TBD troubleshooting

In fact it's worse as my presets are completely corrupted - my rings preset recalls braids as the core for example.

So now it's back talking to the app and all presets are available, but obviously all my saves are erased and the app keeps losing touch with the module, in that I can select something (ie CV1 to pitch) but I scroll down and the assignment is lost.

TLDR: something is wrong with one of my tbds. Really really frustratingly so as I'm wasting the majority of my music time troubleshooting.

not good! only thing I've notice with mine is sometimes the preset isn't there on startup and I need to select it again, but that's really no problem obviously. Haven't noticed corrupting etc or anything on this scale. My presets have been non complicated thus far though. 

So here we are, six months on when my replacement has finally arrived, and here I am sat in another mess of unsaved presets, crashes and reboots. Ridiculous.

What's even more frustrating/condemning is that my 'working' one has also lost four of its presets. I can only assume this module is buggy as hell - it's really not fit for purpose.

Now what?

I can't actually get it to see any presets at all now. I'll reflash/reset firmware, losing all the presets created yesterday in the process once again, and see if that helps it see things again.

I suspect that it can't handle/bugs out on one or two of the more complex presets (subot specifically), given that seems to be introducing issues on both units.
edit: for trimmed ranting.

I fear I've already lost a couple of settings in patches - chance it could be user error but I'm giving up after another day of troubleshooting.

Posting my notes here in case others have the same issues:

The TBD will lose presets - if the plugin is still in the slot but the saves are gone the way to get it going again is to import a saved patch.

Export any patches you wish to save, since the preset saving module/app end isn't reliable. It's worth renaming the file each time.

To import = import, recall, snap, done.

If settings in a preset are lost, any other presets with the same plugin will also be lost - import to all saved with that plugin. It's worth naming the save after the plugin used to help here.

Saved presets will also be lost on the computer, presumably because they are stored in the memory of the module.

If the preset is lost and plugin is showing as void or nothing can be seen in the menu you will need to reflash firmware, since eventually it will get to a point where it reboots/locks.

When you reflash samples and wavetables are lost. I haven't worked out getting the originals back in yet.

Other things I need to test further:

It doesn't seem to like switching between using the android app and the computer, though I need to test this further since it might just be related to the (void/blank) issue above, in that it was already broken/corrupt beyond the point of saving without a reflash.

Using the android app might increase the chances of a preset displaying as void. Again, it might be because the unit had already bugged itself out.

Sometimes in the android app settings disappear when you scroll down to edit others - I'm not sure if this is an app issue or its indicating that all is not happy module side, though I suspect it's a good indication a reflash is needed. (I haven't used the android app after my last reflash as I've been testing with the official app only, on windows fwiw, though I might have a go later.)

Further investigating power - reduced load on a rock solid bench variable PSU...

Made more edits which were lost immediately after switching between saves. 

Currently reflashing firmware on both and will start breaking from fresh using this PSU. 

I think it's unlikely PSU but this seems the obvious way to find out...

Ok so broke down immediately after the (extended) power off - both got stuck in a reboot cycle on first preset load and the new one lost the braids preset. Obviously that's on the linear PSU wired in as above.


I believe that rules out power.


Also worth noting that this is less than twenty minutes use time after a full reflash.


Edit: sorry, error above in that I'm pretty sure it's a subotnik patch I broke.

Sorry to hear you have issues with the module!
In order to better understand what is going wrong we'd need to debug it with a serial monitor attached. 
If you could create one document describing the exact steps in order to reproduce your problem, I may be able to help.

We have not tested how the module behaves when one uses the possible 10 presets for each and every plugin.
That mounts to a lot of data, that the module may not be able to handle. After all the data it is stored in the flash partition, which has a limited size.
A remedy could be to restrict preset usage to only the most used plugins or even create a custom firmware which carries only the plugins what actually uses.
An open source collaborator has created this fxwiegand.github.io/tbd-cloud-compiler/ for that purpose. One can also free some storage this way and allow for more samples to be stored.

TBD is an open source effort with many different volunteer contributors, it surely isn't bug free and further depends on contributions by volunteer collaborators for bug fixes.
Notwithstanding however, we have tested the shipped versions of TBD for functionality and have not came across the issues mentioned.

Hope this will eventually help.

So, just to be clear here are we talking one document about my issues or a document showing the information from a serial monitor? I'm going to struggle with the latter, not being a code guy.

If it's the former, in terms of the issue I'm losing saved settings in plugins with the subotnik, macosc, and whatever the rains preset is called. I edit parameters, save the preset, snap it in and after a while it reverts to a patch without any settings altered when loaded. I'm not talking complicated patching here - I've had it lose just a CV input to pitch. Patches lose storage when loaded - either upon a reboot or just loading from the unit during continued use.


Units also get caught in a reboot loop - usually after failing to load correctly on boot up. When this happens the only fix seems to be a reflash.



I basically wanted to use TBD as a sound generator, switching between presets, so haven't tried many of the other presets and can't say if they are affected.

Preset wise while I have had an issue when fully loaded with ten, I've had the above issue with just the one - on the last test after a reflash I loaded only three different plugins with one save on each and broke it.

Im surprised you haven't come across these issues given I have on three seperate units now.


I'll attempt to pull together my testing into a single post if that isn't clear? Thanks for the help.

tIB Hi Andy, I'm also very sorry to hear you are going through these issues with the TBD.

First of all, I wanted to give you a short background info about Robert Manske ("rma") and me (visuellemusik"): Robert M. is the inventor of the TBD and the main developer / maintainer for it. It originally had been created for Eurorack and Robert Langer ported the hardware to AE Modular. The firmware for the AE Modular TBD also was created by Robert M. I wrote quite a few plugins for the TBD, including Subotnik (glad to know you seem to like it, btw) and some parts of the graphical frontend, as did Robert L. We indeed had similar issues as you are describing them, but that actually was years ago and only when the TBD was not available for AE Modular yet. So either your issue is a new situation, or the fix that had been done left some kind of loophole open.

Robert M. and I are assuming there still might be issues with the filesystem of the flash-Rom, but so far it's quite impossible to make a guess where and why, especially because the problem does not happen to us. What you describe is exactly what the system does in cases of crashes: it does a fallback to the last stable situation. I also experienced the eternal loops you described (due to a bug in a third party library, btw), but those also got fixed. Hopefully this is not too much information, or maybe redundant, I simply wanted to point out why the issue currently is hard to track down and how we possibly could proceed. The suggestion which Robert M. made that you could generate your own firmware, containing only your favourite plugins would result in needing less space for the files to be stored in the flash-memory. So if there still is a capacity problem, this could help.

I also have a different, or at least an additional suggestion: Could you maybe save a backup of everything you have on the TBD? This is possible from the GUI via "edit configuration"->"download backup". The file will be named "all.jsn" Then you could send that file to us, only if you are open to sharing it for debugging with us, of course. You can PM me on the matter. BTW: if you experience crashes again and worst-case have to reflash the firmware, using this "all.jsn" you can restore your previous presets, again using the Tapp-GUI app via "edit configuration"->"Uplad backup". But I guess you are already aware of that, due to the sadly many crashes?

Also in case of crashes, there should be some info available on the Shell-window which is running in the background, if you could copy/paste this, this could be very helpful, too. It provides just about the identical information that can be seen while debugging using the default-setting, so to say. BTW: which operaring system are you using? This should not matter in terms of the TBD itself, but it could help to know how the Tapp-application is presented to you, which is quite a bit different with macOS, Windows and Linux.