Hi, I am using BIAB 2016 (438). I have "Allow Multiple Instances of Band-In-A-Box to be running" unchecked. I practice 38 songs at present. Normally there is no 2nd instance of BIAB created (the unchecked is working normally). However every so often (maybe every 10th song) it will create a 2nd instance. As far as I can tell it is random but I have never really analyzed it closely to see if it is related to select songs. I am assuming this is a global parameter applying to all songs. Under that assumption is this a known bug that gets triggered by something?

Thanks,
John

John,

I'm not fully understanding what you are meaning. Are you talking about using Jukebox? A little more information on how you start your songs would be useful so that we can understand the issue better.

Regards,
Noel

• one of my songs: This Road

Are you starting the 'next' song by double-clicking on it from Windows Explorer, or opening it from within BiaB using function key F3 / File > Open?

Do you have a file named "BBMany.txt" in either the x:\bb\ folder or the x:\bb\data\ folder?

Hi Guys,

I am starting the songs from this Microsoft Visual Basic for applications command.

So I think this is essentially like clicking on the file name and Windows 7 figures out what program to use. If it is of any use the help for this command is at this link. I just studied the true part of this command. It means this

I might try it with false rather than true. I doubt it is the problem but maybe.

I checked the two directories and there is no BBmany.txt file. I will say one thing. There are a lot of files in the X:\BB directory :-)

I will tune in again in about 10 hours (won't have a computer until then).

John

John, just FYI, BIAB 2018 addressed that huge number of files in the /BB folder. It reorganizes the files into more folders.

I haven't used such a command to launch BiaB so I suspect that this is the fundamental cause.

Can you try launching by just double clicking on a selection of *.SGU files to verify that only one instance runs?

I have experienced this bug many times but as you say it is never predictable enough to try and report. Just one of those things I have learned to live with.

Okay, thanks everyone. Since JohnJohnJohn has experienced the same thing I have pointed out this thread to support asking if they have any tricks up their sleeve. Being a programmer I know they can often do things like put a trap in to find this kind of random problem. Maybe in the future it will have a fix.

I have a tiny bit of info on this problem. I run through 30+ songs each night as part of my practice. I use BIAB when I do this. I am marking the before and after songs when this problem occurs. Now suspect that it is the song that is being called that is triggering this problem somehow (actually the BIAB file to be more specific). I say this because two of these songs have done it twice. Next up is to wait for a song that does not do it when it is called twice and see if I can figure out the difference between the BIAB file settings between them.

It is possible that you have a corrupt file. This is rare but it can happen.

What I've found is that if I open a faulty songfile in Realband and then save it as SGU/MGU with a new name, it sometimes repairs the file. This could be worth a try.

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song: So Beautiful

Fortunately no. The file is not corrupt.

Also I just recreated the exact same sequence of opening BIAB files and the two that had a 2nd instance of BIAB open did not get this today. So it seems that it has nothing to do with the BIAB file being opened on first open.

I am trying a bunch of things with the two files that had the problem last night. I am calling them back and forth with all sorts of states for the file open before the one that opens in a different session (paused, waiting for a key press, played more than once, tracks muted) and I can't get the next file to open another BIAB session yet. It is a mystery so far.

So if PgMusic finds the problem with the use of a programming trap and they put the fix in version 2019 or maybe in a downloaded patch how will we know it is fixed? Do they have a list of fixes with each release? Actually I just checked the help, new features. I guess they have it in here. But it is somewhere else such that it entices us to upgrade?

John,

If I recall correctly, you are opening files using programming code. I wonder if this has something to do with it. For example, the sequence of instructions to open, to close and the clearing of memory.

Have you run the process manually to see if the same problem occurs?

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel,

Interesting. You might just be correct. I will try it manually tomorrow night. I use the database calls to BIAB so I can score how well I play a song and bump the next practice date ahead farther if I play it well and ahead less if I play it less well. It allows me to maintain a larger repertoire since I practice a lot more efficiently. I will still use the code for this purpose but comment out the call to the BIAB file and do it manually for one night to see what happens. I will let you know about this time tomorrow.

Thanks for the idea,
John

I did the experiment and it still (on occasion) opens a new BIAB session form a regular windows single/double click on the file name. So that rules out the way I am calling the file. However I have one more thing I will try which logically should not work based upon the results of my experiment but I will try it anyway.

My experiment failed. I tried changing the "true" statement to "false" in the MS-Access call to BIAB. True means to open the instance in a new window.

So the fact that this does not work and the fact that double clicking or clicking on the file name does not work (with two users) points to an intermittent bug in BIAB.