Do's ans Don't's for a Crash free DP

[Spikey Horse]

- When performing a 'bounce to disk' operation on a project with a large track count select a destination folder on a separate hard drive from the one with all your project audio data. The default folder is usually your projects audio files folder but I find with large projects and full mix bounces this is asking for trouble.

- As soon as you notice DP hesitate slightly before giving you that drop down menu you clicked on, or take longer than usual to carry out any operation, or behave different than normal then be aware you are in a potential crash zone - don't just get huffy and start clicking faster - first thing to do is save, then ask yourself what could be slowing DP down and if you can't think of a good reason just do anything to take the strain off DP anyway ie flush unecessary history, close uneeded windows especially plug in windows, quit Safari and so on ...

- Before closing a project (and so saving it for the last time) leave it in the state you'll want it in when opening again and also think about your work flow. ie opening this project again after lunch just to grab some MIDI data is a pain if you have to wait for the 16 large orchestral programs to load in the soft sampler first. Actually, that's not really about crashing.

- Disable two player mode, I mean background proccessing, at all times. If you need DP to find beats etc in 20 different audio tracks you can ask it to do so at an appropriate moment.

- Try not to disrupt you mac's power supply too often when tracking, also keep your mac indoors, at least in the winter months or make sure to cover with a tarpaulin to avoid frost damage.

[philbrown]

- As soon as you notice DP hesitate slightly before giving you that drop down menu you clicked on, or take longer than usual to carry out any operation, or behave different than normal then be aware you are in a potential crash zone - don't just get huffy and start clicking faster - first thing to do is save, then ask yourself what could be slowing DP down and if you can't think of a good reason just do anything to take the strain off DP anyway ie flush unecessary history, close uneeded windows especially plug in windows, quit Safari and so on ...

Very well stated Spikey!

[dtobocman]

Occasionally a certain specific set of actions done very rapid-fire will crash a program (not just DP). Sometimes slowing down and letting the computer accomplish each step can help. A good rule of thumb is let your computer catch up with your commands rather than getting too far ahead of it. This especially applies to older or slower computers or ones heavily taxed.

Actually, this reminds me of the biggest stumbling block...

After DP does an audio recording, stop the transport and wait ONE SECOND before locating to a new location. Invariably, over half of my crashes (or near-interminable spinning balls) are preceded by me stopping an audio recording and trying to locate somewhere too quickly.

It's a big one.

[Splinter]

THis shouldn't be a "crash-free" thread, rather "how to dodge a crash." Point being, should I really have to hold my mouth just right to keep DP from crashing? I acknowledge there are some come sense things you should do to keep DP or any app from crashing but this is ridiculous.

[Shooshie]

Whew! Reading through these lists, if DP really required us to do all these things, then it would be one of the worst-programmed apps on the planet. I acknowledge that as an ideal, all of these things may contribute to healthier work habits and fewer crashes, but I'm inclined to group suggestions into 1st-tier, 2nd-tier, and so on. There are some things that produce measurable results, instantly. Starting from fresh RAM, for instance, reduces spiking for me, as well as other problems, so when I'm about to work on something serious, I reboot the computer first. But even this memory swap problem is not as serious as it once was.

The thing about sleeping is only a problem if it tries to sleep while you are recording or playing. Then it can be a real problem, but in the old days sleeping was an absolute no-no. You had to turn it off or risk crashes on wakeup. That no longer is the case unless you turn off (or on) your interfaces while the computer is asleep.

So, some things are more-or-less required, while others are only suggested. And if you can get by without doing any of these things, then power to you. DP is pretty resilient. I've gotten brave enough to open a full raft of programs in the background while running DP, or to put the computer to sleep (not while DP is doing something, of course), and to run Safari, even downloading files in the background while working in DP in the foreground, or vice versa. When I'm doing something sensitive in DP, I do avoid all those things.

Bottom line, I would not want anyone to think that this is a list of absolutes. If you're having a lot of crashes, just try these suggestions one-by-one until you find a few that seem to help.

Shooshie

[billf]

Here are some of the rules I use:

* Don't be an early adopter. Once new drivers, OS versions, etc. are released, let others do the debugging. My rule of thumb is wait at least 30 days after a release before upgrading.

* When updating dot versions of OSX (e.g. OSX 10.4.3 to 10.4.4), download the COMBO updated from Apple support area. NEVER update your OS from the Software Update function under the Apple Menu (unless you like living dangerously).

* Always keep older versions of OS updates, drivers, etc. backed up. Even better, keep a disk image before updating. That way if you do an update and start having problems, a rollback to the previous system state is fairly easy.

* Never do updates in the middle of a project. Ever.

[Splinter]

Most of these are common sense and I do almost every one, but it doesn't make DP "crash-free." Most of these suggestions, while they do help, should be completely unnecessary for a professional recording package. DP just ought to be more robust.

Most of my crashes are related to editing or more "advanced" CPU intensive tasks, but not always. They're just bugs... Period. Don't get me wrong... I can go weeks without a crash. But get into a heavy editing session and I can have 2 or 3 crashes in a day even if I merge soundbites, remove unused soundbites, and flush the undo, though I shouldn't have to do any of that.

I'm a DP die-hard guys, I just don't want to live in denial that DP needs some overhauling. There's just a bunch of loose ends MOTU needs to go over with a fine tooth comb and fix.

[Splinter]

* Never do updates in the middle of a project. Ever.

That's the best suggestion I've seen yet. I've had that go south on me before and had to take 2 days to reformat, install and authorize my system.

[mitchman411]

Anyone having trouble with DP4.6.1 crashing while quitting the program. I don't think I've ever had 4.1 crash on me. But now that I've upgraded to:

G5 Quad
Tiger 10.4.4
DP 4.6.1
MOTU 828 Firewire (latest driver)

DP crashes evertime when I Quit the program. I've never lost anything and it hasn't crashed while using it, so this is a minor problem. But I was wonder if one of you experts had some advice for me to try.

I was thinking of trashing my preferances file.

[midilance]

I'm one of those guys who doesn't get to use DP a lot anymore due to my regular job but I had gotten to the point where my setup was a total mess. Pops, Clicks, spikes, etc. After exhausting all kinds of fixes I finally tried Disc Warrior. I ran it on all my drives. The results were amazing. It cleared up all of my problems. IMHO it is a great resource. It's almost like (in my computer setup) everybody was talking but nobody was listening. After I ran Disc Warrior everything seems to be better connected.

[kurtl]

Open DP and Activity Monitor. Play any large mix you might have going. Notice how much processing power is being used by DP. Then open up the mixing board window with all of the tracks shown, with the meters on. In my research, meters use about 20% to 30% more processing power. Now simply disable "show meters" in that Mixing window and the usage goes away. This isn't discussed much in the forum, but it gives my lowly G5 1.8 single plenty of power for between 50 to 60 trks with plugins.

[chrispick]

Whew! Reading through these lists, if DP really required us to do all these things, then it would be one of the worst-programmed apps on the planet. I acknowledge that as an ideal, all of these things may contribute to healthier work habits and fewer crashes, but I'm inclined to group suggestions into 1st-tier, 2nd-tier, and so on.

Yeah, it's really just a list of suggested guidelines, not do-or-die rules. And yeah, some of these methods carries greater impact than others.

Maybe if a sticky's composed from this list, we can offer some loose priority to the suggestions?

Aside: I do think that we can't expect apps as sophisticated as DP to be as crash-proof as, say, TextEdit or something similarly simple. Too many compounded tasks on varying systems. That's not to say you can't avoid most crashes, by and large (that's the goal, I think). You just need to exercise more prudent work methods. FWIW, I've worked on apps deeper and more complicated than DP and the philosophy's the same.

[markwayne]

I don't see many crashes with DP. I think I've had only one in the last month and that was a hard freeze. MIDI timing is another issue, but I'll leave that out of this discussion. One repeatable bug for me is when using bounce to disk to export .mp3's, be sure to follow standard 16.3 naming conventions. I get a consistent crashes or hangs if I leave off the extension or use odd/too many characters in the name.

I'm also a big believer in one app at a time when it's important, restarting after long sessions, and then letting the OS "settle out" before launching anything.

Wayne

[markwayne]

Oh, and keep pristine backups of everything and have another system ready to go in case the first one fails. (It's like insurance: as long as you have it, you'll never need it.)

Wayne

[Spikey Horse]

Oh, and keep pristine backups of everything and have another system ready to go in case the first one fails. (It's like insurance: as long as you have it, you'll never need it.)

Wayne

Alternatively, just put a .jpg of a four leafed clover inside a special 'lucky' folder on your projects hard drive.





...while you're at it a horse shoe .jpg in your system drive never does any harm.