Severe MIDI Madness [SOLVED!]

[beingmf]

Some severe annoying MIDI issues. I thought I had them sorted out, but they just happily decided to come back.

1) Why can't Reaper remember the hardware outputs?
I use 2 Steinberg Midex8's over USB and Bome Midi Translator Pro. They work perfectly, yet Reaper from time to time doesn't seem to recognize them and then adds another instance of Midex's - which makes the old alias names and routings obsolete. Templates aren't working any longer - "HW: ?". I have to start over again.

2) Is the hanging notes issue back?
I thought, again, that it didn't happen the last time I used e.g. Kontakt, but now it's absolutely unusable. Any edit in the Midi editor will result in a note cluster that can only be stopped when hitting F3 several times.

3) Is Windows 10 the culprit?
All of this was working - more or less - perfectly when I still ran Windows 7. Since Windows 10 I run into problems, though allegedly it is "better" (whatever that means) regarding MIDI. Did I miss something in the system control panel? What about Windows updates? After every update some manually changed setting has returned to default!

Is it my Reaper preferences somewhere? Instrument tracks all have ReaControlMIDI as the first plugin in the chain - because I need it for automation and program changes and because it was said to prevent hanging notes. Nope.
How do you synth guys/orchestral composers do it? What is different in your (hardware) settings that you're able to work without glitches or need to re-setup the MIDI side of things every week?

Exhausted.

[ivansc]

Obvious, but are you always using the same USB inputs for your two devices?
Switching them around can lead to Windows seeing them as new devices.

[beingmf]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Obvious, but are you always using the same USB inputs for your two devices?
Switching them around can lead to Windows seeing them as new devices.

Yes ‒ thanks for asking!

[beingmf]

So, in a different wording:

Has something substantially changed in Windows 10 regarding the Midi functionality? Especially with hardware, which might cause interface drivers to act weird?

[ivansc]

When did Steinberg last update the drivers for your devices?

If I recall those MIDEXes are fairly old, so who knows?

[beingmf]

Originally Posted by ivansc

When did Steinberg last update the drivers for your devices?

If I recall those MIDEXes are fairly old, so who knows?

Sorry, I hadn't seen your reply! Yes, they're old, but the drivers are Windows 8.1. And yes, they DO WORK, I'm just an idiot.

So the solution was: shorter USB cables! I always assumed (hence the "idiot") that an active USB hub would amplify the outgoing signal, not the incoming. This isn't the case Now that I swapped the short cable from the PC to the hub for a long one, and vice versa for the cables into the interfaces, it's all good.

Phew.

EDIT: The whole computer is snappier now.