Tom Swirly

I just spent a few hours diagnosing an issue that appears to be a serious issue with ctlin, at least on this machine.

I am attaching a tiny patch to demonstrate but here's the idea:

1. I have a tiny patch that routes three MIDI CCs to three sliders.

2. If I use midiin -> midiparse -> route -> sliders, it works like a charm. I move the physical controllers and they move on the screen in a smoothly satisfying fashion.

3. If I use ctln -> pack -> $2 $1 -> route -> sliders, everything is fine if I only move one slider at a time...

If I move two or more sliders, only the rightmost slider triggers.

Now I've diagnosed this - I searched directedly in the list and I find that there is apparently a known issue with ctlin.

ARG! Hours wasted! And I started with a search here - but I didn't know it was CCs until about an hour ago - it was a "stuck light".

Um, is it too much to ask that if you KNOW some box doesn't actually WORK that you do SOMETHING to warn the developer? I don't get much time to develop in Max and it's galling that I wasted one of my precious days debugging something that's a serious bug.

If you can't figure out a way to FIX it, here are some suggestions:

1. Put something in your release marked VERY IMPORTANT, READ THIS NOW where you describe this data loss bug.

2. Replace ctlin with a wrapper for for midiin.

3. Get the ctlin box to print out a message when it loads: "WARNING - IF YOU ARE ON A MAC YOU MIGHT NOT GET ALL THE CTLIN DATA - USE MIDIIN INSTEAD."

Sorry for seemeing grumpy but it's a drag that this bug stopped a worksession with my partner previously and now consumed hours today.

2. If I use midiin -> midiparse -> route -> sliders, it works like a charm.  I move the physical controllers and they move on the screen in a smoothly satisfying fashion.

ARG!  Hours wasted!  And I started with a search here - but I didn't know it was CCs until about an hour ago - it was a "stuck light".

Um, is it too much to ask that if you KNOW some box doesn't actually WORK that you do SOMETHING to warn the developer?  I don't get much time to develop in Max and it's galling that I wasted one of my precious days debugging something that's a serious bug.

Sorry for seemeing grumpy but it's a drag that this bug stopped a worksession with my partner previously and now consumed hours today.


significant-ctlin-issue-with-dropped-data-but-not-with-midiin

Sympathies. I used to get antagonized by problems like that until I reversed my expectations. Now I never expect anything to work as expected (is that a paradox?). When there are no snafus I am then pleasantly surprised.

Significant ctlin issue with dropped data (but not with midiin)