UNofficial Digital Performer Community bug list discussion

[Robert Randolph]

Fixed the report generator always saying issue not filed and not confirmed. D'oh!

edit: Fixed OS/DP version tag too.

[Robert Randolph]

I will not be maintaining this issues list any further.

There's a number of reasons, but overall the effort vs value is very heavily skewed towards the 'effort' side.

Hopefully Motu steps up and opens up with the community so that attempts like this are not necessary in the future.

Thank you to everyone that participated!

[toodamnhip]

I will not be maintaining this issues list any further.

There's a number of reasons, but overall the effort vs value is very heavily skewed towards the 'effort' side.

Hopefully Motu steps up and opens up with the community so that attempts like this are not necessary in the future.

Thank you to everyone that participated!

Wow man, You're not the 1st to try to help MOTU and thereafter have to “quit”. Understandable.
There have been so many arguments about MOTU over the yrs. Arguments Pro and Con. They are great at their software, their softwares sucks, etc. Back and forth. I have always argued for more open-ness.

I think the only thing I understand about MOTU is that I really don;t understand MOTU’s inner working very much. And also think they are good, dedicated people.
By the way, have you had any feedback or reciprocation from MOTU from this thread or your efforts?
For the entire history of my participation in these forums I have wished MOTU was more inter active. Magic Dave and a few others come around and do chime in. And that can be great. But of course, all of us users want even more understanding of what is going on with bugs and features...dont we?
Not being behind the scenes at a software company besides various beta work I do, I often wonder if all the closed off communication about bugs is helpful to various companies, including MOTU.
Yes, of course, secrecy in new, cutting edge developments is warranted. But there are companies way more open about bugs than MOTU is, and I find these companies refreshing and always encourage MOTU to err more on the OPEN side of communication.
Thanks for your efforts brotha.

[James Steele]

I will not be maintaining this issues list any further.

There's a number of reasons, but overall the effort vs value is very heavily skewed towards the 'effort' side.

Hopefully Motu steps up and opens up with the community so that attempts like this are not necessary in the future.

Thank you to everyone that participated!

Wow man, You're not the 1st to try to help MOTU and thereafter have to “quit”. Understandable.
There have been so many arguments about MOTU over the yrs. Arguments Pro and Con. They are great at their software, their softwares sucks, etc. Back and forth. I have always argued for more open-ness.

I think the only thing I understand about MOTU is that I really don;t understand MOTU’s inner working very much. And also think they are good, dedicated people.
By the way, have you had any feedback or reciprocation from MOTU from this thread or your efforts?
For the entire history of my participation in these forums I have wished MOTU was more inter active. Magic Dave and a few others come around and do chime in. And that can be great. But of course, all of us users want even more understanding of what is going on with bugs and features...dont we?
Not being behind the scenes at a software company besides various beta work I do, I often wonder if all the closed off communication about bugs is helpful to various companies, including MOTU.
Yes, of course, secrecy in new, cutting edge developments is warranted. But there are companies way more open about bugs than MOTU is, and I find these companies refreshing and always encourage MOTU to err more on the OPEN side of communication.
Thanks for your efforts brotha.

I think much of it is just that it takes a LOT of effort and we all, yourself included, have a lot going on. Time is at a premium and who wants to take on volunteer work of this nature? I'll give you the short answer: almost nobody. And I can't blame them.

Whenever I'd be criticized for how I run this board, I would inform that person that there is free, publicly-available bulletin board software they could obtain, and start their own MOTU-related board. I have never seen one person take me up on the offer.

Likewise, I often have people say, "Hey, why don't you add this or that feature to the board? Or start a post that documents such and such?" I will often say, "That's a great idea! Would you like to take it on?" The answer is always "Uhhh, well, you know... MY time is just so valuable and I have projects and I'm so busy, and...". Right. Like the rest of us here aren't?

Anyway, I also appreciate Robert's efforts. It lasted longer than I expected it to, honestly. It's a quite thankless task and like the rest of us I'm sure he's got other things going on. As for MOTU's presence here, they do read this forum, but they're busy too and for whatever reason don't always acknowledge issues here. This is NOT an official MOTU site, so they're under no obligation to do so.

By now, we all know that MOTU is fairly tight lipped about what is going on behind the scenes. That's not news. Either way, as long as DP works for me, I will continue using it.

[toodamnhip]

I continue using it too. Many of us have various issues. I am currently mixing in DP 8 because DP 9.02 stops correctly chasing automation after a file gets beyond a certain, unknown size. And, if I want to use the comp tool without playback glitching after each comp tool maneuver, I have to re start every time I do any pasting. And I haven;t touched DP after 9.02 because the new next gen pre gen works terrible on my system. I think many of us use DP in various incarnations, from the latest version, back to some using it back at DP 6 even. So we love the program even if it is broken in various incarnations, work flows and scenarios. And being “busy”, yeah, I don;t have time to make these bugs my goal in life. I’ve grown a bit apathetic about anything above 9.02 and don;t even try to work with MOTU on it. I’m sure they’ll get it right, and for many, it is somehow “right” already.
It is great that you James, have devoted the time you have to keep this forum afloat. I am sure there have been moments when you could have gone to some global erase button in your admin account, and wiped this whole forum...lol. (Many times after dealing with me... ) I think DP would be a far lesser program without this forum and think you deserve a paycheck from MOTU, (and I have a feeling you’ve intentionally stayed independent).

So to anyone banging away to push MOTU to improve bugs, or who comes here and give users advise, we all owe a debt.
As we do to this MOTUnation user community.
I hope once in awhile MOTU says thanks to you James, whether you want it or not.

[stubbsonic]

[quote="Robert Randolph"

Thank you to everyone that participated! [/quote]

Huge thanks to you, Robert Randolph, for all your efforts thus far on these bug reports. It was a very helpful place to come when there was a particular nagging issue and we wanted to see if it was just our system, or if others were noticing it.

But yea, I've seen the work you have to do, and it seems like too much.

[Tobor]

Major props to all of you on this page. Like the tone of the discussion just above.

Robert and toodamn, thanks for trying to make DP as good as it can be while constantly being subjected to a barrage of insults by the usual thread derailers.

And James, of course, you're a major reason why MOTU has enjoyed the success it has to this point. An arbiter supreme, you've also been tested again and again by unnecessary bickering.

I'll keep it short, but lately I have become so discouraged by all the shouting down of people who were expressing concerns for problems I was also experiencing that I....perish the thought....actually started looking in to what the other major DAWs were up to.

Soon enough my research found, as I suspected, that ALL major DAWs have some aggravating issues, so have dropped any further thoughts of testing other waters for now. I love DP and for the life of me can't understand why it doesn't get more love from the internet community.

There are some GREAT helpful people on this forum, couldn't get along without them. But we really haven't seen many new faces for quite some time. Too often I've seen a new poster here because he's struggling with a problem in DP (yes, many times it's because of ignorance/lack of knowledge, but sometimes it's because of an actual issue) only to be blindsided and dispatched with glee in the name of "protecting" MOTU. My guess is that many of these potential DP users decide to just move on to trying another DAW, someone gets another thread kill decal but MOTU loses a customer.

Of course I guess it's true that most of us are here because our Macs are screwed up. But if your Mac ISN"T screwed up, please leave the Troubleshooting Forum and its threads in peace so that the rest of us can help each other find solutions to our problems. If your post isn't trying to be helpful, don't post.

Please. And thank you.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I've had logistical concerns about the undertaking from the start. It is A LOT of data coming in, requiring a lot of time interpreting that data into a meaningful presentation to MOTU. Having even ONE serious "bug" that is a productivity blocker, or worse, a work stopper, can be a full time task when it is severe enough. Most of us have been there and will likely be again. Computers ain't perfect.

My bigger concern was for the board itself and how the results would be displayed, commented on, etc. That is more for an entire site to be dedicated to. WE chase down bugs already on this site and the search feature will usually call up similar issues if it's a bona fide bug. So I'd still love to see in depth reporting and assistance from Robert and others, but from within a specific thread on that specific problem. It just never made sense to me that the efforts would be kept in a single thread. I find those so tedious and once you get past 17 or so pages, who reads all that? As James said, no one has time, especially pros and that's predominantly who responds to such posts.

A director I once worked with said: If you want to get something done, ask a busy person to do it.

Thank you Robert, for putting up with my eternal "Devil's Advocate" positioning and for your efforts.

[Robert Randolph]

#1, Thanks everyone!

. I find those so tedious and once you get past 17 or so pages, who reads all that? As James said, no one has time, especially pros and that's predominantly who responds to such posts.

This is the majority of the difficulty.

I don't mind spending the up to 12 hours(!) to make sure a bug is really a bug. I really do test it on multiple perfectly clean installs, on 2 computers. Sometimes it requires re-loading an OS image multiple times (since VMs are unreliable for testing audio software, especially performance issues).

But to keep the effort down, I would need more community interaction than I think is reasonable to ask. Having another one/two people checking issues, always having at least 1 concise/clear report, reports actually going to the thread etc.. Plus at least one person from Motu saying, "Yeah, got it. Thanks guys!" I know they see it, and they reached out to me twice, but when it's not public then it dilutes the whole idea a considerable amount.

I'm not blaming anyone at all. I think that I expected too much from a community of largely working professionals. I actually enjoy doing this stuff after a long-day of work, but I understand that most folks want to just watch tv, tinker with trains or whatever your hobbies are. 100% reasonable!

Hear's hoping that the next version of DP obsoletes the idea of a issues list anyway

[MIDI Life Crisis]

DP X will be bug free.

[stubbsonic]

The structure of keeping a well-formatted Bug List in one thread, and a more freeform bug discussion on another thread was what I thought was so brilliant and necessary. -- but yea, hard to enforce the strict format and too much behind the scenes work.

For me, searching the forum for regular bug threads is not always very effective. Thankfully, forum members are very generous to test things and say, "same here" or "not happening here."

For new users who run into a snag, they can scan the bug list and get the "lay of the land". If they see their bug, they are done. They can see the work-arounds and know that MOTU has gotten contacted. (Or additionally contact MOTU themselves).

For more experienced users, they can both contribute to the list, and offer workarounds as they can. Importantly, there are some bugs that experienced users SHOULD know about. For example, the one that cause audio to be shifted by some number of samples. Even experienced users might not zoom in enough to see it, but would still need to know it was happening.

An official bug list is a valuable resource, but it is a herculean task to ask of anyone without a team to maintain it. The obvious question is whether or not we can find a compromise/middle-ground-- perhaps a combination of a well-formatted report framework, that includes workarounds, some guidelines (like putting "SOLVED" in the subject line, etc), and reporting any bug-fixes that are released with .0X updates, etc.

But yea, I guess without someone to do the additional herding of the cats (beyond what is already necessary), it wouldn't happen.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I agree with Stubby. It's a big job and best left to a team. Maybe call them MOTU Tech Support? Catchy.

[stubbsonic]

IIRC, that was the whole point of this list, was that the MOTU tech support team did not publish a Known/Acknowledged Bugs list. There was some disagreement as to whether or not they SHOULD.

The specific task of the "team effort" to which I referred was to help confirm and isolate bugs (i.e., narrowing down conditions, etc.) and to provide workarounds-- and publicly list and organize them-- something that MOTU's tech support is not set up to do.

I found the list quite useful, but because I am still in 8.07, and MOTU is probably not going to be fixing bugs in that version, my sole need is for workarounds and warnings.

[Robert Randolph]

I agree with Stubby. It's a big job and best left to a team. Maybe call them MOTU Tech Support? Catchy.

If they shared with us what are known issues, confirmed, workarounds etc... then yes.

As it is, it is a black box from where you may not even get the same answer twice (if you talk to different folks!)

I can barely imagine how much time support wastes responding to the same issues because there is no good way of knowing what is known.

[toodamnhip]

I can barely imagine how much time support wastes responding to the same issues because there is no good way of knowing what is known.

Thus MOTU should publish their own darn bug list..but they don’t, and that sucks.