MF Classic Board 4314 - sending SysEx, MF Utility doesn't see it

[Uncle Noah]

Hey folks - your favorite old MIDI Fighter addict again. I got my hands on yet another MF Classic (Board #4314 if anyone is keeping track) and I plugged it in to my computer and yay snake lights. But! The MIDI Fighter Utility (Mac, v. 2.85) doesn't see it. I used the by-the-buttons menus mode to get it out of FourBanks Internal mode and back into Default mode, and then plugged it back in and ran MIDI Monitor to see if there's any life in the board. Well there is - but a form of life I'm not used to. MIDI Monitor identifies it as "MIDI Fighter Classic" (which is in itself interesting as my nearest comparison unit, Board #1401, is seen as "MIDI Fighter"), and then about once a second it shows that the MIDI Fighter Classic is sending a SysEx message: "Universal Non-Real Time 17 bytes F0 7E 7F 06 02 00 01 79 01 00 00 00 20 12 04 18 F7" -- I'm not seeing an option via the internal menu system to transmit or stop transmitting SysEx messages. I checked and the external digital and analog points are turned off. I'm guessing this SysEx transmission is what's keeping the MF Utility from seeing it, but I may be wrong.

Has anyone else run into this kind of behavior? How did you resolve it? Thanks as always!

[Uncle Noah]

OK, I fixed the sysex transmission issue by using the old MFUpdate application to flash the unit with midifighter-20110511.hex. The unit transmits all the proper MIDI messages when I press the buttons so that's good - but the new MIDI Fighter Utility still doesn't see it. So this puts me in the same spot I'm in with my MIDI Fighter Pro (for those following that thread as well). Is there a firmware hex file out there that's more recent than 20110511 that the MIDI Fighter Utility will recognize? I'd really like to manage these units using that program.

[guywithknife]

Apologies for the late reply, I'm not really active here anymore and only saw your messages by chance. I worked on the MF Utility and added support for it to the firmware back in late 2011 (but don't know if anything changed after this), so I can give you a little bit of information on this. Hope it helps.

The midifighter-20110511.hex firmware "fixed" it because that firmware predates the utility (and sysex messages were added to communicate with the utility). I suggest flashing with the latest firmware again and trying to debug the actual problem.

I looked through the classic code to try and remember in what cases the MF sends sysex messages (it shouldn't during normal operation) and to try and see what the sysex data you posted is. Its a response for a device identity request, that is, your computer (the MF Utility, I assume?) is asking it which device it is:

F0 7E 7F is always the same, I don't remember what that means, something related to starting a SysEx message
06 MIDI 1.0 General Information
02 Identity Request
00 01 79 is the DJTT Midifighter SysEx ID registered with midi.org
01 00 Device family (Midifighter classic)
00 00 Device model (Midifighter classic has only one model so always 0)
Finally, the firmware version date:
20 12 Year
04 Month
18 Day
F7 End of SysEx message

So, the question is why did it send this every second? My guess is that you had the MF Utility running and it was requesting what the device is, but for some reason wasn't recognising it. Or maybe you have some other software running that might be sending a device ID request. The only time that the Midifighter sends this data is when it receives such a request (This MIDI data sent from your computer: 7E 06 01).

I would flash the device with the latest (or the 20120418) firmware and try again. Make sure you have nothing running that might be sending an idenity request (if you have something that can output the MIDI for you -- if you were using the utility to see it, then you can't do this since you need the utility running). The data looks correct, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't know if the utility has changed much since I last used it, can you tell me what files it has? When I worked on it, it had a plugin system where each device had its own javascript plugin file that defined the device ID and setting, if you can look for these and if they exist, send me the MF classic one, then I can check the data against the above identity data.

[Uncle Noah]

Thank you for this, @guywithknife! I've dropped a ticked to the DJTT support to see if they can cough up the firmwares - I'm hoping they have the files on an old hard drive somewhere As far as the Midi Fighter Utility app, it has a Plugins folder that contains device.mf_twister.js, device_mf_3d.js, device.mf_classic.js, device.mf_pro.js, and device.mf_spectra.js As far as the app itself, I'm attaching a screenshot of what's in the package, in case that's helpful to you. Thank you again!
Screen Shot 2021-11-03 at 4.21.00 PM.jpg

[Uncle Noah]

oh, and I've placed device.mf_classic.js and device.mf_pro.js here: abductionproductions.com/MF/devices.zip

[guywithknife]

oh, and I've placed device.mf_classic.js and device.mf_pro.js here: abductionproductions.com/MF/devices.zip

Those files look good, to the best of my knowledge. I vaguely remember those plugin files being messier but I assume DJTT cleaned them up The key thing is that the device ID's match what the midifighter sent, so it really should have worked. Hmm.

What you could try doing is (temporarily) using this plugin file instead: https://gist.github.com/danielytics/...7fc66e750418ae

I had to dig through some old emails to see how to do it, but that should output the device ID that the utility sees to the log window. Maybe that will help. You will have to flash with a hex file that supports the utility though. I've included a hex file in that link above -- I don't know what it is, its one we used for testing "out of date" firmware during development that I happened to have as an email attachment, I believe its a summer of 2011 work in progress version that should support the basic functionality of the utility, in theory it will work and let you use the utility to update to latest. Its worth a shot anyway.

Good luck!

[Uncle Noah]

SUCCESS!! @guywithknife's help gave me some verbiage I was able to use with the DJTT support folks, and they provided me with a "rescue" hex file that I was able to load into the MF Classic, and that brought it up to a firmware version that the current MF Utility would see. From there, it was just a matter of clicking to update the firmware to the new version, and everything is now up-to-date!! Thank you everybody who contributed here and to everyone who read along with this journey! If you ever find yourself stuck with a MIDI Fighter Classic, drop me a line -- I've saved all my files and procedures, and I'll be more than happy to assist anyone that needs it in the future.

[melmel]

Hey Uncle Noah - sorry to dig this thread up from the depths but I'm running into a similar problem with my midi fighter 64. How were you able to load the hex file to it? Thanks!

SUCCESS!! @guywithknife's help gave me some verbiage I was able to use with the DJTT support folks, and they provided me with a "rescue" hex file that I was able to load into the MF Classic, and that brought it up to a firmware version that the current MF Utility would see. From there, it was just a matter of clicking to update the firmware to the new version, and everything is now up-to-date!! Thank you everybody who contributed here and to everyone who read along with this journey! If you ever find yourself stuck with a MIDI Fighter Classic, drop me a line -- I've saved all my files and procedures, and I'll be more than happy to assist anyone that needs it in the future.