Akai ak.sys crashing: a puzzler. Anyone had this prob?

[BobK]

Anyone out there using Akai ak.sys software (Mac or PC) with an S5000 or 6000 having problems? I've got one that has Akai tech support in Texas stumped: When opening certain folders in the ak.sys browser, I get a USB error message '6908,' usually followed by a USB read error, followed by the browser freezing or going blank if I choose 'ok' instead of 'quit.' If I choose quit, then relaunch ak.sys, the browser is blank, and I get a USB timeout error. Have to restart the computer before ak.sys will work again.

 

I'm using ak.sys 1.7 with an S6000 (OS 2.11a) on a Mac G4 450 (AGP), OS 9.1, 384 Mb ram. Have done extensive troublshooting of both hardware and software, to no avail. Eventually I noticed that the ak.sys crash seems to happen with specific folders only, and it happens whether I open these files from a SCSI hard disk connected to the sampler, or from the CD they came on (SCSI CD -ROM drive is also connected to the S6k). The sampler has no problem with these files (loading, saving, playing) if operated from the front panel instead of from ak.sys. So if the files are somehow corrupt, it's only a problem for ak.sys.

 

To test whether the disk location might be damaged, I did this: From the S6k's front panel, I loaded a multi from one of the problem folders (along with its dependent prog and samples), then saved it to a new folder. Launched ak.sys. Opened the folder - no problem. Quit ak.sys; made some empty sub folders (also from the sampler's front panel), to begin re-creating the large directory of problem folders (hoping I could load in each multi and save it to a new disk location). When I later tried to open some of the new empty subfolders, ak.sys crashed again, same error messages.

 

Akai tech support had no clue what these errors meant, and said they sent it off to the engineers. I don't know if I'll ever hear back from them (so far, support has been terrible), so meanwhile I'd like to hear if anyone else has had such problems (Akai claims I'm the only one).

 

Thanks.

[BobK]

Just tryin' again. Anybody getting USB errors with ak.sys? Anybody have suggestions for dealing with USB errors in general? ('USB Write Timeout,' 'USB Read Command Failed,' and so on)

 

I sent Akai the problem data (mentioned in my previous posting) back in October. The tech duplicated the problem but had no idea how to solve it. I asked to talk to his boss, and the boss, Dave, agreed to send it to an engineer to examine. After a month and a half, Dave told me an engineer acknowledged ak.sys had a problem with nested folders, which might be fixed in a future update. But this doesn't explain my problem - it just seems like a pat answer from someone who didn't even look at the data I sent. Other data that was equally-deeply nested didn't cause the crash. Only certain folders caused problems for me.

 

Now, I've discovered another problem: ak.sys crashes (with USB errors) when I save a Multi from memory to the hard disk (by dragging the Multi to the disk). I also found that:

 

When ak.sys crashed during a 'save' operation, the multi actually was saved. When I loaded the Multi from the sampler's front panel, it worked fine.

 

If I unplugged the sampler from my USB hub, I was able to re-launch ak.sys successfully without restarting the sampler or computer. However, when I tried to open the folder containing the newly-saved Multi, ak.sys crashed with USB errors.

 

If I deleted the new Multi from the hard disk, using the sampler's front panel, and relaunched ak.sys as described above, ak.sys didn't crash.

 

So, ak.sys is turning out to be nearly useless, and I'm angry and exasperated. Akai tech support sucks. I spend way too much time troubleshooting. Sometimes I want to take a hammer to the sampler and trash it. I fantasize that if I lived in Ft. Worth, I'd go down to the Akai office and raise hell.

 

In less-heated moments, I consider selling the S6000 and buying a PC and Gigasampler.

 

Any suggestions, besides anger-management classes? ;-)

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by bobman1962:

Just tryin' again. Anybody getting USB errors with ak.sys? Anybody have suggestions for dealing with USB errors in general? ('USB Write Timeout,' 'USB Read Command Failed,' and so on)

 

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I work in the software biz (as a developer) so I get to see bug reports from the other side of the fence - but not for Akai.

 

You are already a good bit of the way down the path to getting this fixed. Fixing a bug generally consists of the following steps:

 

Getting the CE (the tech) to reproduce the problem (you've done this) - typically a week ot so.

 

Get the tech to report it to engineering (you've done this) This will usually happen at the end of the previous step.

 

 

Get engineering to reproduce the problem and understand the nature of the problem (you've done this)

 

This will typically take a couple of weeks but it can take more if they have to go back and forth with the tech. Once engineering can reproduce the problem fixing it is usually (but not always) the easier part.

 

Get engineering to fix the problem (state uncertain). This can take a while or can be instantaneous depending upon the difficulty of the problem, the current work load, whether they are in bug fix freeze pending a release, etc. Most important is the priority they gave the problem.

 

Get it into a product build. This can take a while depending upon how testing is organized - say one to two weeks)

 

Get the product to the customer - perhaps 5 weeks.

 

So, you can see that it is not that surprising that you have not got a fix yet while you have in fact achieved quite a bit in terms of getting a fix eventually.

 

Some things you can do:

 

i) Ask the tech what level of priority they gave the bug. Find out what they call their levels - the top level will usually be something like "emergency" or "showstopper".

 

See if you can help the tech to upgrade it to as high a priority as you can. Ways to do this are:

 

Find others with the same problem and have them report it (there should be an internal id number that the tech can give you so that others can reference it)

 

Reproduce the problem with standard media that came with the unit rather than third party libraries (sounds like you may have already done this) This will make engineering take the problem much more seriously since it means that every user will potentially see the problem rather than just a few.

 

Quantify the impact on your work. (If you can continue work without it its not as important as if you cannot)

 

See if you can become a beta tester for them. This involves trying out new versions and reporting bugs. You sound like you would be a good candidate for ak.sys. If you do become a beta tester it is important to provide feedback to them once you get the new software, so its not a free ride.