MIDI Console Service Command

The midi service command provides information about the status of the MIDI Service. This can be useful when troubleshooting.

midi service --help

Check to see if the MIDI Service is running

If you want to see if the MIDI Service is running, you can check via the console.

midi service status

Perform a ping test of the MIDI Service

Another diagnostic feature is the ping test. This calls the app SDK functions to send a proprietary ping through the Ping endpoint in the service. It then returns back information about the round-trip speed characteristics of the ping series.

midi service ping --verbose

Start and stop the MIDI Service

When run in an Administrator command prompt, the MIDI Console can be used to start and stop the service.

midi service restart

an alternative is to type

midi service stop

followed by

midi service start

In current versions, the midi service start command will inform you that the service is already running, because just using the MIDI console will trigger the service to start.

Set the service to auto-start

One of the requirements for shipping in Windows is to make the MIDI Service demand-start. However, that results in a multi-second delay when the first call is made to the service.

One way to avoid this, is to change the service’s configuration so that it auto-starts with Windows. This causes a few seconds of delay on Windows startup, but then reduces the delay when applications first call into the service.

This must be run from an Administrator command prompt.

midi service set-auto-start

That changes the service startup from “Manual (Trigger Start)” to “Automatic”. You can also do the same thing using the Services applet, or other command-line approaches (PowerShell, etc.). This is in the MIDI console for convenience.