Need help connecting AKAI MIDIMIX controler

Recently I got an AKAI MIDI MIX primarily to use its Master Fader to control the output level on my RME Fireface400 and secondarily for misc. cc-based control use.

It’s been working great with the RME and yesterday I decided it was time to configure some other controls. Before even starting I wanted to make sure I could monitor the MIDI Data coming out of the MIDI MIX. So I created a new Cubase Project with one MIDI Track with its Input set to MIDIMIX. This Track has a MIDI Monitor Insert open on it. Then I started moving knobs on the MID IMIX expecting to see it reflected in the MIDI Monitor. But instead the Monitor shows nothing. Next, to confirm the Track’s setup, I switched its MIDI In to my NI S61 keyboard controller (aka KOMPLETE KONTROL-1). Play notes and turn knobs on it and everything shows in the Monitor. Switch back to MIDI MIX, no data; then S61, data.

So I decided to remove Cubase from the equation and use MidiView in Windows 10 to monitor the MIDI MIX. But when I try to set the Device in MidiView to MIDI MIX I get the following error - which I’m not even sure how to interpret. Especially since every other item on the list (2nd pic below) can be selected fine and many of them are talking to other stuff. These include old-school MIDI Ports, USB and even Virtual MIDI cables - all can be seen by MidiView fine.

Next I shutdown MidiView and try MIDI-OX which gives me the strangest error yet when I try to set it to monitor MIDI MIX - saying there isn’t enough memory, when clearly that isn’t the case.

Anybody got any ideas how I can get the MIDI MIX to talk to everything else

I’ve seen some of these errors (especially the misleading Midi-Ox message) and they always seem to have to do with a Windows midi device being assigned exclusively to another application already when the application throwing the error is started.

Modern Windows can handle multi-client MIDI, but not all apps (and it may apply to hardware midi drivers, too) are coded with the new Windows multi-client API. And that’s when the grief typically occurs.

At times I’ve had some success starting applications in a different order.

And if that doesn’t seem to work, maybe experiment with using LoopMidi as an intermediary to the hardware drivers?

I had no idea an application could have exclusive access to a MIDI Port. Can you elaborate on that & do you know where to look and see if that’s the case? I’ll try disconnecting the RME’s MIDI In & try reading their manual a bit (and folks complain about the Cubase manual, if they only knew).

The MIDI MIX doesn’t seem to have any driver of its own. The only software for it is its Editor which was not running.

I’m not an expert on this by any means - but found it mentioned in a couple of places:
https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/usbmididriver.html

This article from 2015 specifically says that the generic USB Midi driver is single client and since your device doesn’t seem to have its own driver, I’m assuming it ends up using that single client generic driver.
List of Multi-Client Audio & MIDI Drivers (Windows) | Cognitone Users.

Multi-client midi is mentioned as an addition in this 2016 article from Microsoft’s own Pete Brown (search for “multi-client” within that page):

And interestingly enough, the last updated date on the Windows 10 compatibility chart for AKAI is 2015 - i.e. a year earlier than the blog announcing the multi-client update.

But sorry, I have no idea how to further investigate that.