Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "diddywahdiddy1" <550@...> wrote:
> reboot with BCR switched on and connected
> BCM detects 2 devices (!)
> device 1 is online and using correct firmware
> device 2 is offline

Actually BC Manager hasn't really "detected" 2 BCRs:
It has only tried to restore the BCR "contexts" (cf. the lines in the B-Controls window) that existed when BC Manager closed the last time.

"Offline" can result from 2 conditions:

1. The previously defined MIDI I/O ports are currently unavailable: their names are between parentheses "(...)" in the B-Controls window. 

2. The MIDI I/O ports ARE available (hence: not between parentheses), but the previously defined BCR behind these ports could not be found.
There can be various reasons for this, but in your case it may well be because of a mismatch between the Device ID number on the actual BCR and the Device ID defined in BC Manager.

So the term "device" (as you were using it) isn't exact enough: we need to distinguish between the BCR and its (USB-based) MIDI I/O ports.
In the situation you describe, BC Manager has detected 2 pairs of MIDI input port + MIDI output port, but not the BCR behind one pair of MIDI I/O ports.

> 3 both BCR's
> BCM detects 1 device
> midi devices shows
> input: usb device, usb device (2), usb device [2]
> output: usb device, usb device (2), usb device [2], usb device [3]
> I check usb device and device (2)

Ouch! Are "usb device" etc. the actual names?

Then an important question is: which USB driver are you using?
And which operating system?

I'm not familiar with all the existing USB drivers, but I suspect you're using a standard Microsoft USB driver.

One problem with standard Microsoft USB drivers is that they assign numbers DYNAMICALLY to any BCRs you switch on:
When you switch on one BCR (while Windows is already running), this BCR's USB I/O devices get named "usb device".
If you then switch on a second BCR, this second BCR's I/O devices get called "usb device (2)". But I think that if you then switch both BCRs off, and then switch on the SECOND BCR, THAT one now gets named "usb device".

Another complication with Microsoft drivers is the names they give to the additional USB devices of the BCR's operating modes U-2, U-3 and U-4: these devices get additional numbers between square brackets.

So if I'm not mistaken, your above lists of I/O devices are to be interpreted as follows:

The 1st BCR ("BCR1") was in U-3, the 2nd ("BCR2") in U-1.

Inputs:
usb device     = BCR1 itself
usb device (2) = BCR2 itself
usb device [2] = BCR1 MIDI IN socket

Outputs:
usb device     = BCR1 itself
usb device (2) = BCR2 itself
usb device [2] = BCR1 MIDI OUT A socket
usb device [3] = BCR1 MIDI OUT B/THRU socket

This is all extremely confusing.
(I suppose that if you put BCR2 in U-3, you get names like "usb device (2) [2]" or something?)

All in all it is recommendable to install one of the Behringer USB drivers, which produce more informative I/O port names.
(To varying degrees; some Behringer drivers even use the BCR's Device ID in the port names.)
What your actual options are, depends on your Windows version.
See the BC Manager Manual, section 4 point 4, for a list of choices and further discussion.

With all this in mind, let's go back to BC Manager:

In BC Manager, each BCR "context" is a fixed combination of a MIDI input port, a MIDI output port and a Device ID. (And a preset file, optionally.)

So when BC Manager tries to restore a previously defined BCR "context", it uses the previously defined Device ID number for that context.

So if the BCR that is ACTUALLY behind the selected MIDI I/O ports has a DIFFERENT Device ID, BC Manager (correctly) thinks it's not the BCR it was looking for and reports the missing BCR as "Offline".

To make BC Manager find a particular BCR, you should make sure that the BCR's Device ID matches the number that BC Manager maintains.
You can set the Device ID for each BCR context from the B-Controls window via MIDI -> Options.

You might also experiment with the "Startup detection" setting, which you can change from the main window via Options -> B-Control detection:

This setting's default is "Verify identity of previously defined B-Controls", which is responsible for the startup behavior you're familiar with.

"None" might be interesting for testing purposes: you then have to "connect" each BCR manually by executing "Refresh connection status" from the B-Controls window.

However, "Scan enabled MIDI ports" might be interesting on a more permanent basis:
It leads to a more relaxed policy, which might be more convenient in your case:
BC Manager then finds ANY BCR (irrespective of Device ID) at ANY enabled MIDI port, and (if necessary) ADDS this BCR to the list.
However, any "obsolete" contexts will remain in the list, so you may have to use the "Close selected" operation from the File menu to remove these obsolete contexts.

Alternatively you can of course set BOTH BCRs to ID 1, but then BC Manager has no way of distinguishing between them, apart from the names of their MIDI I/O ports (which are fluid in your current situation). Of course this can lead to maintenance problems if you wish to install different presets on your BCRs.

Hope this helps,
Mark.