How Do I get OMS to recognize my serial Interface

[Darin Donovan]

I have a Mac G4 and am new to Digi. I have been using a serial interface Opcode Studio 3 (I know, it's ancient). I installed a Keyspan serial card in the PCI slot so that I could connect to my Studio 3 multiport. However, when I try to set up the OMS studio document, the program searches for ports and doesn't find them. What is particularly frustrating is that I can see the driver for the Studio 3 flash by without being recognized as the program searches.

I have tried the troubleshoot button. No dice. I have tried to customize the set up and again, can't get the Studio 3 connected. Using the Studio 4 or 5 doesn't work either.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

dhd [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Donny]

Hey Darin,
Does the serial port card work for Mac serial devices other than your Studio 3 (printer, modem, etc.)? If so, I would check with Digi to see if that card is supported (not that "unsupported" means it won't work) and also check if they have heard any reports that the card does not work. You may want to consider returning that PCI card and check out this card from Griffin Technology:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/serial/

These little bad boys attach to your internal modem slot and I'm pretty sure they are supported by Digi - but check with them so that they can verify your config, etc. A bonus with this config - you save a PCI slot.

[Chompers]

If you cant get it working, many here, including me, recomend the Geethree stealth serial adapter. It turns your built in modem into a real mac serial port.
If you dont use your phone for internet, its the way to go.

[petter]

Hi Chompers!

I've just bought the Geethree stealth serial adapter and had big problems when I use Reason.
The following error popped up all the time:

"An overrun error occurred when receiving data from the Modem port. Received
Midi data was probably lost. You may need to reduce the communication speed
on this port (if possible)"!

Then I received this explanation from Propellerheads:

"Reason and the Stealth Port

By using a Stealth Port device in your B/W PowerMac G3 or G4 Macintosh, you
can obtain the features of the past Macintosh history, by having serial
interface access, something newer Mac models does not have. However, we have
found that this may give you irreliable operation, sometimes causing Reason
to report the following error message: "An overrun error occurred when
receiving data from the Modem port. Received Midi data was probably lost.
You may need to reduce the communication speed on this port (if possible)".
For this cause, we can not recommend usage of the Stealth Port devices. They
may work fine for your other MIDI software, but you may have to use a USB
interface (or the MIDI port on your sound card, if available) for MIDI
communication with Reason. The best choice, from our point of view, however,
is to use USB or (if available) PCI card MIDI interfaces. Please make sure
your MIDI interface also comes with OMS drivers, as OMS is currently the
MIDI communication protocol recommended with the Macintosh. Furthermore,
some USB midi interfaces may work better with OMS 2.3.7 than they do with
the OMS version you get on the Reason CD, which is 2.3.8. All versions of
OMS are freely available on the internet; some viable resources are www.opcode.com, www.midiman.com or by entering "OMS 2.3.7" in your internet
search engine of choice (for instance www.google.com). As of writing of this
(February 2002), this link points to a direct download of OMS 2.3.7: < [URL=http://www.midiman.de/files/OMS_2.3.7.sea.hqx]http://www.midiman.de/files/OMS_2.3.7.sea.hqx[/UR L] >. "

However, yesterday I discovered that this problem occur ONLY when I choose Build-In (Sound Manager) in Audio - Reason! (????....)
I have an Oasys card, and as soon I use-it (ASIO) with Reason, everything works fine....
Very strange, I may say. I wonder if you had such a problem. I remember from other posts that you use an RME PCI card with Reason.
I am very curious if you would get the same error if you switch to Build-in.
I would appreciate if you could do the test and post your results!
Thanks!/P.

[Joseph Anderson]

Darin, I am using a keyspan serial card, though a slightly different model, without apparent incident.

Describe for us as specifically as you can the error message you are getting. What, precisely, happens when OMS is looking for devices on your serial port?

I like the idea of plugging in another serial device, which wil test whether the port itself is functioning. But that won't test whether the problem is somehow with the Opcode/OMS. Seems unlikely, though, that OMS would have a problem with an Opcode interface, but stranger things have happened, I guess! Maybe someone else reading this has used or tried to use Opcode 3 with OMS. Maybe the Digidesign moderator(s) who monitor this forum could weigh in on this topic.

I trust you are using the OMS that came with your digi, not some earlier version.

Do you have a friend nearby who has a serial midi interface for mac who could temporarily lend it to you and let you try to get OMS to recognize it hanging off your serial port? If so, that would be an interesting test, too.

Also, I believe there are past threads on the GeeThree wherein many on this forum have extolled its purportedly ample virtues. You can use the search function to review those posts, and other past threads on subjects in which you are interested. Its a great resource!

Good luck. Don't give up! A LOT of us on this forum were recently new to Digi, too, and I'll bet everyone here, from veteran to newbie, had some form of initial trouble on setup. You'll get it solved, my friend. Keeps us posted on your progress and any additional problems and/or questions you come up with.

Joseph

[Darin Donovan]

Thanks for the input, everyone. To flesh out the problem a bit more: when I run the new studio setup on OMS (using the version that came with Digi), I check off both the boxes to search for the printer and modem serial ports and the program begins its search. That search includes a scroll through the various drivers (which are located in the Factory Names folder in the OMS folder in the System Folder). The scroll passes over the Midi interface I have (Studio 3) and pulls up the dialog box that shows (I don't have it here in front of me) the option buttons for troubleshoot (basically, another search for ports), for customize (pressing this brings up a series of dialog boxes asking whether your device is Studio 5, Studio 4, Midi Time Piece, etc., but not Studio 3) and for cancel. If you hit cancel (the other button), the studio setup shows, listing the digi, Quicktime, etc., but no printer port, modem port or Studio 3 attached.

If I try the customize button, and cancel the subsequent dialog boxes asking about particular devices I don't own (Studio 5, studio 4, etc.), OMS finds the printer port and the modem port, but attached are devices corresponding to the last of the aforementioned dialog boxes (in this case, some device called, I believe, QS7). This would be fine, if I could switch out these QS7 devices for studio 3, or perhaps even attach devices to these QS7s, but OMS won't allow this at all. The fact that OMS winds up assigning the last device it suggests to printer and modem ports that can't be connected suggests to me that the "customize" button doesn't make real connections or "find" the actual ports, but simply puts these in as a default.

Oddly, upon checking System/OMS/Factory names folder, the driver for Studio 3 is there, smirking at me. This leads me to believe that OMS just isn't finding the ports on the Keyspan card.

Incidentally, prior to Digi I used Vision and Studio Vision (but only for Midi). I had similar problems with OMS at that time, even though I was using a mac with native serial ports. As this was a few years ago, I forgot how I solved the problem, but I did so at first with an earlier version of OMS, then finally with 2.3.8. Accordingly, I thought perhaps I could just use my old studio setup from the other computer. No dice.

I guess good things don't come easily.

At this point, I think that I am going to try the stealth port.

Thanks for your help, everyone. I'll let you know how it goes. [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Joseph Anderson]

I trust you are aware that OMS setup is a two step process -- first it seeks out the interface(s), then it seeks out the things appended to the interface(s)?

[stuarta]

This sounds to me like an installation problem, I have used OMS with Serial Ports for years and with a Keyspan with little real hassle.

Sometimes if you have another extension loaded that grabs the serial port then OMS cannot go throught it's routine.

ALso for using the USB to Serial approach there are some bugs in the older Macs when it comes ot USB.

What I have found helps me on my "Old" G4 450 is that when i lose the Keyspan that my best bet is to either plug it in directly to the Mac as opposed to from a USB Hub, or simply unplug it and plug it in again after a few seconds. Then the proper "Drivers seem t oload and I then have a serial interface . This only happens on the G4 450, on the G4 800 I have had none of these problems.
Another thing that may help is to go through all your extensions and only use the ones you "Have" to use USB can be finicky in so called Older Macs but there is usually a way to get stuff up and running.

[stuarta]

I forgot to add that as OMS was develped for the Mac years ago, it was only designed to look for the regualr serial Ports on Macs. In order to get it to find any interfaces on any other ports you may need to find a driver that simulated the Old Mac serial Ports. The member that mentioned the Griffin approach is definitely on the right track there as those guys area really good at getting the newer Macs convinced that they have the original serial ports installed.

[Joseph Anderson]

I have the same setup as Darin describes and had no problem with OMS finding the Keyspan add-on serial port.