Hi, I updated to 181008 and have issues with BOINGG and LOOM locking up (anywhere from 5 mins to 10mins+ of use) and requires a hard reset. Anyone else with the same issue? Setup: (I am a noob) I have Grids in USB slot 1, USB Backup in slot 3 and Wifi in slot 4. I am not able to connect to my network on Wifi so it is not connected. Advice?

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Hey guys,

I’ve been lurking the forum for awhile to see if norns would fit what I was looking to do and I was really excited for some of the features and scripts that have been popping up.

I did however have one question. Can norns send midi out to say a VST in a DAW directly out from one of the USB ports?

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I’ve had the same experience with loom locking up needing a hard reset, both when connected and not unconnected with wifi. I’m checking with boingg running now… One thing I haven’t tried yet is to check if the scripts lockup regularly even when it’s the first script loaded after startup.

Not looking to rattle any cages here. I know very well how complex the Norns project is. But wondering what the general consensus is on Norns stability. Unfortunately, I took a chance and rehearsed with a colleague over the weekend and, well, that did not go well. In order to narrow things down, I ran a few test sessions and experienced 4 crashes (audio stopped working or burst of white noise followed by silence) in one one-half hour session this evening: Loom, Flin, Glut, MLR.

I’m keeping a running crash log now on Google Drive as a data point and regularly dumping my system log files. That aside is this just me and my practice or is this a wider issue?

Same here, though only running Grids into USB1. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I have other devices plugged into USB2 through USB4 as the Norns audio engine crashes regardless.

@jasonloeffler @jflee @Wirelesswine @jonsimon @ioflow &c

we’re seeing a greater number of random hard crashes and kernel panics since moving from scsynth to supernova. (or that is the best guess for general cause.) trying to find more specific mechanism. it’s not a particular engine, script or peripheral. not everyone is equally affected; some users report crashing every 30s, others have never had a crash. more data points are appreciated.

personally i am thinking we should probably roll this change back for the moment. this won’t take away all the other additions and new scripts, though it will lower voice count for polyphonic synths. have been spending night time past week on attempted diagnosis; this week will work on a rollback (should go quickly; with some work can move aux effect processing to a separate scsynth process.)

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norns is a USB midi host, so you’ll need to use a method to connect two midi hosts. there is discussion of this in other threads here but there doesn’t seem to be a perfect device/solution for this. you can always use two USB MIDI dongles and connect them with a female-female adapter.

i’m preparing a rollback now. i apologize for the trouble, everyone.

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thanks @tehn and @zebra and anyone else.
sorry this release has been so difficult, must be supremely frustrating. i’ll be honest and say that i actually have had a TON of fun with it. the playfair euclidean with presets has been crazy, and even 6 channels of mlr. i’ve been using the crashes as the end of the song, haha. i knew it would be fixed soon.
:two_hearts:

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Supernova exists for multi threaded + multi core CPUs, right?

yes, using supernova lets us easily run e.g. multiple synths in parallel using ParGroup. under the hood it has a pool of DSP worker threads, and the scheduler will automagically spread these across different cores.

we’re still working out the best answer to the issues. it may or may not involve changing the SC backend.

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note to everyone:

if you’re not actively using the wifi usb nub, don’t plug it in. it uses a bunch of power, reducing the battery life and system power overhead for everything else.

in general, if you’re not actively using a peripheral, i’d highly suggest not plugging it in.

ok!

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Follow up question re: battery. Do you have a part number handy? How many cycles does the mfg spec claim? Is the battery user serviceable?

mine has this (datapower dtp803860)

[ https://datapower.en.alibaba.com/product/60800184030-807518142/Wholesale_lithium_polymer_battery_3_7v_2000mah_lipo_battery.html ]

How many cycles does the mfg spec claim?

it doesn’t, AFAICT. ballpark is 1000 - 1500 cycles for this kind of battery (as i understand it.)

oop, i was wrong, it says 500. that’s from the alibaba page, i didn’t dig more. seems conservative.

Is the battery user serviceable?

yes, it is easily accessed / removed / replaced.

next logical question is about the charge controller (woop, i stand corrected), which is this fancy TI “fuel gauge” jobbie.

the fuel gauge actually just measures current and capacity.

the actual charge controller is a BQ24075


the battery has a standard JST header. any battery can be plugged in here given it fits in the space. i believe the 2000mah battery from adafruit will fit and is easily attainable. we ordered in bulk from the manufacturer which was a total pain. the actual battery in production units is 2250mah and slightly different dimension.

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Good to know. Just looking 3-5 years down the road…

i’ll do my best to keep a stockpile as well. though we’ve been suffering from random end-of-life parts recently.

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Hi all, I’ve been reading everything I can about norns after @Benjamin_Mauch showed me his in person. Can MLR and the other cool sequencers like Loom sync to an external MIDI clock?

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I believe currently some can and some cannot and those that cannot are likely planning to have that feature implemented soon

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Is there a way to revisit the instructions screen after you’ve initiated the script? I’m afraid I’m One Of Those People who does not absorb complex instructions quickly. :frowning: