Rename Virtual Midi Ports and edit Midi routes in Bome Network Pro

Dear Bome team and forum,

first of all, I am loving the Beta 1.3 of Bome Network Pro and the unlimited Virtual Midi Port extension! I am finally able have a flexible routing on both my local machine and even with devices on a remote machine. Awesome!

However, in several cases I was hoping for the possibility to rename existing Virtual Midi Ports and a also possibility to edit existing Midi Routes. In both cases, I can only delete and newly create them. Is this something that could be added in the next beta? Or is it already possible and I have just missed it?

In some occasions I sensed some instabilities. It is still a beta, of course. But is there a way to debug, are there logfiles I can analyze myself?

Last but not least, I have attached screenshots of my current Bome Network setup. It took some iterations but now it is very convenient. I do not have to think about the actual hardware port an instrument is connected to on my interface. I simply use dedicated virtual ports for each instrument.

Cheers,
Matthias

P.S.: I would be keen on trying a BomeBox beta firmware with advanced routing if there is a possibility already. :-)

Hi Matthias,

 

Thanks for your feedback.  Indeed at this time editing involves first deleting and then re-creating routes or ports. I'm sure there are good reasons for this since it involves both network connection naming and the virtual port interface with the host operating system.  This is valueable feedback so we will see what we can do to make this easier on future versions to make it more user friendly.

At this point I don't believe the log files created would be much use for end-user debugging. I'll ask, however where they are kept. I think in Windows it is in %APPDATA%\Bome or somewhere down the path from there. I'll check with Florian and advise. If you can further explain the instability you have experiences, however,  perhaps I can do some further testing to try to replicate the issues.

For mean, any instabilities have been more for either creating strange or nonsensical  routing combinations or in a few cases, the local network itself. Again, if you can better identify the instability, I'll be happy to try and test and duplicate the problem to make it more easy for Florian to isolate.

I'm glad you are enjoying the Beta and we will make sure you are added to the list for BomeBox Beta firmware as well.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care

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Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz

Hi Steve,
thank you for the speedy reply! There are different kinds of observations I would like to share. Hopefully, this is of help to Florian and you.

1. What I especially would like to investigate are cases when it seems like data would stop coming out of the Midi router when moments before everything was working well. I had this behavior at least a couple of times during the past weeks. And I cannot link it to specific events (i.e. I didn't change the routing setup).
   In these cases, the BomeNet.exe process keeps running and the GUI would still work as usual, no error messages whatsoever.
   Manually ending the Bome.Net.exe process and restarting it wouldn't solve it, only rebooting the computer.
   Maybe this could be related to the Virtual Midi Ports since they are still present without the BomeNet process. -- Can I manually restart the Virtual Midi Ports?
2. This is somewhat convoluted: When I create a connection between my local machine (neptune) and a port on the remote machine (eris), new virtual ports are automatically added on the remote machine: "From neptune: [port name]" and "neptune: [port name]".
   The remote machine again exposes these newly created ports to other machines.
   Back on the local machine, I can now also create a connection to "neptune: [port name]". This makes no sense and it's close to misuse, I know, but it is possible. (see screenshot)
   On the local machine, the BomeNet.exe process instantly dies and I get a CreashDump in %APPDATA%\Bome.
   Remark: creating such a connection to a "From neptune: [port name]" port is not possible, the GUI switch won't toggle. But with "neptune: [port name]" it is possible.
3. More an oddity, not an instability: When I create new routing entries, I sometimes select one port in the "Add Route" dialog but a different port is ending up in the "Midi Router" list. Unfortunately, this happens sporadically, and I don't have a video of it.

Thank you for putting me on the BomeBox Beta firmware list. I am looking forward to testing it.

Cheers,
Matthias

Hi Steve, I think I have accidentally replied to my original post and not to your answer. Please find my observations regarding instabilities in the thread below. Sorry for the inconvenience, I am new to this forum as a poster ... Matthias

Hi Matthias, thank you for the report. I'm sure it'll help us sort out the difficulties you're seeing. In particular, Bome Network seems to not always prevent circular port connections (what it should). And it should never crash!

Hi Matthias, For issue #2, I was able to reproduce some issues when connecting remote MIDI devices and then trying to route them through local virtual devices. I sent the full test results to Florian so he could look at it and determine what is needed. Thanks so much for reporting this issue. I have yet to experience issue #3 and haven’t looked at issue #1 although I was able to get Bome Network to Crash on my PC when unplugging a device on my remote Mac. This reporting should help the Beta program and stabilize the product when it is ready for prime time. Still I’m seeing a lot of use out of it. Steve