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

[Chronos1976]

Hi everyone,

[UPDATE March 20th 2016: Yamaha have released a v1.05 firmware update that appears to fix the issue for many users but please keep reporting to Yamaha and this thread if it hasn't worked for you. Thanks, Paul.]

I've been having a problem with a couple of PSR s970's and their [A] to [J] keys registering either not at all or double pressing. I'm wondering if other people have the same problem?

Here's a a link to three videos showing tests that demonstrate faulty right screen buttons, normal left screen buttons and another test showing faulty right screen buttons:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/clouddrive/share/5859MRIAkh8D0B3QTwKSW9vig3ZrR7OX1V82YKgnO5n?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy

The Fault
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The fault appears as if the keyboard behaves erratically, randomly exits screens (most noticeable when selecting voices), on/off buttons changing from on to off to on again in one press (e.g. in the organ flute screen, the vocal harmony screen, song setting screen), button presses not being recognised, save and information requesters cancelling themselves, saves overwriting without confirmation, or other intermittent random events occurring when pressing the [A] to [J] screen buttons.

The actual fault is the [A] to [J] buttons intermittently registering as a double press instead of a single press or not registering at all. It can affect the buttons on one or both sides of the screen. The keyboards I had were part of the November batch delivered to the UK and were both tested running firmware 1.03 and 1.04.

TEST YOUR KEYBOARD
--------------------------
To see if your keyboard is affected, follow these procedures:

TEST 1 (demonstrates fault on both sides)
--------
1. Disconnect all external devices such as pedals, WIFI dongles, USB sticks and MIDI cables.
2. Power on the keyboard.
3. From the main screen, press the [Piano] voice category button to open the voice selection screen.
4. Single press button [A] then [B ] then [C] then [D] then [E]. Repeat 12 times (60 key presses). The timing between button presses doesn't matter but ensure they are all single button presses.

RESULT: If your keyboard is OK, the selection will move with the key press. If your left hand screen buttons are faulty, the keyboard will exit the voice selection screen back to the main screen during the test.

5. If your keyboard went back to the main screen, return to the voice selection screen.
6. Single press button [F] then [G] then [H] then [I ] then [J]. Repeat 12 times (60 key presses). The timing between button presses doesn't matter but ensure they are all single button presses.

RESULT: If your keyboard is OK, the selection will move with the key press. If your right hand screen buttons are  faulty, the keyboard will exit the voice selection screen back to the main screen during the test.


TEST 2 (only demonstrates fault on the right hand side buttons)
--------
- See video. From the main screen single press [G], [H], [G], [F] and keep repeating the cycle for about 60 key presses. If the voice selection screen appears, you have faulty right hand buttons.

Please let Yamaha Technical Support know if you have this problem. It would be useful to compile a list of people with the issue in this thread as well as which keyboard is affected (s970 or s770), the month of purchase (batch if known) and which country the keyboard was purchased and I'll point Yamaha to this thread.

I will update as soon as I get any more information.

Many thanks for any feedback.

Paul.

[Ingar]

I have not tested but think rather that it is a kind of built is protected against overloading of the system?

[eaglevision]

I didnt test it as you described above pushing the buttons 60 times but the behaviour u said already happened to me a few times as I thought I pressed the button twice while selecting a voice jumping the main screen..

[textbook]

Main issue I've noticed on my 970 is that occasionally I have to press a button twice to register the press.

However,  after watching your video clip Paul,  I did try both tests for you exactly as you describe, and after a few presses mine reset back to the default screen too, with the last pressed voice showing.  This happened on both left and right buttons.  Strangely the first time I tried it I was going back up to A again when pressing the buttons and it didn't do it,  but when following your example of going from A to E and then E to A it did it,  same thing when doing the test on the F to J buttons.
So I tried the test again going from A to E and then repeating A to E again and it did reset back after about 6 cycles, so obviously not a pattern to it as I first suspected.  Only difference was I had to press F again to return back to the voices select screen, it didn't go back itself.

I think it would be better Paul if you invited people to view the video clip earlier in your post,  Simply asking 'DOES YOUR 970/770 DO THIS' ?
IOW give the video clip more priority,  I'm sure the response will be better, as I'm sure many people like myself won't be aware of this issue
ie. a Picture/video is better than a thousand words...lol

This is something I personally had not noticed before,  the main thing I noticed was that I sometimes needed to press a button twice to register the press, I can't say I've seen evidence of a double press being registered.

I asked my neighbour who has a 770 to try the same thing, he's a retired vicar, and he phoned me back and said his 770 does exactly the same. He also mentioned a while ago that he frequently has to press a button twice to register the press,  which is why I figured it was poor button switches.  Also noticed I occasionally need to press twice on the right 1 and 2 voice select buttons including the part select buttons.

[Melvin]

Mine does the same!

Scrolling up and down results in jumping to the main screen and auto-select the last pressed button.

I now wonder too if this is more of a common thing than a flaw in the PSR line.

I've never noticed this until i saw your video, and tried. So i agree with textbook, you should give the video more priority.

Maybe Yamaha can fix this in a OS update.

Regards,

Melvin

[mrestyle]

Yeah, mine has been jumping all over the place since I got it, even tried resetting it, no improvement. I had to wait nearly 2 months for it to arrive so I don't feel like sending it in for service, hoping an update will fix these issues.

[Chronos1976]

Thank you for your feedback! :-) I've edited the post to make it clearer, moved the video link up to the top and tried to shorten it a bit. Apologies for the long post. I'll keep trying to cut it down :-)

I too initially thought it was the way I was pressing the buttons - I tried all sorts of keyboard acrobatics including soft presses, hard presses, slow presses, fast presses and all combinations of the above.

It's interesting it affects the 770 as well. Spread the word :-)

mrestyle - I know how you feel - I waited for 2 months to get mine as well and it's a fantastic keyboard but now I've been without one for almost as long. Thank you for posting here. Hopefully if lots of people report the issue in this thread, Yamaha will see there is a broader problem to fix and will be in a better position to address the issue either via a hardware revision or firmware update. Either way, I fear I could be sitting looking at an empty wall for a while longer.

Now if only they would change the red / green LED combination for those of use who are red / green colour blind as well... :-)

[textbook]

So Paul, has your 970 gone back to Yamaha for this to be checked out then ?   as I see you mention you don't have it at the moment.

I must admit,  it would make this keyboard perfect if that intermittent missed button press could be fixed with a firmware update,  TBH I'd convinced myself it was likely poor switch contacts or similar, and because it was intermittent had tended to ignore it.

In effect, you suspect it's the way the firmware OS is polling the button presses rather than a physical fault with the switches themselves. ?
TBH I thought it was just me, so I suppose it's a little reassuring knowing it's more common than I thought. (or should that be worrying...lol)

I'll contact their support tomorrow, AYS the more that do this the better.

Thanks Paul for initiating the thread, as I suspect it's something that while not catastrophic it probably affects a few of us 970/770 owners.

[Chronos1976]

Hi,

Yes, both keyboards I had are now under scrutiny at Yamaha Technical Support in Milton Keynes. Thankfully my workflow is mostly VST instruments these days so it isn't much of an interruption just frustrating to wait two months to get it, spend the money and then still have no keyboard two months later.

I initially thought it might be a software issue (maybe a mangled pointer causing a stack or buffer overflow or something) because of there seemed to be a pattern in the faults that repeated every 300 key presses or so but I wasn't in diagnostic mode at the time, just trying to use the thing so I didn't collect any quantitative data.

Having got feedback from a few sources I'm starting to think it's just as likely to be a hardware problem but I'm expecting to hear something tomorrow and will hopefully be able to post something definitive then.

Regards,

Paul.

[textbook]

Hi,

I initially thought it might be a software issue (maybe a mangled pointer causing a stack or buffer overflow or something) because of there seemed to be a pattern in the faults that repeated every 300 key presses or so but I wasn't in diagnostic mode at the time, just trying to use the thing so I didn't collect any quantitative data.

Having got feedback from a few sources I'm starting to think it's just as likely to be a hardware problem but I'm expecting to hear something tomorrow and will hopefully be able to post something definitive then.

Regards,

Paul.

I can understand why you may suspect a software bug,   I doubt it's a stack overflow problem, though certainly if there's a bug in not pulling a value back off the stack so the count gets screwed up it'll cause all sorts of problems,  though IME a stack overflow will generally bring everything to a halt unless they have some very good error handling routines in place.  TBH I'm out of touch with modern day CPU instruction sets so unsure how improved error handling has become.

Also though it may explain the reset screen, it doesn't explain why the occasional missed key press, which really is my main concern.  That sounds more like a key polling issue where it's not polling the keys frequently enough, or AYS it may even be hardware in which case we are stuffed..lol

I look forward to hearing more from you in due course Paul, as I think in reality this affects many 970/770 owners.

Best wishes...Cameron....and BTW keep up the good work. 

[Bill H]

FWIW, I got mine from Kraft Music in mid-November and it's doing the same thing. What I'm noticing is that when I'm selecting voices, it'll jump all the way out to the main screen. Seems to happen more on the right-hand screen buttons. Just often enough to be annoying.

[Joe H]

I think this should be reported to Yamaha.  It sounds like a bug in the firmware.  It should require 2 button presses to return to the main screen. Maybe there is a fix for it.

Try this email:    YCASupport@yamaha.com

Joe H

[textbook]

FWIW, I got mine from Kraft Music in mid-November and it's doing the same thing. What I'm noticing is that when I'm selecting voices, it'll jump all the way out to the main screen. Seems to happen more on the right-hand screen buttons. Just often enough to be annoying.

Hi Bill... that's what mine does too,  do you also find you need to press a button twice occasionally as they first press didn't work ?  I find this more annoying than anything or maybe it's just my 970 that's iffy on the button presses. Though it seems to occur on various buttons not just one or two, and not all the time.

[Bill H]

Hi Bill... that's what mine does too,  do you also find you need to press a button twice occasionally as they first press didn't work ?  I find this more annoying than anything or maybe it's just my 970 that's iffy on the button presses. Though it seems to occur on various buttons not just one or two, and not all the time.

Good evening,

I have indeed noticed, mostly on a pretty random assortment of buttons, that they might require two presses. I have been thinking that the keyboard is still pretty new to me and I might not be pressing firmly enough. Or perhaps pressing at a slight angle and not straight down. If I do make a conscious firm push, I usually do get the desired result.

It appears to me that there might be an issue with the keyboard's action. (Not the playing keys but the controlling buttons.) I don't know what kind of switch mechanism Yamaha is using, but a growing number of people all experiencing the same or very similar problems certainly indicates, to me at least, a common cause. And I will always suspect a mechanical component or function before an electronic or software function. I suppose there could be a run of flaky keyboards, or perhaps a design flaw in a new "upgraded" keyboard now in production.

With the growing numbers indicated just here on this board, I'd certainly like to see Yamaha do a survey of all owners to see the extent of the problem.

Regards from Oklahoma...

[textbook]

Thanks Bill,  yes it would appear the symptoms are the same, and my neighbours 770 does it too, and indeed I recall a 770 I tried in a music store a few weeks ago needed a couple of presses on the button to make a contact.

I suspect many have this issue where it needs a second firm press of the button,  but have tended to dis-regard it as it worked next time, thinking it's likely due to the way they pressed the button, as none us want to think there's a issue with our new keyboard albeit a small one, but it is one that can be annoying.  I hope it can be fixed with a firmware update, but like yourself I also suspect.. it's likely caused by very poor switches.  Ironically the cheaper 670 didn't have this problem, it's control buttons were plastic,  my only criticism with the 670 switches was the fact they gave quite a audible click when pressed, but at least they were positive and worked very time.

It mainly seems to be the black buttons, on mine all the white buttons and Registration switches all work first time, as having to press those twice would be a serious problem indeed.

I assume they are using membrane switches, which work when pressed in the centre similar to those one finds on most TV remote's etc these days, and if not pressed in the centre they don't pop in properly and so don't make a contact, and I suspect that's what's happening, due to the buttons being rather floppy and not shorting out the PCB contact area when pressed.

We could do with a poll of some sort,  just to see how many if not all these keyboards are affected.

Also can everyone who is experiencing this problem where you occasionally have to press the black rubber buttons twice,
to get in touch with Yamaha.  As the more of us who bring it to their attention, the better chance we have of getting them to sort it out,
assuming it can be fixed. Otherwise it's a case of returning to the dealer as being unfit for the purpose.

YCASupport@yamaha.com  (USA)

customer_support_uk@gmx.yamaha.com (For UK customers) Tel: 0844 811 1116 or 01526 2449



Regards...Cameron

[EileenL]

I have just been busy pressing the black buttons on the left and right side of the screen back and forth as suggested and mine are working fine. I do tend to press positively and in the centre of the button though.

[textbook]

Thanks Eileen,  I'm also pressing them positively in the middle.    Have you NEVER had to press a black button twice on your 970 at all since receiving your 970..because the first press didn't work  ?

I try and press in the centre of the button too,  but I still get the odd time where I have to press it a second time,  it doesn't seem to be certain buttons either, it can happen with most of the black buttons occasionally,  though obviously it's more noticeable with those we use the most.

[EileenL]

On the time where I have had to press twice it was because I had not pressed it properly. I had hit the side of the button. At no time has my screen changed though and gone to home page.

[voodoo]

On my S970, when selecting voices, it often jumps to the main screen (meaning that the button has been double-pressed).

[EileenL]

Yes it also dose this on Tyros 5. It is a short cut for getting back to the main screen.

[voodoo]

Yes it also dose this on Tyros 5. It is a short cut for getting back to the main screen.

Yes of course, but it also happens sometimes, when the button is intended to be pressed once.

[EileenL]

Yes I suppose it is something you have to get used to. As I work mainly from registrations it dose not worry me that much.

[Ingar]

On the time where I have had to press twice it was because I had not pressed it properly. I had hit the side of the button. At no time has my screen changed though and gone to home page.

Me too. I`ve been pressing buttons and pressing buttons all possible and unpossible ways up and down but nothing odd happend with my beloved 970.

[Chronos1976]

Yes I suppose it is something you have to get used to. As I work mainly from registrations it dose not worry me that much.

Hello Eileen,

Whilst an occasional random double press back to the main screen is annoying during voice selection, when using the sequencers, effect editors, voice set functions and other features of the keyboard regularly these unpredictable and unintended double presses have all sorts of undesirable consequences including permanent loss of data.

When these buttons are being pressed a few hundred times a day there are about 40 keyboard generated errors introduced into the work flow - that's potentially over 200 times a week that information is lost or altered that takes time to correct or restart from scratch. That's not a good statistic for a production environment :-)

However, it's reassuring to hear of keyboards that are not affected (and it's interesting to note the previous generation of keyboards didn't seem to have this issue despite having the same key bed technology) so hopefully the fault is due to an isolated batch of key beds.

Thank you to everyone contributing their experiences of working and faulty keyboards in this thread. I'm wondering if people with working models all bought their keyboards before November?

Regards,

Paul.

[Joe H]

I tried to produce the problem on my S970.  I have not had the experience of the keyboard jumping to the Main Screen while navigating through Voice selections, etc.  Since I'm just getting setup, I still have Firmware v1.01.  Once I update to the current v1.04 I'll see what happens.  If the erratic behaviour starts up... then I will assume it is a firmware bug that was introduced since the initial v1.01 release that shipped with the first batch of keyboards.

Those of you who are having this issue should check your firmware version... maybe we can establish a pattern.

Joe H

[Bill H]

1.04. Not sure about 1.03 -- I updated it right after I got it, so not much experience on earlier version.

[Chronos1976]

I had the problem on both my keyboards with v1.03 and v1.04 firmware versions.

Joe, it will be interesting if the problems appeared after a firmware update. I look forward to seeing what happens when you update. Can you downgrade though if you did get the problem?

[textbook]

Mines on 1.04. I think 1.03 was installed when I had it but not 100% sure,  but the problem of having to press black buttons twice which is my main concern, to make it work has been present since new, so on all firmware versions, which is why I'm inclined to think they are a batch of faulty switches.   

[EileenL]

Have you spoken to Yamaha about this. They are always the best people to go to.

[Joe H]

I found the luxury of about an hour last night to play my keyboard.  I selected a lot of Voices, styles and MIDI song files.  I did not experience the glitch of EXIT to the Main screen.  I hope to find some time this evening to install the v1.04 firmware.  If the problem shows up... then we will know something new.

Joe H