No, and yes. It works fine in very basic operation now, as I say I was just hoping for a hack without having to purchase any more hardware, you’ve pretty much answered my question.

But if it’s any use to know, it cascaded like this:

1) I could make my way through a jam on one loop patch. It seemed to be working round-about right if I stayed in that Loop patch.

2) If I changed loop, restarted the device, did anything outside of the most basic operation, it was “gone” and nothing worked anymore. Any further attempt to record on any track on any patch, REC light just flashed. If you looked on the SD card, nothing was there. A decent metaphor would be to say it was as if the recording was floating in a volatile memory and not written to disk.

Obvs I’d tried firmware u/g etc., different SD cards, basic stuff, then I came and asked for help in the first thread I’ve linked to in my OP.

3) Full format following your advice allowed me to get a solid REC light again, but I was only back around to step #1.

So yeah, full-formatting SD had temporarily resolved what I thought was the primary issue, and then I’d later find that something was sending it back into the faulty state. It took a long time to troubleshoot it and eventually link it with the footswitch. I had no reason to make that link initially, since the switcher was commanding as it ought to have. I thought it was a problem with the main unit – which I suppose it probably will be, albeit in a different way than I thought at the time.

I knew it wasn’t a blanket/factory problem because I’d had a good few very basic plays around with it without any issue, I just hadn’t had time to properly integrate it into any sort of setup and go deep. I’d bought the main unit and switch separately, just not at a wide enough interval for it to be glaringly obvious that the it was the cause. As I’d mentioned before, this whole thing had gotten very woolly as I intermittently worked through the prime candidates for causing all this.

Once I’d eventually got around to trying it without the switch – the file/recording problem never happened again, literally never. So I just stopped using it and I sold the controller quite far down the line, well after it’d become apparent that it was linked.

For context – it really was a hail-mary reachout. I realise it’s my fault for not jumping on it within warranty, and putting myself in a position to be looking for a hack. It just seemed like a glitch and I just wasn’t in a position to have it easily serviced. I remember at the time, I couldn’t even afford to post it anywhere if I needed to. It’s had other problems over time e.g.it is disproportionately whingey when trying to sync, USB link to PC is glitchy (things I can live without easily, personally), plus the bits of the hardware I mentioned being a bit sketchy, plus reading other users’ issues with it on here does seem to indicate it’s not just my unit being touchy..

Now I just want to play with two hands without spending more money. I traded up to this device by repairing/flipping guitars and pedals, it’s way out of my normal bracket relative to what it actually is. I mean, I’d bought an used RC300 loopstation for £80 previously (ironic that the competitor’s piece was a foot controlled unit, hah) – I just much prefer your interface, and the price difference (even for used 45000’s) is probably why I expected it to be problem free. It isn’t, and that’s fine. Just a bit of a frustration/bummer for me now, like I say.

Sorry to go on.

Thanks Flick, appreciate the detailed response again. I’ve just repaired the 2nd broken PSU for now…

Yeah, the outstanding issue is that I can only get reliable operation as a desktop device i.e.without foot switching, which inhibits easy use with any 2 handed instrument. That is, at least without workarounds that affect performances and general intuitive use, which is a discreet but total bummer of an influence.

Sorry – yeah aware of the MIDI function, I didn’t mention that don’t own any MIDI controllers and purchasing more kit in this instance isn’t a go-er. e.g.The Tech21 is £150+ from Thomann Europe’s UK outlet. I’m not able anyway, but tbh I’m probably not willing to, even if I was. It’s too expensive for a workaround.

I was really hoping that since the 45000 footswitch connects just by instrument cable, that it worked by something along the lines of control voltage and some sort of modified generic non-latching switch could be utilised. Honestly all I really want is to trigger record on/off.

Resolved, thanks Flick. out of interest is there any info on what it is in the 45000 file system that causes this?

Quick update, narrowed it down a little more – recording track 1 on a new loop seems to be the issue. I can record on a new loop on track 2/3/4 but since track 1 sets the loop length, I’m pretty much limited to one loop of the click bars. I can then go back and record on track 1…