703 64-bit. The driver and MIDI mapper show up just fine and I can select them as output devices in MIDI-OX without any issues - other than they don't actually play back any sound because I can't assign them a sound font. To make things worse, it seems like the MIDI mapper is now the default MIDI device, so I can't even play back MIDI files anymore because of that.

On the initial installation the installer automatically tried to open the VirtualMIDIsynth configurator, which resulted in a small blank window being opened followed by "VirtualMIDIsynth stopped working". Manually launching either the configurator or the MIDI converter give me the same result. Launching just virtualMIDIsynth results in the cursor changing to the loading symbol briefly, followed by nothing.

VMS works just fine on my win10 desktop PC and I don't see what's stopping it from working on my laptop. I can't find any log files so I have no idea what I could do.

I really wish it would work though, because the MIDI mapper alone is really important to me, because with that I could at least have MIDI stuff play on other devices and synths and not just the MS Wavetable thing.

Any idea what's wrong?

Many thanks :)

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

I'll start checking the standard things:

  • Have you installed any antivirus/antimalware that could block or interfere with VirtualMIDISynth startup?
    If yes, please try to disable it or exclude the whole VMS folder (usually C:\Program Files\VirtualMIDISynth) from being protected.
  • Restart Windows in safe mode and try to manually start VirtualMIDISynth.exe to check if you can configure at least one soundfont.
  • VMS configuration is in a text file named VirtualMIDISynth.conf in VMS installation folder; you could try to copy that file from the desktop PC to the laptop and start it to check if it works.
    If you've saved your soundfonts in another folder on the laptop, you can change configuration file with Notepad. 
Posts: 7
Joined: July 12, 2017 - 19:22
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

Hi, I'm back and it took a while because the affected laptop was in for unrelated repairs.

Now after reinstalling Windows it worked for a while. I could successfully select a soundfont using the configurator and listen to some nice midis using the windows media player.

After reinstalling the graphics driver again and using the machine a bit, it immediately broke in the same way, but now even the base application doesn't launch anymore. So that leaves Windows Media Player unable to play any midi at all because it was mapped to VirtualMidiSynth #1. Is there any way I can find out what exactly is even causing the crash? This doesn't seem to be installation specific, something must trigger the crash. The fact that it worked for a short while makes me question my sanity because I haven't changed anything critical since then.

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

Well, I suppose that VMS has some incompatibility with your graphics card driver.

You didn't mentioned your graphic card manifacturer (nVidia, AMD, Intel), but some drivers have advanced features like, i.e., additional title bar buttons, acceleration tricks and so on.
I have no better idea than playing with those settings...

Posts: 7
Joined: July 12, 2017 - 19:22
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

Very sorry about that, I completely forgot about it!

I am running a GeForce GTX 1060. This device is actually an XMG P507 2017, in case you're interested in the details. It comes with SoundBlaster X-Fi MB5 software so at first I suspected that as the cause. But it worked just fine for a while.

The graphics driver I'm running is the same as on my desktop machine, where it works just fine. Have you ever heard of the graphics driver breaking it before? And would it also cause the entire software package not to work instead of just the configurator or just the synth application?

I really want to fix this issue because VirtualMIDIsynth is just so good and I can't find any good alternatives.

Oh right, before I forget: Apparently now even the driver doesn't work properly anymore. Looks like the device shows up but the tray icon doesn't appear when launching VirtualMIDIsynth. I think that's new, as it never happened before reinstalling Windows. Does it rely on any windows specific software libraries that could've possibly been upgraded to a different version by installing things like MS Build Tools?

Another idea I came up with: Is any part of the software supposed to be shown in the windows device manager? I can't find anything there so if that's indeed the case, Windows might just refuse to have the driver installed for some reason

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine
Devin wrote:
Oh right, before I forget: Apparently now even the driver doesn't work properly anymore. Looks like the device shows up but the tray icon doesn't appear when launching VirtualMIDIsynth.

The systray icon is not related to the driver component, as it was in VMS1.
VMS2 driver only starts VirtualMIDISynth.exe synth component on demand (if not already started), which is in charge for the icon.
The icon appears also if you manually start VMS from the start menu.

Devin wrote:
Another idea I came up with: Is any part of the software supposed to be shown in the windows device manager?

No, it's not. VMS driver is an user-mode driver, none of the components appears in device manager.

Devin wrote:

The graphics driver I'm running is the same as on my desktop machine, where it works just fine. Have you ever heard of the graphics driver breaking it before? And would it also cause the entire software package not to work instead of just the configurator or just the synth application?

I've had some weird experience a long time ago with nVidia drivers; they had a function to add a button to each window title to let user quickly move the window to the other screen (in multiple display configurations).
Well, that feature made crash a lot of softwares I was using at that time.
It could be something wrong between VMS configurator dialog (which doesn't have anything special or "hacky" anyway) and graphics driver.

Not being able to reproduce and debug it on my side is "frustrating" ;)

Anonymous user
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

Can confirm exactly the same issue, persisted throughout the last recent nVidia driver updates (the configurator/GUIs haven't worked in quite some time). Currently there aren't any additional buttons or functions enabled via nVidia on my machine.

Windows event log also isn't very helpful as it just states an application error when it crashes. Would it be possible to create a debug build with log output so we could run it and send the log file back to you?

Posts: 7
Joined: July 12, 2017 - 19:22
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

So I actually wanted to debug this issue a bit more, but today Windows gave me one of those typical Windows 10 update notifications for VirtualMIDIsynth and upon clicking on it I was greeted by this:

So for some reason just the fact that the update was available somehow managed to fix VirtualMIDIsynth temporarily. I will now install the update and see if it still works. But this info could already help finding a workaround, or even the cause for the crashes.

Posts: 7
Joined: July 12, 2017 - 19:22
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

So I have news. After installing version 2.2 it doesn't work again. It crashes while trying to draw the configurator window. Maybe the tab the configurator starts on simply fails to draw for some reason. This can hopefully help investigate further.

If there's some way to trigger the window to open on the update tab for example it works just fine, but I couldn't check what happens if I go to a different tab later on.

Maybe whatever crashes the configurator on the main page also crashes the base driver, so if it is the same reason that would narrow it down even further.

Posts: 1972
Joined: March 25, 2012 - 01:19
Re: VirtualMIDIsynth config tools don't work, but driver works just fine

Thanks for being so active on this bug report.
The suggestion on opened tab is interesting and could lead to find what's causing the crash (maybe the crash is not related to video driver at all...).

Currently opened tab is stored into VirtualMIDISynth.conf file (usually in C:\Program files\VirtualMIDISynth folder), section [Windows], key Configurator.ActiveTab with values from 0 to 5 (SoundFonts = 0, MIDI Mapper = 1, Options = 2, Shortcuts = 3, Updates = 4, About = 5).
To start VirtualMIDIStart and automatically open configurator dialog, use the proper start menu shortcut key (or start it with VirtualMIDISynth.exe --configurator option).

Tyler (<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>) wrote:
Windows event log also isn't very helpful as it just states an application error when it crashes. Would it be possible to create a debug build with log output so we could run it and send the log file back to you?

When the Windows crash report dialog appears (do not close it!), the crashed process should still be in memory so you could create a dump file.
See here for details: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/931673/how-to-create-a-user-mod...

Once created that .DMP file, zip it into an archive and upload somewhere (it shoud be several megabytes, so you can't attach it here.

PS: to further reduce its size, please remove all configured soundfonts by manually editing the VirtualMIDISynth.conf file.

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