Synchronising Project

  • Make a note of the name and location of the currently open project in your BBM (click on Project Explorer (it’s beneath the Virtual Machine in the left pane and it will take you to the location of the project you have open in the BBM)
  • If your SD card has songs or changes that aren’t in the BBM, you might want to open the project on the SD card and then save that project to your computer (bbworkspace) with a new name.
  • Next step would be open the project that you previously had open in the BBM (most likely still located in your bbworkspace
  • From the BBM menu File > Export > Project to SD card and when complete, accept the prompt to synchronize to the SD card

There could be two reasons this happened:

  • the project that’s open on the BBM has a different name than the one on the SD card, or
  • you’re using a Mac with Sierra which does not seem to play friendly with Synchronize to SD Card.

I now have this very problem, new MacBook - synchronise greyed out. Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.3. I have tried all of the above fixes and nothing seems to work. Copying over the whole SD card with the BB Project (1.27 GB) every time I make a change takes ages. Any more ideas since this was written?

Although Singular Sound and Apple have been aware of this BBM bug for a very long time, they’ve not done anything to fix it. I’ve adapted my workflow around it but it’s still a PITA. I save my project often and export only when absolutely necessary. I have noticed that I can sync my project by doing the following but it’s no less painful than using the export method—the export method takes 10+ minutes but because I boot my Mac from a computer with an SSD, I can complete the process below in under 3 minutes (I don’t open any other apps other than BBM after the restart)
[LIST]
[]quit the BBM
[
]delete the history_ds folder from desktop
[]shut down the Mac
[
]restart the Mac
[]once it’s completed the restart, launch BBM
[
]Sync Project is now available but it doesn’t take long before it’s greyed out from the menu again
[/LIST]
Wish I had better news to share. I have another Mac with Sierra and it does not exhibit this greyed out Sync Project menu symptom.

Many thanks again. I will try that and let you know how I get on. Gig tomorrow with new guitarist, so I’d better get everything right!

Many thanks for the pointer to this, I would not have fixed it otherwise. It took me hours to go through that sequence three times and now, strangely, synchronise has worked twice in a row.
history_ds (empty folder) was in user_lib/wave_sources/ - not desktop.
I would like a conversation with the Dev. Are they on GitHub?
Sound from BBM and my live gear is very different. Because of this I frequently alter the velocity and timing of drum instruments whilst in rehearsal with my band (“Naah, bass drum too loud there man!”) and with this BBM dysfunction it takes around 8 minutes to export to SD card after a simple alteration. So I gave up with that, taking notes during rehearsal to alter and update later when everyone had gone home. Not ideal.

Typing PM now.

A higher speed SD card will reduce the write time as a temporary measure. We’re looking into this issue.

Sorry for your troubles @Tim Williams

Hi, this sync issue is still a problem for me, has there been an update I missed that might help?

Regrettably not.

The time it takes to update is bad enough (several minutes) but having to re-set all the parameters for the pedals (double-tap stop, tap start, etc.) is just so painful. If this were the case when I bought the pedal I would probably have sent it back as unfit for purpose. I wouldn’t be surprised if sales are suffering now because of that. Most creative people “in the real world” use Macs, so it’s really not good enough to make it this inconvenient for us.

Couldn’t agree with you more wholeheartedly.

Here’s a workaround you can try: once you’ve updated your pedal settings, put the card back in your SD slot reader and opt-drag the PARAMS folder from the card to your desktop; at the completion of the Export process, opt-drag the card to the top level of your SD card. This works for me but YMMV.
@DavidPackouz what’s the latest?

Thanks, I’ll try that. BTW I usually leave the SD card in the BB and connect through the USB, it saves a bit of time and fiddling around the the write protect slider on the side of the SD card, which does not always work as it should.

It’s April 2020 and the sync function doesn’t seem to be working? Is there a solution?

Thanks

I too am experiencing this problem. I tried saving the Project file under a different name, but then why I try to open it from that new save it tells me it’s not the correct file type.
Please SS can we find a fix for this. At this time I cannot sync at all rendering the BB pedal next to useless for me.

When you save a project as, that newly saved project then becomes the project that’s open in the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM). This may be the reason that you are getting an error message.

You should be able to sync on a Mac with the workaround, which is to:

  • make sure the SD card is unlocked
  • insert the card into your computer’s SD slot reader
  • use the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM) File > Export > Project to SD card
  • accept the prompts to overwrite
  • accept the prompt for future synchronization

I tried this but after exporting and clicking the option to link the synchronisation got an unexpected error message, project synchronisation not available yet.

Have not heard of that error before. Which version of the Mac OS are you using?

Try this:

  • Save project
  • Quit the BBM
  • Launch the BBM
  • Try exporting project to card
  • Accept prompts to overwrite
  • At prompt to sync, enter No
    Were you successful this time?

Can you post screenshots of any error messages, please?

Thank you for helping. I did all you asked in the email and that worked. I have also now managed to do a back up of the whole card onto another card and that seemed to work also. But when I shut down BBM and restart, the synch option is back to being greyed out, and that is on both cards

I have had my BB for quite a few years, being one of the original crowd funders. I stopped playing my guitar and hence using the BB about 2 years ago. Up until then I had no problems. I have just started again a couple of weeks ago. I updated all of the firmware, the drum kits and the BBM and have until today had no issues. I could change my playlist etc and synch as often and as many times as I wished. It’s only today that this situation as evolved.

I am using Catalina 10.15.3, which is I believe the most up to date OS for my MAC Pro.

It looks now that I can at least work around this by exporting to the card every time I wish to work on the BBM, but that is a hassle and time consuming and I did not need to do this prior to now.

All a bit strange. I have now looked at some of the other posts on the forum and I think I saw that this has occurred on Windows PC also?

Anyway, thank you for your time

Kind regards

Chris

Glad to hear that you got it working.

The synchronization issue began appearing with OS 10.12 and the last official release of the BBM. If you don’t have to shut your Mac down—and avoid having to quit the BBM—this is another workaround.

Singular Sound has long been aware of this and they’ll eventually get around to fixing it although they’ve been kicking the can down the road for 2+ years.

Usually I am pretty disorganised, but something made me keep the original packaging when I bought my beatbuddy. I am beginning to think it deserves a place on Ebay so I can get myself an old fashioned non-brain bursting backing track machine. Even a cassette player!

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