Strange problem of Stop/Start/Stop/Start transport in DP

[jlaudon]

Did you try 5.11?

[monkey man]

Giving advice to Shooshie is like boxing with god.

LOL!

Shoosh, I know it's highly unlikely, but could there be some sort of false-triggering/spurious data emanating from the Kurzweil?
I've had trouble with my (Roland) A-50 in the past where sustain pedal data "trickled" more or less continuously from its innards.
I s'pose turning off all MIDI commands would eliminate this one.

Just what you needed after a break from it all, eh?

[monkey man]

Did you try 5.11?

He was all over it, and thought it was the bee's knees, actually.

Maybe it is worth the "regression", Shoosh.

Ya know, it just gets so tiring after a while second guessing and chasing this stuff down. I mean, you can't even throw money at it any more, as if there were enough to throw at all.

Never mind, Fwoggy; you can still throw it at me.

[auptown]

Hey Shooshie, I assume that are aware of this thread:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18837

Lots of folks are having trouble with the 424 card (although thankfully not me!) sounds to me like it's an issue with the FW cable not getting seated well.

But I agree, I have no idea why that would cause your stutters!

[Shooshie]

Thanks for the responses, gentlemen. I've responded to that thread posted by auptown. It sounds like they've had the same problem that I was having in the past. But I don't think it's a problem with the insertion or torque on the card itself. It's more like a driver problem, or the PCI card getting lost to the PCI manager. If it were a connection problem -- inserting the card more carefully -- then reinserting it would fix it. But that's not happening. You have to physically remove the card and replace it in another slot before the PCI manager will pick up on it again and note that it's there.

I think it's either a faulty card, or a faulty driver. It could also be something faulty with the Intel machines and their PCI implementation. But I don't see this problem happening to other cards, so I suspect MOTU's card is not made to spec.

Shooshie

[monkey man]

`
If it were a connection problem, the pauses and bursts wouldn't be evenly ordered either, Shoosh.

You know the drill: It would take the imposition of an ordered injection of energy to result in said even bursts as opposed to the apparently "random" stutters you'd expect otherwise.
In other words, what you're experiencing isn't a "natural" physical phenomenon.

This information-theory approach tells me the likely cause is software:
A bus controller, an interference by another piece of software or the OS checking/collecting data, or even an unlikely data cross-path within DP whereby the beat/bar position is interacting with some other data resulting in the stuttering.
Obviously, discovering what that "some other data" is may yield a result in the case of the latter scenario.

It's gettin' deep, 'cause you're in deep doodoo and we all owe you sooo much, 'Meister.
Go on, laugh at me; most folks probably are right now.

[Shooshie]

Ok, final entry here. I removed the 424 PCIe card and replaced it in a different slot. Rebooted the computer. Now all is well. Everything works as it did a month ago.

Is that the strangest behavior you could imagine from a malfunctioning audio interface card? Maybe it's a testament to just how integrated the 424 system and Digital Performer can be. It was neither working nor not working. It was in between. Every second, it worked. Then every other second it was broken. No static, no pops, no glitches in the sound. Just On and Off and ON and Off and... you get the idea.

But all is well that ends well, and the current ending is that all is well. Something tells me that's not the end of this story, though. Nope. It's not going to end there. And I'm darned sure not going to crawl under that desk every week and reseat that card in another slot. I think MOTU will have to be involved in the true end of this story.

Thanks for helping, everyone.

Shooshie

[monkey man]

Y-y-y-e-e-e-s-s-s-!-!-!

It may not be over, but it's over for now, Shoosh.
For all we know, it may all be over anyway.

Given the ordered, intermittent nature of the interruptions, you'd think that DP or a driver was involved.
You did mention "how tightly" DP may be integrated with/connected to the card.
Either way, I'm wrapped you've sorted it so quickly.

Well done, 'Meister.

[muzishun]

It starts and stops, starts and stops, at approximately 1 second intervals.

Shooshie

This exact same problem happened to me about a month ago. I use DP daily in my work, and it happened right in the middle of a session.

A reboot fixed it. Never happened before, and it hasn't happened since.
I *think* I was using Soundflower right before it happened.... not at all sure about that.

I guess this isn't very helpful, but you're not alone!

[bigcityrecording]

it seems the only variable is the system was shut down for a period of time... Let's not rule out moisture/temperature fluctuations causing odd behavior.

If you've been using the thing every day and then a bunch of time goes by and the computer isn't turned on, I wouldn't be surprised that strange things might occur.

just a thought...

[Frodo]

I'm lightyears away from my studio setup right now, but I do recall that the 424 card was rather oddly shaped. I never liked the way it looked or understood its design, but whaddaya gonna do? It took a while for me to get it tucked in, and it just sat funny for whatever reason. It will be another week or so, but I really think that swapping the slot maybe the answer I've been looking for....

[Mr_Clifford]

Shooshie, I just encountered the exact same thing you described. So I suspect it may not be related to hardware afterall.

I was preparing click tracks for a recording session in a very 'lite' sequence (dialogue guide, stereo bounce of music guides, and a couple of click tracks only). I was also creating visual punches and streamers in the Video window using the markers (for streamers) and the click (set to visual punches).

It only seemed to happen on one track at a time, but (when solo'ed) that track would play back a mixture of the other tracks splicing between them at reasonably even intervals. Sometimes it would splice back and forth between a track & silence - creating the same effect that you described in your original post.

I haven't managed to work out what caused it or how to fix it yet, but I suspect it may have been something to do with my fooling around with the click settings whilst creating my clicks & visual streamers etc.

[Shooshie]

Uh-oh... the plot thickens. MOTU! Cleanup in aisle 5.12!


Shooshie

[Shooshie]

PS: Mr_Clifford, I'm assuming that you do not even have a MOTU audio interface. At least, not a PCI version, correct? So, it would appear that my PCI 424 card's loss of sync with the boxes to which it is connected was just a coincidental continuation of my previous problem, and that the fixing of it by switching slots was probably either the catalyst by which the interruption problem was fixed, or completely unrelated and coincidental as well. It sounds like this is one of those intermittent bugs that go away when you tinker.

Damn. I hate tinkering.

Shooshie

[kelldammit]

if the machine was powered down for a long time, it could've forgotten its interrupts, and reassigned them when you booted up. sometimes, the assignments can conflict...though not usually these days. however, once the interrupt has been assigned, removing the card for a while, and putting it back in (or moving it) is pretty much the only way to fix it. usually the card remembers what it's been assigned, so removing power from it (drawn through the pci slot) resets it. network cards in pc's used to be notorious for this sort of thing.

whatever the cause...i'm glad you got it fixed!