Win10 - Failed to play back MIDI via sequencer error

[David (PassMark)]

While testing on the Windows 10 technical preview (the beta release) with our BurnInTest software we have heard of customers reporting this error. "Failed to play back MIDI via sequencer".

The the logs from BurnInTest this appears as the following error,
SERIOUS: 2015-06-17 18:05:49, Sound, Failed to play back MIDI via sequencer
LOG NOTE: 2015-06-17 18:05:49, Sound, There are no MIDI devices installed on the system. To install the driver, go to Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Add Hardware. (343)

We have tried to test this in house, but the audio drivers are failing to install on our Win10 test machine. Which isn't a good sign for the public release of Win10 next month.

In any case it seems that other people have also be reporting problems with MIDI on Win10 when using other software. Some people have even speculated that the standard MIDI interface in Windows is being quietly dropped from Win10.

We haven't been able to confirm this as Microsoft aren't commenting on the issue.

If you have this problem under Win7 or Win8, then it is a different issue (e.g. your audio drivers aren't installed or have crashed).

If we find out anything new we'll update this thread.

[David (PassMark)]

We had a additional report that only some platforms are affected. Which implies that it might in fact be a driver issue (and not an Win10 O/S issue). Strangely we also had reports that the MIDI test doesn't fail if it is run at the same time as the 3D or video test.

So we still haven't really gotten to the bottom of the problem as yet.

[David (PassMark)]

Another update: On our Win10 test machines here (64bit build 10074) all the sound tests seem to work OK. So at this point it is pretty much sure it only effects specific platforms.

It also seems that all the effected systems have Realtek Audio hardware (Realtek ALC255). BUT some Realtek audio does work in Win10.

This setup worked. Gigabyte GA-990FXa-UD3, with Realtek Audio ALC889. Drivers for the Realtek Audio chip where from Microsoft (included with Win10), 26/5/2015, V6.0.1.7520.

So maybe it is specific driver versions that don't work. Or maybe (rather incredibly at this late point) Microsoft have removed MIDI support in the absolute latest Win10 builds.

[David (PassMark)]

We updated our Win10 test machine to build 10130 today and retested the sound test. It still worked OK. So I think that rules out the possibility feature being completely removed from Win10.

[Tim (PassMark)]

We have just release a new build of BurnInTest (8.1 build 1010) that may fix some of the reported MIDI issues in Win10.

There was a conflict (due to some mismatched Windows API calls) in the system information library BurnInTest uses to read hard disk temperature that was triggering the error on Win10 systems.

[Karrot]

We had a additional report that only some platforms are affected. Which implies that it might in fact be a driver issue (and not an Win10 O/S issue). Strangely we also had reports that the MIDI test doesn't fail if it is run at the same time as the phen375 plan from https://skinnyexpress.com/phen375-review-and-results 3D or video test.

So we still haven't really gotten to the bottom of the problem as yet.

So I just 'upgraded' from windows 7 to windows 10 and I'm getting this "Failed to play back MIDI via sequencer" error now.

I tried running it at the same time a video test but still no luck. I'll just try and go back to w7 for now.

Stupid Microsoft.

[Pega_Alone]

Hello, I'm in charge of NB platform development from Pega.
We still have this issue during the Burnin aging test on Win10 RS1.
In this case, the system audio is normal when we close the tool, so we don't ensure the root cause about this symptom.
Our platform information as below,

Platfrom: kabylake-U
Burnin tool verison: v8.1 1022
Audio Realtek driver: 6.0.1.81XX
Intel SST driver: 9.21.0.2277
OS: Win10 RS1 14393
Audio chipset: ALC298

We have ask the driver vendor such as Intel and Realtek to check this issue, they think this issue may be caused by tool crash or OS.
However, we also verify it with burnin tool 1010, it still can duplicate this issue.
Could you help us to check it?
If you need more logs or information to check it, please let me know.

Many thanks.

[David (PassMark)]

There is a FAQ page on Midi Errors here.
It covers the known causes (of which most are driver bugs)

[Pega_Alone]

Hi David,

Thanks for your information.
As the part of conclusion: "Assuming that the problem is caused by a memory leak in the audio device driver while playing back just a MIDI file via the built-in Windows MIDI mechanism."
Do you think we can verify this issue via other MIDI mechanism during Burnin test to check the root cause?
Please help to advise it.

Many thanks.

[David (PassMark)]

Do you think we can verify this issue via other MIDI mechanism

Midi files traditionaly have the ".mid" file extension. A few are shipped with Windows.
Window's Media player will play them back, but I don't know which sound API it uses.
There are a large number of sound APIs now, and using a different API might result in different behaviour.