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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Attention to Windows kb5074105 preview update. Some controllers could stop working - Page: 3
Hi
I am running Windows 11 up to date with the buggy new midi stack, unfortunately when I first experienced issues I restored a system image so trying to keep WIndows up to date but stopping before the buggy update is a problem, however throughout my Denon MC6000MK2 has performed OK, except suddenly this week when I close Virtual DJ it doesn't close correctly and the only way out is a complete restart.
I am running Virtual DJ 9005.
I can confirm if I turn off my Denon Controller while Virtual DJ is still open, Virtual DJ hangs instantly but I can then force close VDJ and run it again fine and it works with my controller.
If I close Virtual DJ with my controller still connected, Virtual DJ doesn't close correctly but now it won't run again at all until I do a full restart of my laptop.
Obviously not being able to close Virtual DJ is a bit of an issue since the only way to make configuration changes now is to start it with the controller off, make changes, close, then restart VDJ with the controller on and DJ.
Again not a disaster, but since realising what the issue is and searching for it in the VDJ forums, you can see there are a lot of users experiencing the same issue where they can't close Virtual DJ cleanly anymore.
Is this something you are able to fix or are we still awaiting Microsoft to sort it out.
Thanks
 
djkrysr wrote :
Hi
I am running Windows 11 up to date with the buggy new midi stack, unfortunately when I first experienced issues I restored a system image so trying to keep WIndows up to date but stopping before the buggy update is a problem, however throughout my Denon MC6000MK2 has performed OK, except suddenly this week when I close Virtual DJ it doesn't close correctly and the only way out is a complete restart.
I am running Virtual DJ 9005.
I can confirm if I turn off my Denon Controller while Virtual DJ is still open, Virtual DJ hangs instantly but I can then force close VDJ and run it again fine and it works with my controller.
If I close Virtual DJ with my controller still connected, Virtual DJ doesn't close correctly but now it won't run again at all until I do a full restart of my laptop.
Obviously not being able to close Virtual DJ is a bit of an issue since the only way to make configuration changes now is to start it with the controller off, make changes, close, then restart VDJ with the controller on and DJ.
Again not a disaster, but since realising what the issue is and searching for it in the VDJ forums, you can see there are a lot of users experiencing the same issue where they can't close Virtual DJ cleanly anymore.
Is this something you are able to fix or are we still awaiting Microsoft to sort it out.
Thanks


This issue affects pretty much all InMusic controllers that use MIDI... Rane, Denon, etc.. There is a sticky on the forum found here: https://virtualdj.com/wiki/win11kb5074105.html

This involves uninstalling KB5074105, KB5077241 & KB5077181. Then pausing windows updates. MS is working on a fix with InMusic but in the mean time this should get your Denon up again.
 
 
djcel wrote :
Short video explaining in a good way from my point of view:

https://youtu.be/rnh8neh0UuI?si=Nn1sfxyIzyo8G0Du


Yes this explains the new MIDI 2.0 and its issues but my question is why did Microsoft release a buggy, largely untested software component in a forced update. Yes, the InMusic drivers are partially at fault for not being class compliant but at least they worked prior to these 'surprise' updates. It leaves our machines at risk because now we must pause all updates to keep the MIDI 2.0 off our machines and being able to use them for DJing. I've fixed a number of these machine now with this problem and feel badly for those DJs that lack the knowledge to undo this. smh.
 
DJJamieFox wrote :

This issue affects pretty much all InMusic controllers that use MIDI... Rane, Denon, etc.. There is a sticky on the forum found here: https://virtualdj.com/wiki/win11kb5074105.html

This involves uninstalling KB5074105, KB5077241 & KB5077181. Then pausing windows updates. MS is working on a fix with InMusic but in the mean time this should get your Denon up again.


Hi, when I tried to uninstall the updates windows reports it's unable to uninstall them, I have tried going back to a disk image I took from 2023 then updating via Windows Installation assistant but despite saying 'don't update Windows after install', it treats the midi as an essential update and installs it anyway, so I think I am going to go back to the 2023 image and stop there until the issue is fixed since 22H2 won't update further via Windows Update anymore.
 
djkrysr wrote :
DJJamieFox wrote :

This issue affects pretty much all InMusic controllers that use MIDI... Rane, Denon, etc.. There is a sticky on the forum found here: https://virtualdj.com/wiki/win11kb5074105.html

This involves uninstalling KB5074105, KB5077241 & KB5077181. Then pausing windows updates. MS is working on a fix with InMusic but in the mean time this should get your Denon up again.


Hi, when I tried to uninstall the updates windows reports it's unable to uninstall them, I have tried going back to a disk image I took from 2023 then updating via Windows Installation assistant but despite saying 'don't update Windows after install', it treats the midi as an essential update and installs it anyway, so I think I am going to go back to the 2023 image and stop there until the issue is fixed since 22H2 won't update further via Windows Update anymore.



I had one laptop I was able to do the uninstall on but my backup laptop had to be reformatted and an older version of Windows 11 (24h2) installed. The way I stopped updates is stopping the Windows Update service and disabling it. I also used the registry to enforce the windows update disable. On Win 11 Pro you can simply use Group Policy Editor to stop all updates. I'll be upgrading one of my machine to Win 11 Pro for that reason.

Its sad we have to do all of this... Since my two DJ laptops are only used for gigs, I will most likely permanently stop updates through Group Policy.
 
djcel wrote :
Short video explaining in a good way from my point of view:

https://youtu.be/rnh8neh0UuI?si=Nn1sfxyIzyo8G0Du


Taking on board a comment you made in your video, I tried simply uninstalling the Denon Driver in Windows and now Virtual DJ works very happily with my Denon MC6000MK2 controller.
I will have to give it a proper stress test but so far all seems ok running using just the new Windows Midi, I will report back in a few days.
 
UPDATE:
So all midi performs OK however after about 10 minutes playing music continuously VDJ starts to stutter occasionally so that's no good.

I've also noticed that the waveform display is quite jerky at times, which can coincide with music stuttering, normally I would say this is a performance issue but nothing else has changed so it is most likely the Windows changes (I am using WASAPI in VDJ).

Just FYI I have been running my Reloop Ready for my main gigs since the issues arose, and although it performs OK, I have noticed the waveform display was not as smooth as I am used to, even using that controller.

So maybe performance needs to be played with with Microsoft Midi however I don't have the patience or knowledge to troubleshoot so it's back to v22h2 for now.
 
Spent a few hours in a venue to try to work out what was wrong, and I've just come across this thread after opening a support ticket.

I was advised by support that the best solution at the moment is to reinstall Windows from scratch and avoid the listed updates.

Before I do anything that drastic, can someone confirm whether that is really the current recommended approach?

I am on VDJ version V2026 b9209, and it seems Windows KB5074105 was too long ago to uninstall.

In my case (various Pioneer) I am seeing the devices not detected on first launch, then detected after quit and relaunch:
- startup detection issues with a DJM-A9 (used together with 2 x CDJ-3000s as controllers, they show up correctly first launch)
- startup detection issues with DDJ-RR
- display-only detection on the XDJ-RX2 (this unit should appear as 2 devices in VirtualDJ - the main device/audio, and the display, so display-only is the wrong state),
- with both startup detection issues, quitting VDJ and relaunching it results in detection (little window pops up)

The above has been manageable, however what hurts is:
- full VirtualDJ freezes after disconnect/power off events
- this means i must End Task VDJ, relaunch (not detected), quit, then relaunch (detected), then load the track I was midway through (ouch!).

I must say that the previous VDJ handling of temporary disconnection (a few seconds of silence and then it picked back up where we were in the track) was excellent so hopefully Microsoft can help VDJ with a robust solution soon.

I spent a heap of time with Cursor trying to work out what was going on before I sent my support ticket, so if any of this analysis is useful for the devs (I assume you can see my logs anyway), please let me know and I can forward details on to you.
 
PS is there any way to subscribe to updates in this thread, for example by email?
 
On top of the page, right before the topic title, there shold be a bell icon. Click on it
 
adamlovedj wrote :
reinstall Windows from scratch

Have you tried forcing uninstal of the updates from the command line as admin?
 
One thing I've noticed with this issue is if you caught this early enough then uninstalling the updates should work. On my backup laptop, I was not so lucky. The nature of windows updates is that every other one is a 'cumulative' update. Meaning new updates may have components from previous updates and will install them again. Over time this will take away the ability to uninstall updates further back in time. It would damage windows by doing so and it won't let you do that. At that point your only option is to reinstall windows with an earlier version such as 24h2. In that scenario you have to make sure that the updates are not downloaded during the reinstall process and pause updates after the reinstall.

I am working on some batch files/PS scripts to uninstall MIDI 2.0 alone and restore the system to a pre-February state but I don't have a full picture, as yet, of all the registry settings installing MIDI 2.0 creates nor all the changes it makes to windows in general. I'm still sorting all that out. If successful, I will post it after testing it. MIDI 2.0 is installed as a service and I'm pretty sure that a major part of the problem for us.
 
 
groovindj wrote :
@DJJamieFox do you know about the Windows MIDI Discord group? https://discord.gg/Utwv2qvf


Is that the one Pete Brown is in?

Here's the thing about all this... I think MIDI 2.0 will be a good thing when it is perfected and manufacturers get on board with it but I wish it had not been made a mandator update but rather an optional update so would not be caught in the middle. I also would not bash InMusic & Hercules for their drivers because they simply worked before all of this. Again, perfect storm. I just know it caused a disruption in my DJ business and so many others. My main goal now is to find a solution that will allow us to get updates and not put our machines at risk and still be able to do gigs.
 
Yes it's the official place to go for help. He's got a github page too - https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI

The post he made on Steinberg's forum said that they did test it heavily, but there was a big DJ shaped hole in their test group.
 
@Groovindj... That's good info as well. I ran across a blog post by Pete Brown that talks about some controllers (InMusic) being 'Class-Compliant' on Apple machines but not on Windows. If that's the case then the workaround in this post could apply:

'If you have one of the later Midisport devices which is class compliant (it works on other operating systems without a driver, this includes some of the older devices) then unplug the Midisport, completely uninstall the M-Audio driver from Windows, and then reboot and plug it back in. At that point, if the uninstall worked correctly, it will use our in-box MIDI 1.0 driver.

In the past, when these drivers crashed or had errors, it would only impact the single app using them. Because we have a service now, the impact can be wider. Note that we’re not seeing this with every PC. The driver fails only on a percentage of PCs, even with the same OS. It may be related to the type of USB port in use.

We do not have a workaround for the older devices which are not class-compliant. We are investigating the startup failures'.

When I get home (been out of town for a week) I will investigate this further. I am not sure what he meant by 'Older devices'... I think its worth a try.
 
djkrysr wrote :
Hi
I am running Windows 11 up to date with the buggy new midi stack, unfortunately when I first experienced issues I restored a system image so trying to keep WIndows up to date but stopping before the buggy update is a problem, however throughout my Denon MC6000MK2 has performed OK, except suddenly this week when I close Virtual DJ it doesn't close correctly and the only way out is a complete restart.
I am running Virtual DJ 9005.
I can confirm if I turn off my Denon Controller while Virtual DJ is still open, Virtual DJ hangs instantly but I can then force close VDJ and run it again fine and it works with my controller.
If I close Virtual DJ with my controller still connected, Virtual DJ doesn't close correctly but now it won't run again at all until I do a full restart of my laptop.
Obviously not being able to close Virtual DJ is a bit of an issue since the only way to make configuration changes now is to start it with the controller off, make changes, close, then restart VDJ with the controller on and DJ.
Again not a disaster, but since realising what the issue is and searching for it in the VDJ forums, you can see there are a lot of users experiencing the same issue where they can't close Virtual DJ cleanly anymore.
Is this something you are able to fix or are we still awaiting Microsoft to sort it out.
Thanks


Do you have any inMusic devices in use? (AKAI, RANE, m-audio, etc.)? Those hang the service. They've always hung apps and prevented proper shutdown, but now the impact is worse. We're working with inMusic on this.

I haven't heard of issues with Denon drivers, but it's always possible.

Pete
Microsoft
 
Denon DJ is a subsidiary brand of InMusic.
 
DJJamieFox wrote :
djcel wrote :
Short video explaining in a good way from my point of view:

https://youtu.be/rnh8neh0UuI?si=Nn1sfxyIzyo8G0Du


Yes this explains the new MIDI 2.0 and its issues but my question is why did Microsoft release a buggy, largely untested software component in a forced update. Yes, the InMusic drivers are partially at fault for not being class compliant but at least they worked prior to these 'surprise' updates. It leaves our machines at risk because now we must pause all updates to keep the MIDI 2.0 off our machines and being able to use them for DJing. I've fixed a number of these machine now with this problem and feel badly for those DJs that lack the knowledge to undo this. smh.


We had 2 years of testing before we released it.

We tested our own in-box drivers with a huge variety of devices, and asked companies to test their drivers at apps. We tested a number of apps ourselves, but obviously not all of them.

It turns out that the inMusic drivers *always* hung on close. Ask any REAPER user and they know they had to unplug devices like the MPK in order to be able to use them again, and other apps would be left hanging out in task manager, not fully closed. We didn't know this, because we don't test every third-party driver ourselves.

I've posted it here and elsewhere. Join the discord server https://aka.ms/mididiscord and look in #start-here for information on how to disable it without pausing updates etc.

Pete
Microsoft
 
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