MIDI ports, can't choose AU DLS

I've always had weird behaviour with ports, messages of (port a), (port b) etc have never worked for me although the help file says they should,. I've always had to write the full name e.g (port "from Max 1"), (port "AU DLS Synth 1") etc. That was the same in Max7 and 8

However, now i've got the weird behaviour that doing that won't select the DLS synth, all the other ports work fine and it will switch to them with messages, it just won't switch to the DLS synth, so i have no way to change it except by going to the midi object and double clicking with a locked patcher.

Not sure when this started, maybe on max8

Any one experienced this?

Can anyone check if the behaviour is the same for them, see attached patcher.

Thanks