s970 & s770 erratic behaviour / faulty [A] to [J] buttons - is yours affected?

[DonM]

I sold my 970 after a couple of months, but I seem to recall there were times when extra button pushes were necessary.  I just passed it off to shoddy workmanship. 
Anyway, I'm a huge fan of touch screens.  I was so used to just lightly touching the function I wanted on my Korgs that I had real trouble with the buttons anyway, so I attributed the problem to that.
Maybe there was a problem after all, but still not certain.

[Joe H]

OK,

I have passed this info along to Yamaha USA, now to see if my dealer can get a confirmation of the faulty circuit boards via a diagnostic test. 



Joe H

[EileenL]

Don't think circuit boards will have anything to do with buttons. As long as you press them in the middle they should be fine. Of course like all Yamaha keyboards if you accidentally press twice it will take you back to the main screen. I had one of the first keyboards in the country here and have never had a problem and I do a lot of button pushing.

[Joe H]

EileenL,

It is obvious that there are some keyboards that have the button problem.  Yamaha has acknowledged it. There is a switch and a PNL board that has a membrane under the buttons much like the mylar on computer keyboards.

I'm hoping they will be able to determine if my S970 has defective parts with the built-in diagnostic test.  I've waited all this time because the manager at the store where I bought it couldn't get any information from Yamaha about the problem when it was first showing up. Now we have some history and communications with Yamaha which should help.

Joe H

[Joe H]

I spoke with my dealer today and the manager told me Yamaha has indicated to him there is a problem with some S770 and S970 keyboards.  I will talk directly with their repair guy tomorrow.  I assume he can get guidance from Yamaha in California as to how to test... and what to test for.

Stay tuned!   

Joe H

[Happy Jack]

  Greetings, EileenL,

     EileenL wrote on January 22, 2016,

        "...Here in the UK I have not seen any reports of buttons not working properly. I run my own forum here and have not had one post saying that members are having trouble with buttons at all...."

       and then again

          EileenL wrote on February 22/2016

       "...Don't think circuit boards will have anything to do with buttons. As long as you press them in the middle they should be fine..."

   So, EileenL,  what to write on March 22/2016???
   
     Look forward to your next episode of 'No Bad Buttons Here!' 

  happy regards
  Jack   

[Happy Jack]

I spoke with my dealer today and the manager told me Yamaha has indicated to him there is a problem with some S770 and S970 keyboards.  I will talk directly with their repair guy tomorrow.  I assume he can get guidance from Yamaha in California as to how test... and what to test for.

Stay tuned!   

Joe H

  Nice work again, Joe

[billmc]

Simply out of curiosity, do any of you think this button issue would make potential buyers lean more towards the PSR-S670?

[Joe H]

Two thoughts...

1. the S670 is a lot less keyboard.

2. I think the button problem is beginning to be addressed by Yamaha.

I will continue to follow-up on my efforts.  I'll get the details of what is found and how it is fixed (specific part # if I can) and will share that info here.

Joe H

[Rrgramps]

Simply out of curiosity, do any of you think this button issue would make potential buyers lean more towards the PSR-S670?

I've been waiting since December to purchase the PSR-970 and replace my PSR-3000.   This button issue has absolutely made me as potential buyer lean in another direction; a Casio Privia PX-560. But it is not for replacing the arranger -- instead, it supplements an arranger with a good great piano platform. My PSR-3000 is on 2d tier when this pair is combined to a single z-stand.  Otherwise, and as for now, it is in its black cabinet in my living room.

When the 970 buttons are fixed, I may look again into purchasing it -- but only until that happens. Until then, it's a broken and defective model. The window to its soul is physically challenged. Communications to vital information are randomly breached. 


I understand that YMMD and you have workarounds, or it doesn't affect all 970's, or you can live with it, or you can press the buttons in a certain place -- but I fell off the wagon while waiting.

EDIT: BTW, thanks to you Joe and others for your hard work in getting Yamaha's attention on this issue.   

[billmc]

I, unfortunately, sold my PSR-S750 a while ago, so I've been without an arranger for some time. But the itch is back and I pulled the trigger on a new PSR-S770. The store I bought it from has a two-year repair/replacement policy, so I hope that counts for something. Nevertheless, I'll watch this thread and see if Yamaha addresses this problem and how. I remember a few years back when their fully-weighted keyboards exhibited some keys breaking due to bad lubrication used in the manufacturing process. Yamaha would replace, for free, any key-beds affected (and still will). I hope they'll do something similar here. Thanks to Joe and others for keeping on this. We'll see how things turn out.

[androidgalaxyman]

Dear Joe,

i sent two mails to customer care. They asked me the bill details. The indian customer care functioning way pathetically, they haven't  replied back to me. i discussed with dealer he said i have to go service center. i was little bit tired!

Thanks

[Joe H]

Here is my latest report on the button issue:

I talked to the repair guy at my Yamaha dealer. He couldn't find any Service Bulletin posted that is related to the button issue.  So he emailed Steve Deming and got a response from a Tech Support supervisor.     ... who suggested we do a firmware update and sent the repair guy firmware v1.03       (the latest version is v1.04)

I decided to do the diagnostic test myself and got a NG report on 2 of the buttons along side the screen.  One on the left and one on the right.  I ran the test twice more and got NO NG messages  (that darn erratic behavior).

Well I installed firmware v1.03 first because I wanted to be sure that the OS was being completely over-written.  BTW... updating the OS does NOT wipe-out your personal settings, which is good news.  So I had to set the Voice button operation back to  Open and Select.

I tried creating the screen EXIT problem by pressing Voice selections as fast as I could go with 2 hands...left-right, left-right.  I was hard pressed to get the glitch to happen.  I ran the diagnostic test and found no problem buttons.

So I installed v1.04 and tried again.  Couldn't get the buttons to malfunction.  I ran the diagnostic test once more and no NG messages on any of the buttons.  So I set the button function back to Open Only and went through the same fast two-handed Voice selection process again and couldn't get the glitch to happen.

So I'm thinking about... why does a System Reset (that I did before) eliminate most of the erratic button behavior.  Now having installed the firmware again and not being able to get the button glitch to occur, (for now) this seems to indicate there may be a glitch in the firmware updater program.

I need to give it some time but I hope the problem is fixed by going through this whole exercise.  If the button issue does happen again, I'll try another System Reset.   

I'm finding this whole situation a very curious one.  I can understand why Yamaha is not jumping on this issue with great interest.

Anyone with the button problem should try re-installing firmware v1.04 and/or a System Reset.... also go into Config 2 and set the Voice button operation to OPEN ONLY.

If this doesn't fix the problem, I'll be back in Yamaha's face again.     If the diagnostic test does not show any bad buttons for the repair guy, he can't justify ordering and replacing buttons or switches.  Which means my last resort would be to demand a replacement keyboard.

Joe H

[Roger Brenizer]

Hi Joe,

I've been following this thread with great interest, although I don't own either of these keyboards.

It sounds like you may be nearing the end of the quest to resolve this issue.  On behalf of all the members here, I'd like to thank you for your undying persistence.

[billmc]

Hi all. I received my new PSR-S770 today and I just thought I'd share my experiences with this button problem. YMMV. I checked the A-J buttons immediately. After about 3 cycles on A-E on the Piano Voice screen, it reset and went back out to the Main screen. It also did this on the F-J side after about 3.5 cycles. I updated the firmware to V1.04 (mine was V1.00 from July 2015 manufacture date) and did a hard reset. I also set Voice Category Button Options to "Open Only" in Config2. So far, I have run the "60-Press Test" 3 times and it has always stayed on the right buttons on the Voice screen. So perhaps (fingers crossed) the problem has gone away on my keyboard by upgrading it from Windows 8 to Windows 10. Ha ha! Who knows? But it's working fine right now. I'll continue to watch this thread. Thanks to everyone who is involved in bringing this to Yammie's attention and in their recommendations.

[Joe H]

billmc,

Thanks for that report.   What a pain this has been.      

I'm happy to hear the procedure worked for you        I hope that it will work for all of us.   

Joe H

PS: Roger thank you for your comments.  I'm a persistent guy!   

[textbook]

I too will try the firmware update again,  it's on 1.04 at the moment,  but happy to try anything, as mine is still doing it occasionally, even with that setting set to 'open'   as obviously that setting only applies when going into one of the voice categories initially,  Ie. auto selects the first voice in the category or not.  So it might help with the first press but in theory makes no difference afterwards.   

IOW, it only decides whether 1st voice is pre-selected or not, so won't affect other voices inside each voice category,  anyway I'll try a firmware re-install, and may try 1.03 first if I can find it...

Cheers  Joe,    will report back with findings.

[androidgalaxyman]

I too will try the firmware update again,  it's on 1.04 at the moment,  but happy to try anything, as mine is still doing it occasionally, even with that setting set to 'open'   as obviously that setting only applies when going into one of the voice categories initially,  Ie. auto selects the first voice in the category or not.  So it might help with the first press but in theory makes no difference afterwards.   

IOW, it only decides whether 1st voice is pre-selected or not, so won't affect other voices inside each voice category,  anyway I'll try a firmware re-install, and may try 1.03 first if I can find it...

Cheers  Joe,    will report back with findings.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your testing and discussing here. but still the moment, we don't have concrete evident on problems on either hardware or firmware. The testing pattern we are having certain limitation, so that we can't recreate the issue.



Thanks

keep on we have to test!

[billmc]

Just a quick update. While playing some old XGMidi songs off my USB stick last night, my screen jumped twice from the Song Select screen all the way back out to the Main screen.

[Joe H]

billmc,

Were you pushing buttons at the time or did this happen while the songs were playing and you were not touching the keyboard.

Joe H

[computec1349]

Good Aportation, my english is not good, I speak spanish.

I called to yamaha of México, and they said that this problem were in the PSR-s950 also. And this action of bottons is normal.
so not affect anything.

I think that the really problem is the skin of this model, painting is very delicate. and the other skin of s950 is more ressitant.

[Joe H]

There have been over 7900 views of the thread.  If this is "normal", why aren't more people posting stating that they had this experience with the S950 or are experiencing the same issues with the [A] - [J] buttons on their S970 or S770?        

There is obviously something wrong... Cameron probably got it right from the beginning saying it could be fixed in firmware code.  My brother and I agree with his assessment.  It is not normal for the keyboard to EXIT a screen for no reason... and especially when you do not want it to EXIT the current screen.

Attached is instructions for how to run the diagnostic test if anyone is interested in doing that.  Just keep in mind you can only press any button during the test just once. Pressing it a second time will give the NG message.   If a button sends a double-press message with a single press during the test, you will see the NG message.  This happened to me on two buttons the first time I ran the test but has not done it since then even though I have run the test several times now.

Joe H

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[androidgalaxyman]

There have been over 7900 views of the thread.  If this is "normal", why aren't more people posting stating that they had this experience with the S950 or are experiencing the same issues with the [A] - [J] buttons on their S970 or S770?        

There is obviously something wrong... Cameron probably got it right from the beginning saying it could be fixed in firmware code.  My brother and I agree with his assessment.  It is not normal for the keyboard to EXIT a screen for no reason... and especially when you do not want it to EXIT the current screen.

Attached is instructions for how to run the diagnostic test if anyone is interested in doing that.  Just keep in mind you can only press any button during the test just once. Pressing it a second time will give the NG message.   If a button sends a double-press message with a single press during the test, you will see the NG message.  This happened to me on two buttons the first time I ran the test but has not done it since then even though I have run the test several times now.

Joe H

Dear Joe,

i totally agree with your view. one of my colleague have said, this same problem seen on PSR SS950 too. but i couldn't understand why the problem is happening in PSR S770 / S 970 as well. here my comment on this, the firmware base technically same code for both numbers. may be some sort of enhancements have been done for S770 etc. because of the functionality like DJ option. Truly yamaha have to answer this question. This problem been earlier noticed by them, but not corrected as well. as we discussed earlier it could be a defective part or firmware. But i do insist, the yamaha not ready to resolve.

Thanks

Regards
androidgalaxyman

[billmc]

Joe, my S770 popped back to Main menu when I was pushing a button for the next song. In other words, I didn't have the keyboard in Jukebox mode (automatically playing one song after another). I was simply pressing the button for whatever the next song was and instead of playing that song, the menu backed out to Main (but with the desired song selected). Hope this tidbit helps in your data collection. It's a shame these keyboards do this. I, fortunately, seldom play live, so I'm not worried about changing voice/style mid-performance. But my prior S710 and S750 never did this. Something is wrong with how the processor in these keyboards reads or scans the menu buttons.

Thanks again for all you do.

[billmc]

Joe, I do have to admit that I never sat at my S710 and S750 and put them through a "button test" of repeated pressing these menu buttons in succession. On the other hand, and on both keyboards, I did filter through multiple songs, voices, and styles that I have collected down through the years to see which ones were, for me, "keepers" and these other 2 keyboards NEVER popped back to the Main menu screen. Of course, Eileen (and others) haven't seen this problem, so I was hoping I would get one that didn't exhibit this quirk. What I have to decide now, seeing as Yamaha doesn't seem to want to really address it any time soon, is whether I can "live with it" due to the way I use the keyboard (recording with sequencer) or whether I want to look for a used prior generation. If I was a live-performer, I definitely could not "live with it" if I needed to change voices, styles, or some other parameters during a performance. As always, just my 2 cents.

[textbook]

Well I finally got round to re-installing firmware version 1.04,   unfortunately I don't seem to have 1.03 so I downloaded 1.04 again and installed it,  and strangely though it's exactly the same version,  I've just pressed those buttons again about 40 times without having a single exit back to the main screen, and that was before I'd changed the voice select option to 'Open' only.

I must admit,  over the last few weeks when using those buttons I have had a tendency to press slightly on the outside, as on mine it definitely seemed to help,  so it's become second nature to do so now,  but I tried about 20 or 30 presses in the centre and I was a little surprised to find they seemed to work okay...very strange, though I'm certainly not complaining..lol

I'll see how it goes over the next few days, as Joe stated re-installing the firmware does not change your personal settings,  only thing is,  installing firmware unless it's necessary when upgrading the version is something one likes to avoid.

EDIT:  I've since tried many more times just pressing in the centre of the button, and it exited back to the main screen twice, so it's not cured it 100%,  but I certainly don't think it's as bad as it was previously, which I find very strange,  and indeed if I press near the outside of the button it never seems to happen.   I don't think it really matters whether that voice 'Open' 'Open/Select' option is set or not,   but I'm still of the opinion that a slight delay loop of a few mili seconds introduced in the firmware would likely resolve the problem for good...
ARE YOU LISTENING YAMAHA ? 

It's obviously being caused by the odd double contact, where it thinks you pressed the button twice,  if it were not, then it would immediately exit as soon as you selected a voice category if the voice select option was set to it's default of 'Open/Select'   and I can't say I've ever seen it do that,  on my 970 it usually exits out if I press in the centre after a few button presses,  but if I apply slight pressure to the outside as I press it or on the high point it works pretty much perfect. 

[Joe H]

Cameron,

Why is it you could figure out a solution in five minutes and Yamaha still doesn't get it?           

Doing s System Reset by holding down the right-most white key while turning on the power also helped.  This IS weird to say the least.  That's why one of my theories was a bug or glitch in the firmware installer program.

I've ran the diagnostic test a couple more times and cannot get a button failure (the NG - "No Good" message).  As I have stated above, unless this happens for the repair guy, he can't justify ordering parts.

Like you and a couple others who have reported here, doing the re-install of v1.4 firmware and a System Reset reduces the problem to a minimum.  Also pressing the button on the high-side does reduce the problem even more.

As Roger said, we may be at the end of the road in our quest to get a fix from Yamaha.   

Joe H

[textbook]

TBH Joe I don't know,  I spent most of my life designing circuits for various control systems from control circuit boards on washing machines to laser printers...lol before branching into Fruit Machines and then the design and manufacture of 4D theatres which is what my 2 sons now do in the business, they install throughout the world... do a search on 4D Emmersive Tunnel, there's only company in the UK that sells them...so easy to find.

Sadly you hit it on the head,  there's not enough people reporting the problem,  though I do think the issue is greater than the few on here might suggest.   This is my second one with the problem,  my vicar neighbours 770 also exhibits the same issues, and I've come across 2 of them in showrooms and both had the issue,  so you tell me.

Though I have little contact with others outside of this forum,   I personally have yet to put my hands on either a 770 or 970 that does not have the issue,  but in my case that's only 5 boards...lol,  ie. my 2, the neighbours, and the 2 in the store I tried.   My dealer said they had received 5 other reports from customers besides myself, but they are a very large dealership so would ship lots of them.
Maybe it is just a few isolated cases,  I honestly don't know,  one might ask how many people buy these boards and never use this forum so likely would not be aware, as it's not exactly something that makes it a deal breaker,  though that's a personal opinion.  However, I agree with Happy Jack it is something that may affect it's value or the potential for bouncing back if one ever sells it,  though I'm fortunate it wouldn't bother me too much,   but it could be a potential concern for some people.

I might give Yamaha UK a ring this week just to see if they have anything more to say since I last spoke to them,  the last time he more or less fobbed me off by telling me to press on the outside of the button and problem is solved..lol..adding they were monitoring the position ( I assume this thread ) He also said I could ask my dealer to replace it, which is what I did,  I never thought the second one would have the same issue, albeit not so bad as the first one,  on that first one I was lucky to press 4 or 5 times before it exited back to the main screen,  it was a real pain in the bum, at least it occurs less frequent on this one.

[Happy Jack]

TBH Joe I don't know,  I spent most of my life designing circuits for various control systems from control circuit boards on washing machines to laser printers...lol before branching into Fruit Machines and then the design and manufacture of 4D theatres which is what my 2 sons now do in the business, they install throughout the world... do a search on 4D Emmersive Tunnel, there's only company in the UK that sells them...so easy to find.

Sadly you hit it on the head,  there's not enough people reporting the problem,  though I do think the issue is greater than the few on here might suggest.   This is my second one with the problem,  my vicar neighbours 770 also exhibits the same issues, and I've come across 2 of them in showrooms and both had the issue,  so you tell me.

Though I have little contact with others outside of this forum,   I personally have yet to put my hands on either a 770 or 970 that does not have the issue,  but in my case that's only 5 boards...lol,  ie. my 2, the neighbours, and the 2 in the store I tried.   My dealer said they had received 5 other reports from customers besides myself, but they are a very large dealership so would ship lots of them.
Maybe it is just a few isolated cases,  I honestly don't know,  one might ask how many people buy these boards and never use this forum so likely would not be aware, as it's not exactly something that makes it a deal breaker,  though that's a personal opinion.  However, I agree with Happy Jack it is something that may affect it's value or the potential for bouncing back if one ever sells it,  though I'm fortunate it wouldn't bother me too much,   but it could be of some concern for some people.

I might give Yamaha UK a ring this week just to see if they have anything more to say since I last spoke to them,  the last time he more or less fobbed me off by telling me to press on the outside of the button and problem is solved..lol..adding they were monitoring the position ( I assume this thread...lol) He also said I could ask my dealer to replace it, which is what I did,  I never thought the second one would have the same issue, albeit not quite so bad as the first one,  on that first one I was lucky to press 4 or 5 times before it exited back to the main screen,  it was a real pain in the bum, at least it occurs less frequent on this one.

  That's a useful precis of the story so far, Cameron. 

   Yes, after the bad buttons issue, I opted to return my PSR-S770 for a refund.  Didn't want to be stuck with a keyboard whose lesser resale value would be a block to any future upgrades.   Fortunately my retailer was keen to show goodwill, and thanks to him for that fine gesture.

  As regards the advice of hitting the sweet spot (the highest tip) of the A-J buttons, I tried that and it proved too much of a distraction.  Plus one really needed a vacuum pump to suck out the dimples of my codger-type fingers.  Bear in mind, that one is  pressing something the size of a match head time after time.

  Hoping that Yamaha will fix this button issue one way or another.  Got plenty of other toys to keep me occupied in the meantime, so happy regards to all here

  Jack

 

   

 

[Roger Brenizer]

Hi Joe and Cameron,

As I have previously said, I've been following this thread with great interest, but don't own this keyboard so have never said very much.  Just one other comment by me that Joe referenced.

Most people probably think they are doing something wrong (operator error) and are not technically oriented like the three of us.  Therefore, they just pass it off and continue to play their keyboard until it happens again and continue the same process.

When I wrote and sold software, I had a select group of beta testers.  They were good beta testers and helped me to isolate problem parts of my code.  I could give this same software to the everyday employees and they would not report anything back to me.  They were always too embarrassed to say that anything might be wrong because they thought it was operator error and they didn't know how to use the program.

I suspicion that many owners of this keyboard fall into that category.  I will continue to follow this thread with great interest.