DP9 Keeps Crashing

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Guitar Gaz
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DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by Guitar Gaz »

DP 9 now keeps crashing having changed in Preferences to the Default screen and to get the Welcome to DP screen. How do I get out of this crash cycle and why is it crashing because of the default them Welcome screen?
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cleamon
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by cleamon »

Guitar Gaz wrote:DP 9 now keeps crashing having changed in Preferences to the Default screen and to get the Welcome to DP screen. How do I get out of this crash cycle and why is it crashing because of the default them Welcome screen?
Delete your preferences file?
----------------------------------------------
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mikehalloran
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by mikehalloran »

Open Console to see if anything is trying to load that shouldn't or vise versa such as the Mackie HUI plugin. Sometimes a reinstall of DP fixes that.
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Guitar Gaz
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by Guitar Gaz »

mikehalloran wrote:Sometimes a reinstall of DP fixes that.
Thanks Mike - a reinstall was the answer at least to getting out of the crash loop. Not sure if it was a reaction to 10.10.4 from last night - so repaired the permissions after re-install.
Gary Shepherd
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Guitar Gaz
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by Guitar Gaz »

cleamon wrote: Delete your preferences file?
A good one which I had forgotten - which I suppose shows how little DP has crashed on me over the years. Thanks.
Gary Shepherd
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mikehalloran
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by mikehalloran »

I've never had to delete my Preferences files for DP.

Reinstalled many times after an OS upgrade. DP 7 requires an uninstall first but DP 8 & 9 do not (no uninstaller).
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by yamguitar »

I'm actually having the same issue. The first install seemed to work fine, but subsequent startups have always crashed after loading the plugins. After rebooting, reinstalling, trashing prefs, etc., etc., with no success, I decided there must be a plugin problem. However, after uninstalling all plugins, trying to start up in safe mode, and so on... still no love. In desperation I tried launching the program by opening the test project I'd made on first install, and DP fired up without issue.

After some experimentation, I found that if I set my DP startup preference to "None" rather than the "Welcome to DP" screen, everything worked smoothly, but even selecting "Welcome to DP" from the Help menu would cause a crash. Incidentally, none of the crashes ever generated a crash log.

The couple of times I was able to access the welcome screen, the template selection window actually showed the word "Template", rather than the name of a template, and clicking on it the first time would not reveal the list of template options. A second click on it would sometimes bring them up... so at this stage I think that the problem actually has something to do with DP not being able to find something, or with one of my templates from a previous version... but I don't know. I'm able to use the program, but this weirdness has really put me on my guard, and I don't like feeling like the Sword of Digitalperformercles is hanging right over my head... :shake:
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by stubbsonic »

mikehalloran wrote:I've never had to delete my Preferences files for DP.

Reinstalled many times after an OS upgrade. DP 7 requires an uninstall first but DP 8 & 9 do not (no uninstaller).
Trashing prefs has solve crash issues MANY times for me. Perahps when you reinstall, the thing you are fixing is corrupt prefs.

As I understand it, there are times when DP crashes during the moment that it is updating its preferences.
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mikehalloran
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by mikehalloran »

Too many people suggest trashing Preferences first as if it is a panacea for every problem. Problem is that you have to rebuild them by resetting which takes time. If that's not the problem, no thanks.

I like to diagnose and know the problem first. I run Console to see what is happening. With 8, the normal culprit is the Mackie HUI plugin failing to load. I don't know why that happens but fix is to reinstall DP, Repair Permissions and reboot.

With 7, the problem is failing to load plugins. The fix is to Uninstall/Reinstall.

Neither involves Preferences and, by not trashing them, they stay intact.

For me, it only happens after an OS upgrade. Not every time but if it happens, that's when. BTW, it always affects both 7 and 8, never just one.

Uninstalling and reinstalling DP 7 takes about three minutes (five if your disk is not 7.24); reinstalling DP 8 takes one.

I'm not saying that trashing the Prefs is never warranted, only that I've never had to do it. I would never do it without reinstalling DP first.

BTW, the correct procedure is to save your Preferences to another folder first, then Trash them. That way, if it's not the problem, you can restore them.

Apparently, there is an issue with the DP 9 Welcome screen. I'm not experiencing it but if you are, disabling it as suggested earlier is a good idea. If that solves the immediate problem, I'd go with that. BTW, early builds of DP 8 had the exact problem after the OS 10.9.1 update (which caused many other problems) and it turned out that reinstalling fixed it.

If I do experience that problem in 9, you can bet that I will be running Console to see what is trying to load and failing. Will it be the HUI plugin again or something else? Whatever the problem is, it will show up, I'm pretty certain.
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yamguitar
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by yamguitar »

Hey, mikehalloran, I tried your suggestion... I ran Console while firing up DP, and guess what was causing the crash?... That Mackie plugin, just as you said. I reinstalled, repaired permissions and rebooted, and as before, the first startup of DP worked fine, but then it crashed again on every subsequent startup. Any suggestions on what to do with that plugin? Tried removing it... didn't seem to fix the problem. Thoughts?
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MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Is there a plist file for it (in sure there is). If it's a corrupted plist that could happen. Shut the apps and trash the Mackie plist. Repair permissions again.

Should do it unless there's some other conflict.
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yamguitar
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by yamguitar »

Thanks for the suggestion, MIDI Life Crisis... very much appreciated. It made a lot of sense, but on searching it seems there's not actually a related .plist file like that. There are a few threads on the forums I've found in which people have had the exact same issue with several iterations of DP. The only fixes so far seem to be either reinstall (tried that repeatedly) or wait for an update. Guess waiting is where I am at the moment. Thanks for your help!
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MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Or contact MOTU...
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by billf »

yamguitar wrote:Hey, mikehalloran, I tried your suggestion... I ran Console while firing up DP, and guess what was causing the crash?... That Mackie plugin, just as you said. I reinstalled, repaired permissions and rebooted, and as before, the first startup of DP worked fine, but then it crashed again on every subsequent startup. Any suggestions on what to do with that plugin? Tried removing it... didn't seem to fix the problem. Thoughts?
It could be something beyond the plugins.

* Do you have anything such as Soundflower, Jack, older versions of Audio Hijack, etc. installed?
* Are you running 32 bit plugins through 32 Lives? If so, is that up to date?
* Are your audio and MIDI drivers up to date?
* Are you running any PCI cards?
* Have you tried disconnecting all external devices, set Core Audio to run through Built In, and tried launching DP?
* Is DP set to run in 32 bit mode or 64 bit mode?
* Do you have any other installs of DP on your system?
* Have you verified that all your RAM is not corrupted?


These types of things are all variables which could affect your system, so I would recommending examining those and to ensure the source of the issue isn't external to DP itself.
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Re: DP9 Keeps Crashing

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

yamguitar: have you tried starting up holding down the option key? From there you can disable all plugs. If it crashes from there, then the plugs are clearly NOT your problem. If I am reading your post correctly. DP is crashing at startup and not after loading a project. Is that correct? Projects can and (rarely) do get corrupted as well.

FWIW, I had MONDO problems after installing Waves products - and that was across all my apps that access plugs. I've never had any luck with Waves stuff on my Macs - not ever. Just some anecdotal evidence...
mikehalloran wrote:Too many people suggest trashing Preferences first as if it is a panacea for every problem. Problem is that you have to rebuild them by resetting which takes time. If that's not the problem, no thanks.
Trashing plists is a no brainer and in many cases will, in fact, fix problems in a lot of apps.

If one's rationale is "I won't do it because it doesn't work..." then I think that's a bit misguided. It's a pretty standard troubleshooting procedure.

If, OTOH, the rationale is "I won't do it because I don't want to have to reset my prefs..." that's putting "convenience" ahead of troubleshooting, which often leads to a circuitous path that ultimately ends up deleting the plists at some point - perhaps many hours or days later. In the meantime, one might have solved a crashing program in a matter of seconds.

Plists also can and (often) do get corrupted. Once they do, they need to be rebuilt. Again, a no brainier and not that big of a deal to restore settings from a copy - at least during initial testing. Alternately, you can always re-copy the recently removed plist, have the app open again creating a fresh one (w/o your prefs) to see if it helps. If it does, your plist is hosed. Get over it. If it doesn't help, just pop that sucker back in the library and start the circuitous route. It's fast, easy, effective, and the absolute simplest troubleshooting you can do on a Mac.

It need not be all that complicated to start with. Simple can be good.

Note: As far as reconstructing them, you can always restore a plist from Time Machine or save a copy outside the library from when the app is working correctly and your settings are the way you want. When you are testing the plists you can just drag that saved one into the library again.
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