Mac hang on startup - BB pedal not detected in Finder

BeatBuddy Help, Questions and Bugs
1

Hi BB Support,

The following was originally added to pg. 2 of:
http://mybeatbuddy.com/forum/index.php?threads/cheap-mac-workarounds.461/page-2

Issue: The Mac hangs on startup when the BB pedal is connected.

When connected, restart the Mac, it powers on (get the startup sound), but hangs on the blank white/gray screen and never loads the Apple icon to proceed to the Desktop.

If you disconnect the BB or turn it off, the Mac resumes and completes the startup to the Desktop.

This issue could explain the ongoing difficulties Mac users are having while trying to using BBM in Virtual Environments. Simply put, there’s no device to write too because it’s not being detected from the USB Controller on the Mac.

additional observations, happens on:
both USB 2 & 3
Mac Mini OS X 10.7.x, and Macbook Retina 10.8.5
I’m using Firmware 1.29

My question is this, is the issue I’m describing a known issue?

Thanks, JT

2

I don’t own a Mac so can’t comment. However I came across an issue in my work where a device (dictaphone with internal SD) was connected to a PC. When it was connected the PC would not boot - the reason for this was that in the BIOS the boot order had the USB at the top so the PC was trying to boot from it seeing the SD card as a hard drive. Changing the boot order resolved the issue. I don’t know if the Mac is behaving in the same way. If it does it with other USB devices (memory sticks etc…) then I don’t think the BB is at fault.
Can you not boot the Mac and plug in the SD card into it following boot up?

3

Updates

I did some more testing.

Instead of disconnecting the BB pedal during startup I let it go to see if anything would eventually happen. It finally resumed and completed the startup after several minutes. Depending on the Mac and what type of drive you have, the time will vary. My MacBook normally takes 10 seconds to boot, but took about 3 minutes when the BB was connected. And still, the BB is not recognized by the Mac.

For what it’s worth, I have yet to read any posting clearly indicating a Mac user has successfully connected to the BB. This means specifically, it can be seen in the Apple Profiler and the SD card when inserted into BB would show up as a accessible. In Terminal, the device is nowhere to be found. My pedeal came with 1.29 firmware - out of the box, so I can’t say whether this was an issue with the earlier version.

Also, the BB display always shows as USB Connected.

I have considered BB development is aware of this issue and decidedly leaves it this way until the software is ready for Mac. There’s some logic to this except that Mac users, all along have had the option of running a virtual OS environment and could have been using BBM for Windows during this time.

Psalm40, I appreciate your response. There’s no option needed to configure the boot order on the Mac. In the Mac, there is a System Preference to select a preferred Startup Disk when it’s available; ONLY if one exist. For example, I can select OS X, Windows, Linux, and can choose what OS to boot into, regardless where it is, even on a USB source. But I have only OS X, and running Windows in a virtual environment.

Your question, “Can you not boot the Mac and plug in the SD card into it following boot up?”

The issue is not with the SD Card. I can put the SD Card into the Mac’s card slot reader and it reads and boots with it, just fine. The issue is with the BB pedal itself, it’s not recognized as a connected Device. That’s the issue.

Thanks, JT

4

Mac is no more than a paid glorified Linux-based graphical system, and it cannot detect BeatBuddy device properly. Windows, on the other hand, has no such problem. This will most likely be addressed when Mac is fully supported.

Psalm40 is spot on with the boot sequence. JT, configure your UEFI/BIOS to never attempt to boot from USB devices, and you will never run into this again.

5

The solution then is to make your changes to the SD card and then plug it into the BB. That is what I do as my my PC has a dedicated card reader and the USB cabled that comes with the BB is ridiculously short.

6

Woot! You even had a USB cable with your BeatBuddy?! Lucky you!
Mine beta-test BB came even without a power supply!!! :slight_smile:

7

Psalm…for what you’re suggesting sure, the SD card workaround was apparent early on and good to know about. However, I’m not levering this thread looking for a solution. I’m reporting a potential hardware issue. And yes, I tried a different cable, and checked for a possible loose jack.

Daefecator, the Mac doesn’t use BIOS. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, is not an issue

Also, you’ve stated the following a couple of times, and I’d like to get some clarification from both of you, if you don’t mind. You say, “This will most likely be addressed when Mac is fully supported.”. There’s likely some truth to this. Especially, if it’s Software that is solely responsible for detecting the pedal.

My question to both of you. If you simply connect the pedal to your PC, without launching the BBM Sofware, can you see any evidence the device is connected in MyComputer?

Thanks, JT

8

When connecting the pedal to PC you can clearly read on the pedal screen that USB CONNECTED.
Also, Windows host recognizes BB as a generic USB storage. In “My computer” a new drive is automatically created that you can interact with to alter SD card contents.

9

Thank you. This establishes the point. USB is universal and the BB should also be showing up in the Finder. I will reach out to support and post an update. Thanks for your time.

10

Well… a Windows operating system has a ton of drivers as it supports almost every possible hardware out there.
Mac doesn’t. What amazes me the most - this is being positioned by apple as a huge marketing plus. Their motto is “less supported hardware leads to less problems”.
So, actually, a lot of extra efforts should be done just to force Mac to do what Windows does automatically for you!

11

Personally, I’m not positioning this as a Windows vs. Mac thing. Both have their place and require device specific drivers.

My expectation on the Mac side is, it should work under the universal controller as it does in the Windows environment. As suggested in my previous comment, this could be intentional until the BBM software is ready for the Mac. In which case there would be another Firmware update for the device to make it detectable on the Mac. Pure speculation on my part until I hear back directly from support, of course. But if this were the case, it would have been nice to make the pedal detectable on the mac side anyway, so the virtual environments can use BBM. That said, I’m leveraging this issue as a good samaritan, and because after reading about the troubles the Mac user are having in the virtual environments, the underlying issue would be device related. As we can see, this is the case and I’m confident it will be resolved.

Still, this hasn’t stopped or dissuaded me from enjoying this cool product.

I’ll let you know what I hear from support, unless they post to the thread.

Thanks

12

Jeff, I am almost sure that in order for BeatBuddy to be detected on Mac, you would need to install something like a device driver.
I hope this could be done via the firmware upgrade, but I haven’t studied this question thoroughly.

13

This is a BB-specific issue. We have found that the BB is not recognized by Mac computers via USB connection, so you would have to insert the SD card directly into the Mac (or via a full size SD card reader if it doesn’t fit into your computer, as some Macs only contain a mini-SD card slot). The issue is not on your computer’s end, nor does this indicate that your unit is defective in some way. This is a general issue that has been brought to our attention, and we are looking into why this is, and what feasible solutions there are to fix this. For now, just insert the SD card directly into your Mac.

14

Thanks BB Support, for chiming in. Sounds like I get to keep my Mac :slight_smile:

15

So how do you you put a SD card in a mac?

16

Arlan: My MacBook and MacMin both have SD Card slots. Not sure about the other models. Which one do you have?

17

A Mac Pro, no slot. :frowning:

18

That’s too bad… sorry. Well, I remember picking up a cheap USB SD card reader which worked just fine.

19

4 months later.