DP8 launch crash [OUCH!! UNRESOLVED]

[stubbsonic]

Thanks, BK.

Perhaps I shouldn't have eliminated the RME driver as a possible cause. Even if it is not directly causing it, I suppose it is possible that the new driver may have caused damage to some other process.

I reinstalled the previous driver and even with the interface off-line the crashes remained.

It's only been about 5 days, but it feels like forever.

[philbrown]

It's probably too late in the game for this suggestion, but have you tried eliminating the RME driver altogether and using built-in audio, just while you're troubleshooting?

Also a question for anyone reading: could installing drivers leave hidden files behind that are still possibly causing problems? IOW, just removing the driver might leave behind other files that (maybe) an official uninstaller would (hopefully) remove. Just guessing here...

These are some weird problems and here's hoping you can get it resolved!

[frankf]

I don't use RME, but had a similar issue (DP crashing on launch) after migrating to Mavericks for ML. I dragged all DP preferences to the desktop for safe keeping then deleted the originals and let DP recreate them. That fixed the crashing. Of course, YMMV


Frank Ferrucci

[stubbsonic]

I've got a scheduled phone call with MOTU support tomorrow. I feel pretty confident we'll be able to sort it out. I'll report back with a summary on whatever I find out.

Right now I can launch DP in 64-bit from my main user acct. And I can launch it in either mode from another user acct. I just can't launch in 32-bit mode.

I'm theorizing that there may have been more than one "damaging events". I installed the new RME driver and it was acting strangely before a restart. I say that because the new software mixer for the FF800 had a bizarre display glitch. It may be possible this caused a glitch in the preference of another plug-in. I tried removing audio-related prefs, but I may have missed the damaged one.

Random fluke, perhaps. I guess I was due. Pretty smooth sailing for the last 12 months.

[stubbsonic]

[Edited for brevity & clarity]

MOTU Tech Support--specifically, Robin-- was great. We narrowed it down to a bad AU (either the AU itself was corrupted, or its preferences).

Narrowing down the specific problem was a little extra tricky because it caused a fairly early crash of DP which also damaged DP's preferences. Also, the "fix" took at least two launch attempts to clear out the issue. Thus, I had to trash DP's prefs (see below) between all changes, and try at least two launches to determine if the fix worked.

The steps to troubleshoot went like this:

1. Try a different user account. DP did not crash.
2. Try using DP in 64-bit mode with my main acct. DP did not crash.
3. Try removing all AU's and VSTs from root library/audio/plugins/...(copy to another location and delete). DP launched after two tries.
4. Now, using a process of elimination, I had to put smaller batches of AUs back into the components folder, each time deleting DP's prefs. After this, I would have to launch DP three times to make sure it was a permanent failure/fix.
5. Using this process, I narrowed it down to a single plugin, called the AAS player-- which is from Applied Acoustics Systems.
6. Once I got that out of the Components (and I took it out of the VST folder too, just for superstitious purposes), DP crashed one-time, then was fully functional after that.

These were the DP prefs I was trashing each time:
user library (unhidden)/preferences/com.motu.Digital Performer (the whole folder)
com.motu.MotuAudioSystem (again, a folder) and
com.motu.DigitalPerformer.plist (which wasn't always present, depending on the stage of testing)

Having to trash DP prefs and launch more than once was just the nature of this particular issue.

I've contacted AAS to find out which installer puts the AAS Player into the plugins/components. I'll get a fresh one and checksum it with the "problem one". That will show whether it is AU's prefs or the AU itself.

That's all I've got for now. If you have any questions, I'm happy to follow up.

[cuttime]

Thanks for posting this. These are very good troubleshooting tips for a variety of circumstances. Could even be a sticky?

[bayswater]

Thanks for posting this. These are very good troubleshooting tips for a variety of circumstances. Could even be a sticky?

Or in tips and tricks for crash free DP. "How to find and get rid of a bad plugin"

[stubbsonic]

Apparently this type of crash (that damages DPs prefs) is pretty rare, but Robin identified it pretty early. HE'S A WIZARD.

[Shooshie]

So glad you were able to fix it, stubbsonic! And props to Robin@Motu!

Shoosh

[stubbsonic]

Just adding another iteration to this.

I tried re-installing the newer RME FF800 driver (just to see) and it broke DP again. Since I no longer had that AAS Player AU, it appears to have damaged something else.

At least now, I'll stick with the old driver and use TIME MACHINE to restore the plug-ins and prefs folders. I'll wipe DP's prefs and hopefully be back up & running.

[Shooshie]

I get the feeling that OS X has been getting more sensitive to driver issues. Any time that I turn on my MOTU audio interfaces, it means I'll get a freeze on shut down of the Mac. Most processes seem to go on working as normal, but there are Finder issues, and when I try to restart to correct everything, it always freezes after the screen goes black. I have to force-shutdown every time.

No, I still haven't rebuilt my OS, and I may not have time to do that for several months, so this could again be unique to my system and whatever flaws I've developed from old drivers, applications, or other processes that I can't fix without a clean install. But This problem began in Mountain Lion, occasionally, and now happens every time I turn on an audio interface. The particular driver seems to be the 896k3 firewire driver. Maybe I should try USB. Whatever. It's really getting old. The whole OS is getting tiresome, as are probably my complaints about it. Yeah, yeah, get on with a clean install, why don't I? Well, that's personal and private, but just suffice to say that my time will be in short supply for a while, perhaps a long while. Meanwhile, I'll just deal with forced shutdowns, icon-less aliases, trackpad gestures that quit working (not those of Jitouch, but the Apple defaults, the pinch-expand scaling of pages and pictures, page forward/page back, etc), the slow responses to disc wake-up, and a number of niggling little details that nobody wants to hear again.

Thankfully, I haven't had any problems yet with Digital Performer, but I'm not using all aspects of DP right now. Just mixing previously recorded audio with the occasional new tracks. I'm keeping fingers crossed, knocking on wood, or whatever fealty or blockage the gremlins require to stay out of DP.

Shooshie

[stubbsonic]

So with the 2nd attempt to install the new RME driver, this time it has cause problems with the MIDI driver and the OS's MIDI server.

Of course, I'm now back with the previous, known-working, RME FF800 driver, but still cannot clear up the MIDI driver issue. I've tried reinstalling DP, reinstalling the old drivers, repairing permissions.

Actually, I haven't even been trying DP, because the issue is being caught at the AudioMIDI Setup stage. DP would either crash, or fail to launch bringing up a MIDI driver error.

Removing the Fireface MIDI driver gets things working again, but I need that driver as my main controller is MIDI'ed into the FF800.

I don't think the driver is damaged, because it worked before (and it should be a fresh installation. However, I can't find any prefs related to it. What prefs I could find for RME or Fireface were trashed to no avail.

I'm beginning to think Shooshie is right about a big fresh install party. But I'm sure I'd mess something up and it would take DAYS. I guess this has already taken long enough. Hmmmm.

[stubbsonic]

Ok. I'm starting to panic now.

1. This is clearly related to RME's driver and not MOTU, so I can't expect MOTU's support to keep helping me on this. YIKES!!!

2. I've tried all the methods from before and reinstalling, clearing prefs, running from another account, and nothing is working.

3. I'm not knowledgable enough to know what prefs to look for in either the root prefs or user prefs to find any problems. And now I'm feeling pretty stuck.

4. I don't understand enough about Time Machine to know how to selectively restore different aspects of my system from a happy time, without losing work subsequent to all-hell's-broke-lose.

I'd appreciate any words of reassurance in this moment. Advice would be a bonus!!!

[Michael Canavan]

IMO, and keep in mind I'm trying to help here, you're barking up the wrong tree with the RME driver. If a bad AU fixed it, it's not unlikely that another bad AU is breaking it again, and RME driver business is just clouding the issue. You're using a 32 bit version of DP to run plug ins that likely have all been updated to run in 64 bit, on an OS that uses it, the testing that goes into your setup, i.e. latest OS and 32 bit system with various plug ins is usually unfortunately not that good. Mac users tend to be early adopters and developers know that, rush to keep up, and tend to let the chips fall where they may with older system configurations. This is IMO the unintended downside to AU's being both 32 and 64 bit unlike VSTs that have to have separate versions.

I run a FF800 latest drivers, own all AAS stuff and am on Mavericks, but! I'm on 64 bit DP8.
RME are insanely good with drivers, I've never had any real issues with them, and they tend to publish complete damage reports on any problem that comes up, blaming themselves or the relevant third party.

The first thing to do is to pull all plug ins into a 'disabled plug in folder' (simply create one in your plug ins directory, that works fine), then trash preferences, and update the RME driver. If DP runs fine, then you know it's an AU. Then the process of bringing plug ins back in at 50% at a time to detect the bad one begins.

What's keeping you on 32 bit anyway? It's very likely the entire problem goes away since I don't have this issue.

[stubbsonic]

Thanks for the suggestions, Michael.

IMO, and keep in mind I'm trying to help here, you're barking up the wrong tree with the RME driver. If a bad AU fixed it, it's not unlikely that another bad AU is breaking it again, and RME driver business is just clouding the issue.

My theory is that something about the RME driver is causing a crash that is damaging the preferences of any AU's that are loading during the time of the crash.

But you may be right, it might be something else that is affecting both RME and other things.

You're using a 32 bit version of DP to run plug ins that likely have all been updated to run in 64 bit, on an OS that uses it, the testing that goes into your setup, i.e. latest OS and 32 bit system with various plug ins is usually unfortunately not that good.

Another great point. The only evidence I can offer is that I was operating problem-free until I installed the new RME driver. When I went back to the old driver I could get it to work. When I went back to the new driver it broke again. I realize that doesn't prove that the RME driver is the cause. I just don't know what the other factor is.

The first thing to do is to pull all plug ins into a 'disabled plug in folder' (simply create one in your plug ins directory, that works fine), then trash preferences, and update the RME driver. If DP runs fine, then you know it's an AU. Then the process of bringing plug ins back in at 50% at a time to detect the bad one begins.

I'm doing a process like that just to try to get up & running with the older driver. But now the crashes are more irregular.

What's keeping you on 32 bit anyway? It's very likely the entire problem goes away since I don't have this issue.

I have a couple projects that have some IL Drumaxxx tracks. (I think they now have a beta 64-bit version.) Big Tick Rhino, IL Morphine, and several others. I suppose I could live without them, but I didn't really have any burning need to go to 64 bit.