Genos Can Crash!

[gerarde]

I want to talk about 3 things, backing up your Genos, older styles, and flash thumb drives.

First, I made a backup of my Genos through the menu, BACKUP/RESTORE, about a week ago.
I am so glad I did it.

What happened.
I was playing the Genos and trying out styles I had on my flash thumb drive.
All of a sudden, my Genos froze.
Any button I pressed, did not work.
I pushed the power button and nothing happened.
I had to pull the plug from the back to turn it off.
I then plugged it back in and was able to boot the Genos.
Then it would freeze after 5 to 6 minutes.
During those 5 to 6 minutes, it would function perfectly.
Again, I had to pull the plug because it would not shut down.

Solution
I emailed Frank at AudioworksCT, and he responded within 1/2 an hour.
I am so, so happy I bought my Genos from Frank!
He told me that a few people that loaded older styles would sometimes crash the Genos.
Then I restored the backup I had made.
Everything seemed fine for a little while.
Then it froze again but I was able to shut down.
A thought came to mind that I was not able to access on my flash thumb drive, the Discover Genos playlist.
I removed the flash thumb drive and looked at the files on my computer.
The ASSET files for Discover Genos were corrupted.
But when I put them on the flash thumb drive, they were fine.
So I had another thought that maybe there was a problem with the flash thumb drive.
Luckily, I have another flash thumb drive.
I loaded all the files I had on the other thumb drive to the new one.
Then I put that on the Genos and all is well now!
Everything works just fine!
The flash thumb drive was a Sandisk 64gb mini.
Then I went to the list of recommended thumb drives that Yamaha provided, found one that was a mini, and ordered it.
It seems the one I have now is not compatible with the Genos.
I like to use the mini thumb drive because I can always keep it in and not worry about transporting the Genos as it is so small it does not protrude out very far as a larger one may break with moving around.

Final thoughts
1. Make a backup of your Genos so you would nt have to do a factory reset if something goes wrong.
2. Be very carefull when loading older styles, I wish I knew which ones would crash the genos.
I never had a problem with my Tyros 4, Tyros 5-76  or PSR S970.
3. Only use Yamaha's recommended flash thumb drives.

Regards,
Gerard

[zionip]

Hi Gerard,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us and reminded us of the importance of backup.

Like you, I routinely run backup for Genos as a convenience against unexpected issues.

Could you please check your settings for "Auto Power Off"?  Was it turned on when your Genos crashed?  Did "Auto Power Off" work before?

To check your "Auto Power" options:
Menu -> Menu2 -> Utility -> System

There were numerous cases reported by some Genos owners that with "Auto Power Off" turned on, Genos could shutdown unexpectedly even when the keyboard was not idle.  In some cases, there were reports of data corruption associated with the crashing of Genos.  "Auto Power Off" never worked on my Genos, but I already turned off both the "Auto Power Saving" and "Auto Power Off" options.

Thanks,
Paul

[gerarde]

Hi Paul,

I always have my Auto Power Off set to disabled and Auto Power Saving as well.

Gerard

[Keyboardist]

My personal opinion when getting a new keyboard no matter cost is;
#1st thing; play it without any flash drive USB in it several times going through menus and on-board styles and voices until you see that it is working fully on and off to your satisfaction.
#2nd; Then connect your flash drive and retry to eliminate any change of corrupted files from it that perhaps the Geno's wont like and freeze.
#3rd If it freezes or acts funny try a different flash drive
I've seen for some reason that the extra speed USB2 flash drives seem to eliminate problems on some Yamaha keyboards than the standard ones.
Issues from even the S950 with drive busy error and start up message error when turning it on were associated to again the flash drive. When a different or extra higher speed flash drive was used, the problem would go away.
I called Yamaha because I couldn't figure it out and then I bought and changed the flash drive to a extra faster one and Geeee's the problem went away; go figure !!!

[gerarde]

I agree with you Keyboardist.
What confused me was that I have been playing the Genos for over a month with no problems.
This all just happened yesterday.
My first hint was when files I had put on the flash drive were corrupted.
Everyone should be aware of which flash drive to use.
Even one that is an approved brand may not work as in my case.

Gerard

[bluali]

........I emailed Frank at AudioworksCT, and .....He told me that a few people that loaded older styles would sometimes crash the Genos.
............

Technically any old Yamaha style by itself (which is a kind of midi file) could not cause any damage or freezing to a keyboard. This event if it causes by loading old styles shows that the Genos Operating System is very fragile. and the Fragile OS is not what we expect from a professional and expensive keyboard such as Genos. imagine this happens during our live performance. I hope this is caused by a bad USB flash drive or something outside of Genos system.

[EileenL]

It certainly could if it was corrupted. I have had this happen on my Tyros 5 in the past and have taken the offending style off. Problem solved.

[bluali]

It certainly could if it was corrupted. I have had this happen on my Tyros 5 in the past and have taken the offending style off. Problem solved.

Dear Eileen, we are talking about the old Yamaha styles. there is a big difference between the "old" and "corrupted", unless you believe that the old person=corrupted person!!!!

[travlin-easy]

Most of the corrupted files I have encountered over the decades have come from MIDI files that were downloaded from another site. And, while they rarely cause a total crash or lockup of the keyboard, they still can cause problems. This happened way too many times to me while on stage, therefore, every time someone sent me a file, midi or style file, I ran the files through my virus checker and Malware Bytes. And, even then, there were corrupted files that slipped through the cracks. Now, I rare used midi files while performing, and those that I did use were ones I purchased from accredited sites. Most of the time, I performed using onboard styles and styles from older keyboards that I had personally modified.

Keep in mind that an arranger keyboard is nothing more than a computer with piano keys to trigger events instead of an alphabetical keyboard - nothing more - nothing less. As such, it can be prone to doing wacky things when infected with corrupted files of any type.

Bottom line, be careful of the sources you download your midi and style files from - same as on your PC.

Merry Christmas everyone,

Gary

[hammer]

I have owned TOTL keyboards from Korg, Roland, Ketron, and Yamaha. It was not uncommon for styles that have been converted from "older" keyboards to cause a problem on the newer keyboard.  It was more common for converted styles converted from one manufacturer to run on a different manufacturer's keyboard - like for instance Roland converted for Yamaha keyboards. 

I guess I have been lucky, so far I have not experienced any issues with my Genos and I am using many of my old gig sets containing styles from many sources and keyboards.  I don't use registrations so maybe that is where the issue lies. 

Deane

[Keyboardist]

Go figure ;I've also has some styles on my flash drive which were good then after awhile later on all by itself become unreadable and undeletable. I know they were good when I put them on it, but then after some time, some become corrupted and unreadable;damn flash drive itself. I guess the Geno's picks up on certain files and then freezes for some reason.

[gerarde]

I think with Yamaha switching to a new OS, it is not as forgiving and has a tendency to corrupt files.
All 3 previous Yamaha arrangers I owned never, never had a problem and never, never crashed!
This is a first for me.

Gerard

[Joe H]

Gerard,

I'm wondering if you save back the older styles by opening Style Creator and save... if the Genos will update them to be more compatible?

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Joe H

[hammer]

I believe I read in one of the User manuals that the genos was backward compatible only to the Tyros 2.  I'll do some more reading.

Deane

[gerarde]

Joe,

That is worth a try.
The styles I was loading were in a separate folder. And there are not many of them.
The problem seems to be with styles in a folder and not in the root directory.
The corrupt files for Discover Genos were in a sub directory.
Of course, this may be due to the bad flash drive.
I am going to wait until my new Yamaha recommended flash drive comes before I try again.

Gerard

[Melody2018]

HELLO There Forum, Hope you all are fine.

My Genos Hanged up in live performance att the stage, and i,m hapy that i had my KORG PA 4 X above.
It saved me.

I played a song that i made on the DAW as MP 3 file 320 kbtps, and there was 3 belly dancers dancing on the stage, IMAGINE , what they did???
OMG , Well after all i saved the gig, But i do not know if i can trust GENOS live yet!

400 people just looked at me as i,m a dummy front of to Workstations.
NOT GOD AT AL!
Sollution, well from me no sollution , So I hope that YAMAHA can solve this, becouse i,m having 30 gigs in 2019, i,m scared to use GENOS live. So pls make a group, and we all can send them experiences that we may have.
I ,m realy sad for this.

[EileenL]

I am sure  Genos froze because of something you did when making your midi file. Why not just record the midi on Genos and then edit it to your taste.

[Lee Batchelor]

I have never performed a backup of my Genos. This post has changed that! One thing I did prior to backing up was, I formatted my USB drive on the Genos. My USB drive is on the approved list from Yamaha.

As an aside, my USB drive is a Verbatim, but there is no model number like in the list from Yamaha. Is there a way to plug my USB drive into my computer to see what the model number is? Thanks...

[gerarde]

Lee,
If you put your USB drive in your computer, open CONTROL PANEL, click on DEVICES, and you might find out info on it.

Regards,
Gerard

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi Gerald,

I use a Verbatim thumb drive. Yamaha specifies a five digit integer for the model number. There are no such numbers in the Properties box. Thanks for the idea. I will look further. Perhaps I'll ask Dr. Google .

[Toril S]

My S970 froze up a couple of times, but I was able to turn it off. One time the chords of the styles were crazy. I checked, but it still was on fingered mode. That time I had to do a soft reset. I think I could have done something without having to reset it, but in desperation I reset it, and all was well. I use a lot of imported styles, so it could have been one of those. Our keyboards are computers, and computers crash! I have learned that to back up work is a very good habit!

[Kaarlo von Freymann]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for a very interesting thread.
I actually posted about Genos crashing  while I was performing this summer.  I am not sure whether that was even after  OS 1.3  but as a fact cycling mains always restored the  Genos to working condition so I never needed to fire up the Tyros 5/6  I had as a back up.  And it was before the YAMAHA importer exchanged  the Genos. After I tweaked all styles taken from Tysos 5/6 to sound good on Genos (if for no other reason, the drums) it has no more happened.  Some styles were Yamaha accumulated since PSR 8000,  some downloaded from sites that have redone other keyboads' styles.  My efforts to pinpoint the problematic ones never were successful.   So the Style Creator  may have helped to "clean" the old styles and make them "acceptable" for Genos.  So probably Joe H was right on track . Very often the tweaking involved changing instruments and volumes etc.  What Keyboardist writes about sudden loss in memory very much reminds me of the problems I had with gegistry banks which Lee helped me to analyze as real.

Never had any problems with midi files of whatever origin, but as Lee has many times pointed out,  to make a new keyboard sound really good you have to adjust anything you take over from another keyboard.

Cheers
Kaarlo

[EileenL]

Genos or any Tyros keyboard will usually only ever crash if you try to load anything in that is corrupt.
  Form of protection in a way.

[tyrosman]

you are right Eileen

[valimaties]

This is not a protection, and never will be, in vision of a developer!!!
It is a glitch in Genos's application (not OS) which freezes interface because it does not know what to do in case of a corrupt file. They have miss to make a check in load process of a file. That is the truly reason.
This means Yamaha Team have to look in Genos's application and solve this problem with a next firmware release.

Regards,
Vali

[BenoitM]

This is not a protection, and never will be, in vision of a developer!!!

As a professional developer, I agree 100% with Vali.

Poorly designed software crash when they don't know how to handle unknown data (clearly the case with the Genos concerning Styles handling...), this is not a form of 'protection', it is a design failure.

Good software design dictate that a software should gracefully handle unknown data. In the worst case it should ignore them and don't crash, in the best case it should try to correct the corrupt data... (and if it is not possible, inform the user that something went wrong...)

In any complex system, Bugs are likely to happens, Genos is no exception, but it is the Yamaha's responsability to correct them. The Genos is supposed to be the Yamaha's TOTL arranger, yet it suffer from several uncorrected bugs...

I really hope for a new Firmware soon. 

Benoit