Sometimes patch settings "revert" on write

[Jim Buck]

I saw this last week with an "octave" setting for a patch, but today I am seeing it with the "switch" setting of PCM2 of a particular sound. I turn it "on", set up the PCM2 settings, and the once I "write" it, the PCM2 "switch" setting reverts back to "off". I've successfully saved patches with 2 PCM sounds before, so I'm not sure what is now happening that seems to be buggy behavior.

[admin]

Verify you are editing a "Uxxx" User patch ,
and not a "Pxxx" Factory Preset patch

[gumtownadmin]

Check your Assigns and Pedal Functions, see if a setting is used to toggle the PCM tone off/on (or other functions you don't want to happen)

[Jim Buck]

Yeah, I am writing to User 13-2 (not sure it's possible to attempt to write to a preset patch?). I started out editing a preset and then wrote that to User 13-2.

Other than writing some user patches and changing my GK-3 switches to switch banks instead of patches, my settings are all factory initialized.

So, I just ran a test now: I turned on PCM2, turned down the 5th and 6th strings of PCM1 to 0 (from 100), and wrote the patch. The result is that PCM2 is turned off (so it didn't save my "on" setting), but the PCM2 5th and 6th strings are 0 as I had changed them. Some of my changes save but not others, and this is me checking the settings right after writing it, so I hadn't done anything else in the meantime that may have affected it.

[gumtown]

Make a copy of your User patches to file, and system data using GR-55FloorBoard editor,
 and "Factory Reset" the GR-55,
and then reload the patches and settings back in.

Do not use the USB memory stick directly on the GR-55 for this backup/restore, as any corrupted system data is also saved and reloaded with this method (the same issue will keep happening), and if you have any recent direct USB backups, don't use them, delete them and make a fresh backup copy after the restore (via the GR-55FloorBoard editor method) has been done and the issue resolved. 

[chrisnickey64]

you can edit and save changes to a preset as long as you save them to a user patch location right?

[Jim Buck]

@chrisnickey64 - yeah, it's pretty much how I start coming up with a sound, using a preset as a starting point.

@gumtown - I hadn't just yet had a chance to do the full wipe after backing up using the floorboard editor, but is this generally a known problem of the device? I haven't used it all that much for this to already be getting wonky, but I am seeing this issue with other patches of mine I am developing, so I do need to try your fix very soon.

[Jim Buck]

@gumtown - Ok, I finally had some in-between gigs timeframe to look into this. I grabbed your GR-55 FloorBoard application, which looks pretty slick! (I'm also a software developer, so this is pretty cool to see something homebrewn like this! )

So, I have an example weird situation for patch User 4-1. I go to turn on PCM2, write it out on the device, but it shows on the device as off. BUT, in FloorBoard, it shows up as on! If on the device, I turn it on then off, then write that, on FloorBoard, it's now off. However, even though FloorBoard was showing it as on, while off on the device, when playing the guitar, it was definitely off.

If it does still look like I should do a full wipe on this, I want to make sure I am doing the right steps so that I don't lose my patches:
- File->Save Bulk GR-55 Patches to File...
- choose .G5L and save
- File->Save System and Global Data to File...
- save
- factory reset the GR-55
- then choose the opposite menu items as above (Load...etc.) using the .G5L and .GR55_system_syx files as input

Does that look correct?

[gumtown]

Yes that procedure is correct, but for extra security, use a USB pen drive in the GR-55 side port and make a backup directly from the GR-55 backup menu.
The GR-55 USB backup is in a GR-55 native binary format and can only be used by the USB port to restore,
 but the catch with the USB port direct backup is if there is corruption in the system, the backup will restore the same corrupted data,
 but is handy if something goes southward with the editor backup.

Once the two backups are made, the GR-55 factory reset, and the GR-55 files are restored through GR-55Floorboard, and everything is high 5's & group hugs,
erase the USB pen backup, and make a fresh USB backup with the happy GR-55 data.

I have been gigging with my GR-55 for 12 years, and once I have had the GR-55 go mental crazy on startup and not sounding right.
I factory reset the GR-55 and restored my last backup from the USB drive I keep in the GR-55 side port.

 

[Jim Buck]

Awesome, thanks. This will be my evening project tonight, but quick question - Roland puts out a "Librarian" application. Is that worth also using for anything at all, not specifically for my current backup/restore situation, or does your FloorBoard application totally supersede anything that the librarian program of theirs offers?

[whippinpost91850]

Awesome, thanks. This will be my evening project tonight, but quick question - Roland puts out a "Librarian" application. Is that worth also using for anything at all, not specifically for my current backup/restore situation, or does your FloorBoard application totally supersede anything that the librarian program of theirs offers?

Roland Librarian, basically hold's Patches. Floorboard, allows full programability. It's awesome and a must use

[Jim Buck]

Ok, cool, it is indeed slick.

@gumtown - this is strange, but even after this procedure, the same behavior exists..that being that sometimes settings do not "stick" after a write. Not sure if I have a bum firmware or what.

[gumtownadmin]

Post a copy of one of your problem patches attached here, with a description of what you want it to do,
 and I will have a look at it.

[Jim Buck]

@gumtownadmin - ok, I put together some info. Thanks in advance!

When I do a before/after of turning on PCM2, and getting a Tools->Patch Text Summary->More Details of both versions, these are the only textual differences:

for PCM Synth B
before: [Tone Sw] = Off
after:  [Tone Sw] = On

and under patch data
before: F04110000053122009210058026F015F3F010001404040020109007F0000000000020000000000000000000000007FF7
after:  F04110000053122009210058026F005F3F010001404040020109007F00000000000200000000000000000000000000F7

But in spite of that saying "On" above, it's actually off on the device.

I've attached the .g5l files of the before/after.

Another test I ran was to turn off/on PCM2 via your application, and then I wrote *that* using the device write function, but still it ends up being off once I perform the write operation. There is something odd about the write operation, and it's odd it shows up as "on" through the application despite being off on the device.

For version, I have 1.50 build 0059 for MAIN and 1.00 build 0001 for BOOT.

For this patch, I'm simply trying to turn PCM2 on, but I've generally seen issues where some settings just do not persist after a write, such as an octave setting, but this PCM2 on/off issue is the most egregious.

[gumtown]

OK, Without having my GR-55 on hand, but looking at the patch (before),
in the "Pedal/GK" menu page,
 you have the CTL pedal toggling PCM synth 1 & 2.
The status of the CTL pedal needs to be switched to the state you want the patch saved in.

Also keep in mind the editor does not automatically update the pedal state unless you 'read the current patch' settings from the GR-55 into the editor (a limitation of the GR-55 firmware not having an editor mode like later Boss gear does).

So just before you save the patch, give the CTL and EXP pedal switches a toggle to settle the patch into the desired state to save in, as the CTL and EXP pedal Sw states are saved in the patch.

I hope that does it, I can't see anything else from the patch that would cause that.

[Jim Buck]

Ok, I finally had a chance to do some more sound-editing on my GR-55, and it took me a bit to figure out where this was, since my global setting was on "patch". But I found the tab where the per-patch CTL setting is, and wow, yup, that's exactly what the issue was! I thought I was going crazy, but this totally makes sense now, and I can see the power of being able to per-patch program the CTL pedal like this.

Thanks again!