I’ve seen this asked and searched my issue but have not found a solution. I’d gladly be wrong if I missed a solution posted here.
Using Transfer or C6, I can not restore my old backed up .syx files. I can connect to both Transfer and C6, Also receive from both. However, when I attempt to send, all looks good, including DN says receiving patterns/sounds/settings. I can see the numbers increasing while receiving from the DN settings as well. Yet nothing is there. I am starting a new project, have USB midi on. Confused!
I backed up some projects under a previous version of the firmware. Then, I upgraded the firmware. Then, I tried to reload one of the projects backed up on my computer. I had what sounds like your problem. The screen showed the backup was happening, but nothing could be played after the transfer.
I shared my concern on the Digitone 1.32 thread. No one seemed particularly interested, and no one reported the same problem.
I was lucky, because all the projects still existed on my DN, so effectively nothing was lost. However, I surmised that a project backup up under an older firmware version may not reload correctly onto the DN.
Let me know if, in your case, a firmware upgrade happened between backup and restore of the project.
I may be wrong, but here is a possible workaround to your problem:
Backup all your current projects.
Revert to the firmware version you were using when you made the older projects.
Load the old, backed-up projects back to the DN. Hopefully, they will work.
Upgrade to the firmware version you were using before you downgraded.
I have no idea if his is going to work. However, I recall that others said it is okay to downgrade the firmware. Also, in my own experience, the internally-stored projects on my DN were not corrupted when I performed an upgrade.
My normal instinct is to backup data before upgrading the firmware. I guess I’ll be doing it after the upgrade, now.
This weekend I will do a test. I will be upgrading from 1.32 to 1.32A. I will backup a project prior to the upgrade and try to restore it into an empty slot after the upgrade. I am half-expecting this to not be a problem, because the upgrade is so small and composed of bug-fixes.
It’s hard to imagine Elektron did not know about this issue. They issue a generic warning about the possibility of losing data during an upgrade. Seems more like a sure thing than a possibility.
Thanks for the detailed response, look forward to hearing how your test work out. I agree that it’ll probably work as it’s the same update with bug fixes.
Not sure it’s worth it. Barely have time to make music as it is. I like to offload projects that I like but stalled. I find coming back to them at a later date usually inspires creativeness. This is a shame.
I know what you mean. It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole trying to get everything just so.
My relationship with my projects is a bit more precious. I use them as the basis for play-along audio-video I share with my students. I frequently go back to my projects and recompile them into a modified visual format or at a different tempo. I would be sad to lose those projects.
Then again, hoarding old material can stifle new ideas. Just convince yourself the old stuff was crap, and move on…
I finally decided to downgrade OS (1.21) and test using transfer. I was able to restore older projects and then upgrade to 1.32 with no problem. Not the most intuitive way to restore backups but it works.
I have had a couple crashes on the Digitone since our last correspondence, resulting in my having to init projects. A few recent edits lost, but nothing serious. Reminder to keep backing up my stuff.
Considering the crazy number of hours I’ve put in on the box, I suppose it’s still pretty stable!
This morning I loaded a project. Something weird flashed briefly in the dialog box and the project loaded. But the project was empty. I’d spent probably 6 hours of work on that project. I checked on my computer, but I had not backed up that project. Arggh!
So, I thought it’d be a good time to backup everything on the Digitone. This time I created a folder named with today’s date, and I saved all projects in it.
I included, in my backup, the corrupted project, with the slim hope that reinstalling it would be successful. After the backup, I deleted the non-working project from the DN, initialized the slot, then uploaded the “empty” project back to the Digitone. And it worked perfectly.
Interesting: A project can get screwed up on the DN, but then backed up and reinstalled, and viola, it works! I am no computer expert, but this suggests the project itself is not corrupted, but rather it got mis-addressed or something inside the Digitone.
In the past, I would’ve bypassed the step of trying to reinstall the “corrupted” project, and instead restore from the most recent backup. But that would mean any recent changes to the project would be lost.