Is there a fix for the SX900 Search Issue yet?

[Danny1972]

Hello everybody, I hope I am finding you all well.

Unfortunately it appears I am having the known search issue when searching for styles resulting back in devices and files that don't exist or not present on the keyboard.

I have searched the forum about this topic and there's so many posts about it, which is great but also some went very off topic which confused me to the point where I wasn't able to follow the trail properly anymore and didn't see if there was a fix or not. So I was wondering if there was ever a work around or resolution to this? I think one post mentioned there was some software that could be used, but I don't own a Mac, I just use Windows on my laptop so not sure if that software was also available for Windows. I also think I read that factory resetting the keyboard doesn't work either which really surprised me if true. Hopefully there's something to remedy it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks very much,
Danny

[Lefty]

Hey Danny, no, there is no resolution to it that I know of. My SX900 would not perform ANY searches.  I worked with Yamaha support in the US for over a month, and they were unable to resolve.  Yamaha support finally sent me a new replacement board.

I'll try to answer your questions specifically.

1. No known workaround or resolution for MY board.  I'd start by contacting Yamaha Support.

2. The software I used is Mac specific, and it corrects a problem your Windows PC doesn't have.  (The Mac creates meta files, doubling the number of files on a USB stick). Using the software didn't solve my boards' search problem.

Will your board successfully search for any other file types?  Such as midi, registration, etc?

Best of luck!
   Craig

[Danny1972]

Hi Craig, thank you very much for your reply, appreciate it 

I was going to reach out to Yamaha support as suggested, but I thought I would try a few simple things.

I took out the USB, turned on the SX900 and let it refresh until the end (I think it took about 2 minutes). I didn't re-insert the USB but tested the search again and this time everything searched correctly for both internal & expansion pack styles.

I don't know if this has completely resolved it or not because I can't believe it would be this simple that everybody wouldn't have already tested and tried so I am still a bit sceptical about it, but it does seem to have cleared the rubbish.

I am going to reorganise the USB first before I place it back in, I guess that will be the ultimate test. I don't know what the max search amount is before it bums out.

[Lefty]

Danny, it sounds like you are a lucky person, and your keyboard was able to recover.  Mine would never 'forget' the corrupted indexes regardless of whether a usb stick was inserted, or a factory reset being performed.

[geoff5798]

I also have a Mac and have exactly the same problem with Style searches. I would be interested to know what Mac specific software exists to help cure this annoying problem.
many thanks
Geoff

[Bill]

I also have a Mac and have exactly the same problem with Style searches. I would be interested to know what Mac specific software exists to help cure this annoying problem.
many thanks
Geoff

Hi Geoff
The MAC Software you refer to does not cure the limitations of the Search Function, however it is great for getting rid of the double entries within the search caused by the MAC indexing files.
Just for info you can use a piece of Software on the Mac called "Blue Harvest", it will automatically clean any USB Stick of all the Mac Metadata. It is reasonably cheap and work in the background so that you never need to worry about such problems.
It is available on the Mac App Store.

I can only say that's it's brilliant. There are several similar apps available.

Bill

[Lefty]

I also have a Mac and have exactly the same problem with Style searches.

Hi Geoff.  Bill is right on the money.  The software is Blue Harvest, and it removes all the metadata files that begin with "._".  (Other files as well). It works very well, and will protect Mac users from the effects of one of the bugs in the Yamaha keyboard OS.

Below is some info about two known bugs in the Yamaha keyboard operating system.  By known, I mean by users AND Yamaha.

When you put a USB memory stick into your keyboard, the keyboard OS creates an index, or indexes of the files on the USB stick. These indexes are stored in non-volatile memory.  Generally, this re-indexing process takes just a few minutes to complete.  Then the keyboard uses these indexes to quickly find the files that match your search criteria.  Example: All the registration files that contain "love".

Bug 1: Affects Mac users only. Although Yamaha says the keyboards support Macs, the keyboard does not filter out the well known metadata files from Mac systems.  Every style, registration, midi, mp3, etc. will have a corresponding metadata file with the same name, but has a ._ prepended to it.  Again, these are well known metadata files, and should never be indexed, or returned as results of your searches.

Bug 2:  I think this bug is far less common, but affects Windows and Mac users alike.  Sometimes, the keyboard OS loses the ability to manage the index files it has stored.  So when you turn the keyboard on with no USB stick in it the keyboard will, after a few minutes report that it has completed re-indexing.  However, when you perform any search(registration, style, midi, ...) it returns the old results that never went away.  When you select a result, the OS returns an error code, and will not open the file.  The impact of bug 2 is that you cannot search for any file type on your keyboard.  After a month of working with Yamaha US level 2 support, we were unable to get the keyboard to create new, or remove the old indexes.  Yamaha sent me a new keyboard. (mine was less than a year old, so under warranty)

Sorry for the longwinded reply, and poorly written explanation.

Craig