Since Korg claims there are no more bugs....

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Mon May 10, 2021 3:15 am

Hi guys
Something strange happened ,and i would like to share it with you.
Don't know if it's a bug or just my SSD ,which caused it ,
but let me explain in details:

I usually use two sets for gigs,one for Greek music and one for English songs,each one has a Direct set as well,along with it's direct songbook.
Both sharing the same sounds,DK,etc. stored in User area.

So, my English' Direct set is almost 3years now,located in a specific folder where all my Direct Sets are,and it contains a keyboard set,two pad banks,my english songbook and styles of course.

A few weeks ago i noticed that some songbook entries couldn't find the style,or midi,or even mp3,but that was no problem that i couldn't easy fix,so no big deal.
But some days ago,something strange happened.
I usually edit my DirectSet' styles ,and resave them on their deafult locations,or i add new styles,usual things you know.

So,two days ago,i just made a new style,but when i tried to save it on an empty location of my Direct set,an error appeared saying that there wasn't any more free space for saving .

After tried it 3or 4times with no luck,and some other error messages,i just decided to save it on my User area,cause i had to leave for rehearsal.

When i came back,i wanted to find out what was going on ,
and why i couldn't save anymore anything on that Direct set.
I first backedit up, then i tried another set,worked great,then switched back to my Direct set,it started working again,and i could save again.

But.....a whole Direct setlist was missing,some recent styles i created the past weeks,some songbook entries missing(styles,mid,mp3).

I checked my ssd for errors.....no errors found.
So ,after a whole day searching....i found some of them stored in a subfolder inside an old User set from 2020.
How they were stored there,why the whole direct set wans't also stored there but only some banks,is a mystery to me.

Did my ssd caused it? Was a momentary bug?
How was that possible,so many weeks i could use those styles since they weren't saved on my Directset,
and even if they were saved at another location,
how is possible to read both of the sets at the same time?

Anyway,i am happy i found some of them again, but i would really like Korg to explain how could this happen...is this a bug?Is this just covid-19 on pa4x?

One thing for sure....i won't trust Direct sets anymore....i will probably go back to usb sticks or use local banks somehow......

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Mon May 10, 2021 6:24 am

Hi Korg1

(not insulting your intelligence here)
Have you at any stage changed the device or directory which contains the DIRECT SET (e.g. different USB or change of top directory in any way)?
Also, accidentally not designing/re-assigning causes weird issues.

Reason for this question is that if for example you have a DIRECT set on a USB and you copy that USB exactly the new USB will cause problems
In this case, the DIRECT set MUST be designed first even though it has the same SET name etc...

Pete

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Mon May 10, 2021 10:28 am

Hi Pete,
not really,didn't change anything ,just browsed to another Direct set,then browse again back to ''problematic'' set,just to see if the problem will disappear .
But before that, i just made a rar file off the original direct set,just to make sure files exist no matter what,but i proved wrong,cause files didn't exist on rar file,but exist on an old set which by the way,was a full User set,that means it had all banks full,but now,only some banks existed,the ones that i did last month about....
I have to say also ,that i never used that set as a direct set before...it was just an old user set.

My suspect is that it has to do with how pa4x reads the ssd disk.
If for example you move/delete a file ,then youmight face such problems.
Can't think what will happen if for example someone tries to defragment his hard drive.

That is something Korg should have taken care off,a long time ago...

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Mon May 10, 2021 7:51 pm

Well,it goes a bit more far than i thought.
I managed to get all my data back,that means styles and songbook entries,but it looks they were stored at three different locations.

First location where the Original Direct set is.
Second location was an old user set located somewhere on my ssd ,
and Third location was a folder i managed to restore using EaseUS data recovery,which by the way was a stripped-out version of the user set,meaning that it contained only some songbook entries,somepad banks ,and some style banks holding only the styles that were modified lately,or added one or two months ago.

How crazy is that huh?

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Tue May 11, 2021 12:42 am

YES!! that IS crazy.

I'm doing some thinking but don't know how I can help.

I'm always happy to try something on my keyboard but to really test things out here I would need to replicate your PA4X and put an SSD in.

Hope you can get to the bottom of this problem.

Pete

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Tue May 11, 2021 9:54 am

My guess is that USB KORG DISK/SD/HD connection to Pc every while,can cause problems including this one,i am saying this till v3,nobody listens...

Also,settings on pa4x should keep the directory names and root etc ,not the exact raw folder's spot on disk

pa4x_user · Post by **pa4x_user** » Tue May 11, 2021 9:34 pm

karmathanever wrote:Hi Korg1

(not insulting your intelligence here)
Have you at any stage changed the device or directory which contains the DIRECT SET (e.g. different USB or change of top directory in any way)?
Also, accidentally not designing/re-assigning causes weird issues.

Reason for this question is that if for example you have a DIRECT set on a USB and you copy that USB exactly the new USB will cause problems
In this case, the DIRECT set MUST be designed first even though it has the same SET name etc...

Pete

Pete,

This scares me a bit, or I am not understanding the post.

I recently had to use a backup to restore my DIRECT set which I use from SD card. I disabled the DIRECT mode in the Pa4X menu, deleted the old set from SD, copied the backup set to the SD, then re-enabled DIRECT in Pa4X menu.

Seems to be fine.

But what do you mean about “ the DIRECT set MUST be designed first even though it has the same SET name etc... ”. ?

Thanks in advance.

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Thu May 13, 2021 4:10 am

But what do you mean about “ the DIRECT set MUST be designed first even though it has the same SET name etc... ”. ?

OH SORRY - A TYPO error by me - should read "deselected" NOT "designed"!!!!!!

Don't worry as it seems you are doing everything correctly.

What has happened is someone in the past had removed a DIRECT SET (on USB) - copied exactly onto another USB (same directories/setnames etc and ended up with a problem because the PA4X DIRECT SET had not been deselected first. The 2nd USB, although exact copy of original) is treated as a different device by PA4X (this is reasonable) hence the PA4X couldn't reference the SET - so it is critical to deselect the current DIRECT set before trying to access another one.

Gosh!! Not sure if that made sense - but hope so

Pete

pa4x_user · Post by **pa4x_user** » Thu May 13, 2021 4:26 am

Thanks Pete - all makes sense now

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Thu May 13, 2021 11:48 am

that'ts logical ,but in my case,my direct set was there for over3 years now.
Nothing removed or renamed,etc.
I even lost some styles i created months ago,
and i could use them the day before i deselect the set....
they all had gone after i selected the set again.

But that's not what surprises me.
The weird on all this is why it cloned or spited into3 files,one of them inside a folder that an old USER set was already ,the second which i recovered from raw fat32,and third the actual DIRECT set i was using.

Don't know,maybe it's time to give up on this and move forward, no pa5x for me....no no no, not ever again

AntonySharmman · Post by **AntonySharmman** » Mon May 24, 2021 9:56 pm

Nothing of all above is weird , I have seen similar cases in many PaSeries and the primary reason of
all those issues is "Editing Linux OS files in PC/Mac" ...

It's been 15 years that I have warned you not to transfer and edit Pa folders in Win/Mac OS , since policies metadata are written
to files that are translated differently in Linux , for instance if Direct.SET folder and contents are edited in Windows then folder
gets "read only" attributes and you can't save anything there anymore and even "Un-protect" function of Pa4X menu won't change it.

The best ever way to create a professional Direct SET is only inside User KBD Sets & Styles with exclusive Global preferences and
Songbook entries and then SAVE ALL that SET and using it then only as Direct while your new Pa4X SET must preserve untouched
all SOUND/PAD and PCM data of Direct SET.

Also beware of name characters you use when naming resources , those must be strictly alphanumerical since OS itself can confuse
allowed weird characters (from screen keypad) and then read or write resources in other positions or folders and scatter your resources
in other folders.

A good tip for experts is to split Pa4X HD in 2 or 3 partitions as I always do , and use one partition only for direct SETs.
As concerned to swapping HD to SSD , wasting of time since port protocol is old USB2 , speed will be always the same and you get the
risk of SSD controller failure and loose all your data at once , thing that will never happen with old magnetic HD (technicians are aware nowadays of this reality).
As last , Never use cheap Chinese clone mSD cards ... you will definitely face the most weird issues you can imagine and you will loose your work !
Prefer instead fast USB3 thumb drives that will be faster than any internal HD/SSD

Hope this helps

keyboard · Post by **keyboard** » Tue May 25, 2021 12:36 am

Very good advice given

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Tue May 25, 2021 7:35 pm

You are 100% right Antony,
i remember you said it back then,but i never had an issue with Linux loosing files before,so i didn't think it will happen now.
I usually had files missing using windows,never missed a file using linux,
no matter if hard drive was ntfs or fat32.

So,i was thinking about LOCAL banks area,which should be user area,right?
Is there any way we can use that area instead of Direct set?

AntonySharmman · Post by **AntonySharmman** » Thu May 27, 2021 10:23 am

korg1 wrote:Is there any way we can use that area instead of Direct set?

Extension of styles and KBD Set can be used only via Direct Set and it's highly recommended to use only HD area and not mSD and USB
removable media storage else default position will be lost and writing will be conflicted if data packet has a instant error.
Pa OS is not common Linux OS but a modified ARM Linux type compatible OS where similar issues can be happened like in other OS.

korg1 · Post by **korg1** » Thu May 27, 2021 12:58 pm

yeah,but LOCAL area is a USER hidden area,right? not direct.
Is there any way we can access that area?