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

[monkey man]

Lots of great anti-crash advice on here.
Here's a very good tip that has taken me a long time to learn.......
"When it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Cheers

That's probably the one piece of advice we need a permanently-installed reminder for...

Such a useful first post, Fish-man...
Welcome to da Nation!

[Mythrandel Hawk]

These are all great tips, all of which I will check with my Audio guys to see if any will help in my situation. I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem to mine. I have dealt with Tech Support, I had one of my bands friends who records for several big artists look at my system and no one seems to know how to fix my problem.

The problem happens after I record my project, everything appears to record with no problem, then I go to save my project and BAM it crashes. It is so frustrating and all tech support could tell me is that it is my problem. I have a G5/Mac X/1 GB of ram. I use DP 4.5.

Any suggestions? Thanks

[thinkof1]

Upgrade to the newest version possible. I think you can go to 4.6 without paying extra.
Try trashing your preferences.
Take all plugins out of the plugins folders (components, mas, vst) and start performer.
See if you can save a project before recording. Just mess aroung with the number of tracks or MIDI or someting and then save.
Seems like this might be a bad hard drive issue, or bad ram.
The only time I have had a problem like this was when a plugin was causing crashes upon opening a session.

Hope this helps

[monkey man]

I'd definitely do the above, especially the pref trashing.
I'd also try running it sans plugs (all of them).
You mightn't get all your settings saved, but if you can save the project, that'd be a start...

You could drag each plug individually to the finder, naming each according to its "home" track.
Then, remove all plugs and (try to) save the project.
To resume working, drag the plugs back home, tweak and repeat if necessary.

[willheim]

I have been experimenting with the new tweak parameters for my system and have gotten rid of all my performance problems.

I don't know if this is of interest but I thought I would pass it on.

Prime Seconds set to 3 seconds
Quanta Set to 150
Max Percent set to 95
Buffer 256.

Slams!

System:



DP 5.1



Mac 2.5 DP, system OS X 10.4.7, 8 gigs ram

MTP AV's

PCI 424 Core

1296, two 2408••™s

500 Gig 800 FW Raid (Stream samples)

160 Gig 400 FW Drive (Oxford 911, stream DV)

ADVC 100 400 FW port, streams video

300 Gig Maxtor Internal (16 gig buffer, for recording audio)

160 Gig Boot Drive

TC PCI MK II Power Core

BY THE WAY - for preference trashing you get a whole new bug free performance level. don't be afraid - here's what I do. It works best for me when I throw out the DP preference folder, the PCI audio folder, and the Digital Perormer .plist file and reboot.

all these files are in the uder library under preferences....

[jlaudon]

Prime Seconds set to 3 seconds
Quanta Set to 150
Max Percent set to 95
Buffer 256

Where is this stuff found?

[Spikey Horse]

Setup /configure audio system /configure studio settings

(it's a new DP5 feature only)

[Timeline]

Just a few more for 5.1 PPC and big projects...

When playing a big session remove all unnecessary faders from your monitor. Also waveforms. The more tracking the more CPU issues.

Save before using Spectral effects EVERY TIME.

Try not to leave Autotune on the desktop while playing project or other big plugs as it takes overhead.

Turn off Mail. For some reason it can crash a CPU on the edge.

Unplug the iSight camera. It's a throughput hog.

Keep buffers 2x 1024 during mix unless you need to overdub but on big projects reducing buffs could end your session abruptly and you may loose work.

Turn off effects and mutes in automation setup. The mutes are the ones on the plugins, not the main mixer mutes.

One last one I find invaluable: Install a second 10k SVGA fast drive and install Mac OSX cleanly omitting everything you can in custom setup.
Don't install anything but DP, your VI's and related plugs.

It was suggested by Shooshi or someone to clear out unused sound bites
but if you have the conviction to do that, be sure and flush them if not needed. If you think you will still need just one track of bites use shift key and un-highlight before you flush.

Also prime 3.0, quanta124, and max cpu @94 in settings seems to keep chuggin no worries here.

Suck out the dust from your mac on a regular basis.

I find it will run faster and keep you moving on the big projects.

Cheers

[HCMarkus]

These come up often as I review new queries...

Don't try to run Firewire audio interfaces on the same Firewire bus as your audio hard drives! Note that the built-in Firewire ports (800 and 400) on most Macs are actually all sitting on one bus. If you have to use Firewire dirves and Firewire audio I/O, buy a PCI Firewire card that fits your machine and dedicate it to HD or I/O only. Better yet, use a second internal drive for audio or an eSATA drive via a PCI card.

Don't record audio on the same drive as your OS. Again, use a second internal drive or an eSATA drive for audio.

Use a third drive (or multiple additional drives) to feed your VI's. Again, eSATA works very nicely. Consider RAID array if you make heavy VI use.

Partition your boot drive so you can easily clone your "perfect" system before you experiment with updates and upgrades. Consider "free" Super Duper (preferred) or Carbon Copy Cloner. Test your cloned partition prior to overwriting your working system partition. Make use of extra boot disc capacity by setting up an additional back up partition for your audio data back up.

Consider keeping separate system partitions for different computer uses. Switch your boot partition in APPLE MENU>SYSTEM PREFERENCES>STARTUP DISC. Keep your DP partition as free from extraneous software as possible, but install Safari (to download upgrades and check UnicorNation) and Mail (for authorization purposes) . Text Edit is better than Word when you want to keep Microsoft off of your DP boot partition.

Save and Back Up often, and keep copies off-site.

Set up a new LOCATION (APPLE MENU) "Ethernet/Airport OFF" and use this location when running heavy DP sessions to save a little overhead. (Most helpful to users of older systems.)

Finally, think twice, and then again, before "fixing", as noted by Mr. Catfish.

[Antonio Maldonado]

1) With a new machine ALWAYS format using zero out data (disk utilities/ erase/ security options) and don't install OS9 drivers or software unless you really need it. Then install a fresh OSX disabling all features that you won't use such as languages, fonts and others. Don't assume that if a new machine has a pre installed OS it means that disk integrity is fine.

2) Only install Apps that you use and don't use an audio computer as an office machine or others. Internet use is ok for upgrades or validation, however don't leave your browser on at all times.

3) Only install plug ins and VI's that you will use

4) DP works better with contiguous files, consolidating your tracks works but also keep an eye on disk fragmentation, A good way to keep a disk healthy is to backup your critical data and re - format once you reach about 90% of it's capacity and start again. Defrag utilities are a bit risky and sometimes is not necessary unless you know exactly what you are doing.

5) Keep audio files away from Apps and Startup disk using another disk for this purpose. If you work with video, use another disk.

6) Never let your disk to reach it's full capacity. 85% is fine

7) Disable audio drivers that you are not using such as DAE. MAS is kind of jealous and works better alone

Use rewire or soundflower only when needed

Good luck!

[jnunally]

So there has been some talk on the stability of DP and the idea came up (sort of, well at least in my mind) that it could be in part due to the user's way of working as much as the actual set up.

So I thought it might be worthwhile to try and uncover what exactly it is that people might be doing (or not doing) which makes DP prone to crashing or seemingly immune from it?

It's not an easy question to answer - how do you use DP? - but it's still an interesting enough question to ponder because I suspect maybe some of things we do in DP are so habitual we don't fully realise they may be a major factor in making DP's operation either a or a

And also some of us might be better at spotting (conciously or not) patterns of behaviour when working with DP which lead to crashes, hangs, small fires etc and so learn to work a slightly different way to avoid them.

Here's one off the top of my head: although I don't get quits or hangs very often, one sure fire way for me would be to try and switch the instance of a CPU hungry VI by simply opening that VI's drop down menu and selecting the new instance. (Especially true if going from an AU to a VST (using audioease VST wrapper). DP will then usually close the current VI and just before the new one opens -QUIT!. So I always delete the VI first, then save, then open the new instance in its place- never a problem.....and it's a habit now, I don't even think about doing it another way.

So if you have definate 'no no' or a 'yes yes' or even a 'not sure if this is bad' ways of using DP then post them here ......


G5 dual 1.8
10.3.9
1 GB
DP 5 - OK I mean 4.61

This is an excellent topic. I just finished working on a project recorded with DP5.1 @ 24bit/96k, which was a horrific experience, then to DP5.11 which was much much better, but still not crash free. I had a very interesting experience while doing some overdubs. I decided to take a break and let one of the other musicians operate the machine while I produced. Suddenly the very same file that was crashing for me, didn't crash at all for him, I'm very serious here, not one crash. And it had been crashing about every 15 minutes or so for me. I was extremely puzzled by this and started paying attention to my moves. I have found some things that contribute to instability.
1. When I do cross fades while in playback mode, then do other things like control point edits, it will often crash when I try to save.
2. If I am working on a mix and have one track soloed in the mixing board window, then open a compressor or eq and start tinkering with the settings, all the while in playback, the computer becomes unhappy and usually sends me error messages.
So far those are about the only two that really seem to stand out.


Jim


Mac Pro 2.66, DP 5.11, HD192.

[jlaudon]

About the only way I've crashed 5.11 is by entering bar numbers in the counter too fast (or have entered wrongly and try to correct it all in a plit second), then I get the spinning wheel. This only happens when I'm in a rush.

[RCory]

I still get mucho crashing in 5.11 when opening older projects - dp5 won't even open some... So I keep 4.61 around just for this purpose...

[jnunally]

I still get mucho crashing in 5.11 when opening older projects - dp5 won't even open some... So I keep 4.61 around just for this purpose...

From MOTU: "This may be indicating that there was an issue with the bundles. Try to "load" them into a new session and make sure that you do not load the Bundles and perhaps only the Chunks and Audio Files and see if it is no longer crashing."

Above is what I received from MOTU concerning your same issue. I wasn't able to load some DP2.7 files into DP5.11. When I hooked up the hard disk to my Powerbook, that has no MOTU hardware plugged in, every single file opened without a hitch. But when I tried to open the same files a few days earlier with my desktop machines, that have the PCI-424 cards installed, I was getting a lot of crashes and the files wouldn't open, even when I tried to "load" them.

Good luck,
Jim

[jmguru]

With me, 90% of my crashes have to do with plug-ins and the mixtures of different plugins. Sometimes you find out which plug-ins are touchy the hard way.

For instance, OhmForce plug-ins don't play nice with NI plug-ins on my system. Last week I couldn't re-open a project and it kept crashing DP. I salvaged it by reading through the crash log and I found a reference to OhmForce component, I then temporarily removed the components from the plug-ins directory, restarted DP, re-opened my project (no crash), removed the offending track, and re-saved. I put the plugins back in, but now i only use them with caution and mostly just applying them through the Audio menu.