Some problems with DP 8.07 lately.

[RROY]

What could be causing DP to behave this way. I have had audio tracks randomly changing into the solid black bars, when they were nicely drawn wave forms, not that bad as merging fixes that but when you have done a few punch ins on a track and can't see the waveform for editing prior to merging, not so good. Crashes when trying to edge edit soundbites after recording, (reported to Motu numerous times). Spinning beach ball after recording(not all the time). Occasional beach ball after hitting play. I am recording onto a separate internal HD with a fair amount of space left on it. Any one with suggestions or ideas to try? Thanks for any replies.

[RROY]

Nobody has any clues? Trashing of preference files? Hard Drive problem? I've never had these issues before, so I'm not sure what to do. I have opened a Tech Link with Motu.

[mikehalloran]

Reinstall DP, Repair Permissions and reboot. This often fixes minor or even major issues. There's no uninstaller and nothing to delete.

If you still have the issue, try deleting the Preferences. When you delete Preferences, move them to a desktop folder and reboot. That way, if nothing changes, you can put them back. .

If you still have a problem, read on.

Bad RAM? Bad drive? Software conflict? Where to begin? Let's start hardware.

Run disk utility on all of the drives. If anything shows up in red, keep running Repair Disk till it's fixed or pops the exact same errors three times in a row. Then get the data onto a new drive. Option-Boot into your Repair partition if you have to to test all your drives (if you have no repair partition, you created your boot drive from a clone. Reinstall the OS to create the partition).

TechTool Pro is the best tool for diagnosing RAM. It finds bad sticks that less demanding tools miss. Run the test immediately after a problem as RAM issues can be intermittent. The weirdest symptoms are usually RAM. You have a graphics issue. Test the V-RAM, too.

How long since your NV RAM battery has been changed? If five years or more, change it. A Mac Pro before 2013 can use a CR2032 instead of the original BR2032. A bad battery is worse than no battery and can cause unexplainable weirdness.

Software

The first thing to find is if there's a process interfering or failing. Open the Background Processing window in DP. Open Console.app to see if a process is trying to load or failing when this happens.

What happens when you boot from your DP drive? Install an OS and see.

[RROY]

Thanks Mike, I will try the re-install first.

[monkey man]

I doubt it's a drive, and if you have different numbers of other apps running every time you experience this issue then I'm betting it's not RAM as you'll be employing different "sectors" of the modules for DP.

My standard, almost-can't-go-wrong response to these sorts of issues (freezing, glitching and graphic anomalies), is to remove all 3rd-party plugs from their plug-in folders, placing them into adjacent "Components Disabled" or whatever ones.

Fire DP up. If all's well, add, say, the first half of your plugs. If no good, remove half, and so on, until you find the culprit.

Just be sure to quit DP before moving them around each time.

Good luck, RROY.

[RROY]

I have done the re-install and just today deleted Pref. files. Seems to be better after rebuilding Pref. files. I'll try that for awhile see how DP behaves. Hopefully I wont have to go any farther then that. Got a quick reply from my Motu Tech Link. They suggested deleting Pref. files and folders MotuAudioSystem and DigitalPerformer not just the DP.plist.

[RROY]

Upgrading to DP 9.01 seems to have solved my problems.

[monkey man]

Awesome, mate.