[Mod 11.4.0] RC5 "Error:C" on assigning Midi Port

[rborsey]

Hi again

Hi

I transferred my SCS cue file to my studio development machine (W7). When I open the cue file I need to create an appropriate device map for the MIDI ports so I opened the Editor, went to Performance, Devices, Cue Send. There I see my three MIDI ports for which the physical device is not set. The first and third (Lightpipe and BOME Cmds) define just fine. The second (Lights out) assigns fine but when I save the Device Map I get a fatal Error: C message.

After previous problems with BOME Midi ports I uninstalled BOME and just left my physical ports and the Dummy Midi Port. Get the same error whichever I choose. I have tried a few different thiings and sometimes I get an Error: T message instead of Error: C.

In case it would help I ran the last trace version you had sent me before RC5 (subversion q I think) and generated a log file - I have emailed the log file and a screen capture of the error.

Cheers

Richard

[Mike Daniell]

Thanks for the log file, Richard. I've been able to reproduce the error and can give you a work-around.

The error returned by the mciSendString function that tried to open the file was "275: File Not Found". However, the file obviously does exist as was confirmed earlier in your log. What it turned out to be was that length of the full pathname of the file was too long for the mciSendString 'open' command, although I cannot find any MSDN documentation that confirms that.

It appears that the maximum length of the full pathname of the file must be less than 128 characters.

In your log there are two opens of MIDI files: the first one in cue 6S opened successfully has a filename length of 121 characters. The second file in cue 7 failed to open and has a filename length of 129 characters. So the quick solution to this is to shorten the filename by removing at least two characters from the filename. You could, of course, alternatively move the file to another folder providing you still keep the total pathname length to less than 128 characters, or shorten the name of a folder in the current hierarchy.

I'll see what I can do to add a check on the total pathname length before passing this to mciSendString, so that a meaningful error message can be displayed.

Edit: Please note that this restriction of a maximum length of the full pathname applies only to MIDI files - not to audio, video or image files. Only MIDI files are opened using mciSendString.

[rborsey]

Aha. Thanks for tracking that one down. Good old Microsoft and undocumented features! Looking at the full path name for my files reminds me that it is time I reorganised my folder structure a bit too . . . In the first instance I'll re-run with your version with an extra check just to confirm and then I will (carefully) get my disk organised.

Thanks again

Richard