Project will not open

For seeking technical help with Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on MacOS.

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This forum is for seeking solutions to technical problems involving Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on MacOS, as well as feature requests, criticisms, comparison to other DAWs.
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prokeds
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Project will not open

Post by prokeds »

Hi all-

After a month away from a project, I tried to open it and DP becomes stuck at the "Welcome to Digital Performer" screen (for lack of a better name...) It is a fairly complicated project (at least for me) with many different versions of the stereo mixdown as well as all 16 of the channels, some with plugins, some without, etc.

I can open up any other project as usual, just not this one. Any way I try to "trick" DP into opening the project (i.e., opening a different project first to get DP going, then trying to open this one) it just goes back to that welcome screen, with my 10 most recent projects listed (including the one I'm trying to open.) Tried Open Recent from the File menu, but same result.

Tried opening up one of the saved backups in the project folder, but same result. Seems like there should be something obvious here that I'm overlooking...

Thanks all,

prokeds
MacPro Mid-2012 8GB RAM/4TB HD, OS 10.11.6, DP 8.07, 828x, 4pre
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Shooshie
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Re: Project will not open

Post by Shooshie »

First of all, did you restart your computer and DP? If so, and it still failed, continue:

Create a new file project, then use the LOAD command (File / Load ) to transfer your chunks, V-Racks, etc. into the new project. Read the options very carefully. Check them all if you are unsure. You want effects, soundbites, chunks, tracks, loops, all that kind of stuff. Maybe consoles if you have any in that file.

After selecting what you want to load, hit OK. If all goes right, you should end up with the chunks in your new file, and you should be able to play them just as they were in the old files, but without the corruption.

Shooshie
|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
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FMiguelez
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Re: Project will not open

Post by FMiguelez »

What Shooshie suggested should bring most projects back to life, and hopefully that solves it for you. But it's not infallible, I'm afraid, I've encountered situations where the file is so corrupted that DP won't even load it with the Load technique more often than I wish.

Does it crash, or it gets stuck in a permanent cycle?

Check if anything gets logged in OSX's Console. That may give you clues.
In my case, when I get what you describe, and the above suggested method doesn't work, it usually is that DP is looking for some kind of driver it can no longer find. In my case it's always some Mackie or Automap-related crap driver. Console would tell you this.

The only way I can recover these corrupted files is by opening and resaving them in another computer.

Other things you can try is Safe-Starting DP, and choosing an option to load without plugins.
Also, temporarily move the whole Analysis folder to another disk. If things persist, try the same with the Audio folder.

Also, trying it with a different DP version, even a full version number bellow, can occasionally fix extremely corrupted and stubborn DP files.

Given that your other projects open fine, I see little help in reinstalling DP or even delete its preferences.


It IS terrifying that your backups are corrupted as well.
How far back?
That has happened to me, and I wish you good luck in recovering them!

By backups I assume you mean DP's auto-save backups. Is this so? Do you have hourly Time Machine backups that are not corrupted?

If none of what Shooshie or I suggest work, it's probably time to start crying, or at least worrying a lot.
You'd have to re-do everything from your last known working version. Hopefully it won't be the case :cry:
Mac Mini Server i7 2.66 GHs/16 GB RAM / OSX 10.14 / DP 9.52
Tascam DM-24, MOTU Track 16, all Spectrasonics' stuff,
Vienna Instruments SUPER PACKAGE, Waves Mercury, slaved iMac and Mac Minis running VEP 7, etc.

---------------------------

"In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth." ― Richard Feynman
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Shooshie
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Re: Project will not open

Post by Shooshie »

Yeah, Fernando is right. There are a few projects that develop a corruption that this method won't solve, but I figured we'd start with it. If it didn't work, then we'd go to the next step.

One such step would be to remove your Digital Performer preferences folder/files from the Preferences folder in the User Library. If you need help getting to that, let us know. I think it appears in the Finder's Go menu if the Control Key or Shift Key or something like that is held down. Maybe Option? When the folder is open, do a folder search for Digital Performer, and it should pop right up, along with the PList. Drag those to the desktop (don't throw them out) and see if that fixes the problem.

If so, you can start putting prefs files back in, half at a time of any remaining files, until you have isolated the one(s) responsible. But we're getting way ahead of things. Let's just do one step at a time.

Shooshie
|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
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stubbsonic
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Re: Project will not open

Post by stubbsonic »

You could try creating a new user account and try opening from there. That would only help if the issue was isolated to the user folder.

Another option (that may be time consuming-- depending on how many third party plugs/VIs you use) would be to build a new start-up drive. You would need to install a clean system, a clean installation of DP, and install any plugins needed for the project. Then start up from there and try to open the project.

I think the Load Function is useful, but it could also be the case that you need to load the items incrementally, each time saving as a separate copy-- until you hit the load combination that includes the corrupt thing, whatever it is.

At least you have some stereo mixdowns in your project.
M1 MBP; OS 12, FF800, DP 11.3, Kontakt 7, Reaktor 6, PC3K7, K2661S, iPad6, Godin XTSA, Two Ibanez 5 string basses (1 fretted, 1 fretless), FM3, SY-1000, etc.

http://www.jonstubbsmusic.com
prokeds
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Re: Project will not open

Post by prokeds »

Thanks so much for the replies. I tried the load chunks method, and found that the soundbites would not load, but all the other info would, ie I got the sequence to load, with all the track names, automation, etc., but no audio. That actually made me feel much better... :) Then I tried removing all the Preferences files from DP, which did not help.

After a spending a bit of time on with MOTU tech support, we figured out that it was most likely a corrupted soundbite, so I will try narrowing the project down to the audio files/soundbites that I still need (which at this point is only a fraction of the total that exist in the project) and try loading just those into a new project.

Thanks again!

-prokeds
MacPro Mid-2012 8GB RAM/4TB HD, OS 10.11.6, DP 8.07, 828x, 4pre
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