Different Chunks Loading When I Switch From Mixer to Tracks?

msmith92 · Post by **msmith92** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:32 am

so, i don't normally use chunks but i ran out of plugin processor power and decided to bounce down my audio and then load that track to a new sequence from the tracks window. so i've been working in this new sequence window and have saved my progress. when i went back to the old sequence things were a bit wacky. for one all my waves plugs were reset to default and secondly when i switch from track window to mixer or sequence the new sequence shows up. what have i done!

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:26 pm

This has happened to me a lot over the last two years, starting sometime in 2005, if I recall correctly. I have yet to figure out exactly what is the cause. The first time I ever saw it happen was after I had created an Aggregate Device in Audio/MIDI Setup, consisting of all my audio interfaces loaded up into one virtual device (Aggregate Device, that is), and then selected as my "hardware" interface in DP. It even started loading chunks that were in other FILES! Further, I would edit a track, and later discover that it was editing a track in another chunk.

Very strange stuff. So far, however, it has always been benign. No big bugs have crept out of that ugly hole. Still, it's an ugly thing, and it's very wrong! No sequencer should lose track of which sequence it is working on. The fix for me is to change the offending window to the Tracks Overview Window, and then change it back to whatever window I want after selecting a track in the T.O.W.

It doesn't actually "fix" it. It just brings it back to normal for the time being. It can easily get off-kilter again. One action I've determined that throws it off is opening the Conductor Track at the same time as a MIDI Edit Window. Technically, that is like having two MIDI Edit Windows open at the same time, and DP does not like that in Consolidated Windows. The best way to open that combination in Consolidated Windows is to double click the Conductor Track from the Tracks Overview Window, and then to click "MIDI" to change the Tracks Overview Window to the MIDI Edit Window. Then you never have two MIDI windows open at the same time. Opening two MIDI windows is almost guaranteed to open one of them from another chunk.

As uncomfortable as it may seem, I have not found it to cause any permanent damage. You might get some relief by loading your chunks into a new file. Or maybe not. I'd just try to get things looking normal again, and not worry about it unless it becomes a real problem. If it does, call MOTU Tech Support.

Good luck with that. If anyone else has this experience, I wish they would post here, because I'd like to find out what we're all doing that causes this to happen. If we can identify a guaranteed source for this problem, we might be able to get MOTU to replicate it, and then FIX it!

Shooshie

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:32 pm

PS: Though it will not completely stop this problem, I highly recommend DP 5.13. It is far less problematic than DP 5.12 for me. But if you are not having any problems other than this one, then don't feel compelled to jump to 5.13 just because I said so. If a setup is working for you, there is no real reason to change. But if you have noticed other things to complain about, 5.13 might fix at least some of them. I'm using 5.13, and aside from an occasional sudden quit, it runs absolutely great. Of course, I'm using a Mac Pro (Intel) and you're using a G4. Just go with whatever works.

Shooshie

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:41 pm

Is this that Consolidated Windows thing, or something else?

The only time I've had wrong seq windows open was in consolidated windows. That was when the feature was first introduced, and I haven't used it since.

rcannonp · Post by **rcannonp** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:19 pm

Are we sure that this is not designed to work this way(besides Waves plugs resetting themselves)? I always thought it was a bug when I accidentally double clicked a chunk, and it loaded into the SE window but was not the active sequence. I was reading somewhere, and it mentioned this like it is designed as a feature. It seemed to make sense after figuring out how to use it.

Am I playing a different game here, or are we talking about the same thing?

msmith92 · Post by **msmith92** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 5:59 am

i thought you had to drag the chunk from one sequence to the other. that's what allows you to work on them separately. if i'm in seq.1 editing i don't want to view my other windows and find out i'm in seq.2. that'd be a slow process.

rcannonp · Post by **rcannonp** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 7:45 am

msmith92 wrote:i thought you had to drag the chunk from one sequence to the other. that's what allows you to work on them separately. if i'm in seq.1 editing i don't want to view my other windows and find out i'm in seq.2. that'd be a slow process.

Each chunk is it's own mini sequence. Dragging one to the other adds it to that sequence and in that way it's not really working with them separately. Again, I'm not sure that double-clicking a chunk to load it into another window is a designed feature or not. At first it did seem like a bug, but there is some vague wording somewhere in the manual that made me think that it might be designed this way. After playing around with it a bit, I can find uses for this behavior, like previewing MIDI in other chunks.

msmith92 · Post by **msmith92** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:24 am

well i didn't drag any chunk into another sequence. i left them separate yet seq.1 would switch to seq.2 on it's own if i clicked on mixer from the tracks window or sequence window. maybe it is a consolidated window thingy. i ended up quitting and restarted and the problem went away. sooo..who knows. dp must have gotten tired of being helpful and decided to be lazy throwing me into a fit of frenzy.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:08 am

To sum up:

Tim: yes it's the Consolidated Windows thing. It seems to happen when you try to open the same window twice in the consolidated Window. The only track that will normally allow that is the MIDI Edit Window, since you have to open a 2nd MIDI Edit Window to see the Conductor Track while viewing a MIDI Edit Window simultaneously in another frame within the CW.

rcannonp: I think you're talking about something else, though there may be a connection between them. For now, I'll say it's something separate until I see a better connection.

msmith92: You did right by quitting and restarting. This is a bug, not a feature. And no, you should never see windows from another sequence in the Consolidated Window. That would indeed be a helluva way to run a railroad, not to mention a sequence.

After observing this bug for several years on several different Macs using several different versions of DP, I'm convinced that this bug runs deep in DP, may be triggered by certain events not common to everyone (but I know what only a couple of those events are), and it probably happens more often than it is reported, since odds are that many people click back out of the bug before realizing what happened. Even now, I don't always realize that it's happening to my CW until I actually look at the Sequence Name on each frame. It's really easy to think that the window simply hasn't scrolled or updated, and then you click out of it. A lot of people have probably seen this and not registered that it was a bug.

I know of no cure at the moment. Rebooting, perhaps. Closing the sequence and reopening it might work just as well. Sorry I don't have better information, but I'm only hoping that we eventually see enough of this bug from enough people that we can pin a sequence of actions on it which make it replicable for MOTU. One way to make it happen is to keep fiddling with a Conductor Track Window and a MIDI Edit Window simultaneously in the Consolidated Window. Keep opening and closing them in the CW, and eventually one of them is very likely to jump to an adjacent sequence. That's about all I can tell you for now.

Shooshie

msmith92 · Post by **msmith92** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:47 pm

thanks shooshie. it's good to know (unfortunately) that it's not an isolated problem. but i read in another thread about chunks where you said to make a new mix and save it for plugin preservation. i think that's a good idea. as for the sequence "jumping" i dunno. consolidated windows could be the culprit but i haven't tested that. seems like the best guess.

thanks all.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:17 pm

Tim wrote:Is this that Consolidated Windows thing, or something else?

The only time I've had wrong seq windows open was in consolidated windows. That was when the feature was first introduced, and I haven't used it since.

I agree. Consolidated windows suck the big one! The most useless feature in DP. Well, maybe after the Polar feature...

remainanon · Post by **remainanon** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:19 pm

Guys -

The keyboard shortcuts to open the tracks window will open the overview for whichever sequence is selected in the Chunks window.

Unless I'm misreading the problem...

If you hit Shift-T and get the wrong tracks, open chunks and see which sequence is selected.

Does that help?

It's fairly counter-intuitive (imagine that...) because if you, for example, drag a chunk into your tracks window DP will leave the chunk you dragged in selected - which means the one you added the sequence data to is not selected.

Next time you reach for "Tracks" you get the source.

Is that a intelligible explanation? I realize I have a problem describing this issue - I was unable to make MOTU understand it at all when I brought it up in about '04.

JW

msmith92 · Post by **msmith92** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:39 pm

remainanon wrote:Guys -

The keyboard shortcuts to open the tracks window will open the overview for whichever sequence is selected in the Chunks window.

Unless I'm misreading the problem...

If you hit Shift-T and get the wrong tracks, open chunks and see which sequence is selected.

Does that help?

It's fairly counter-intuitive (imagine that...) because if you, for example, drag a chunk into your tracks window DP will leave the chunk you dragged in selected - which means the one you added the sequence data to is not selected.

Next time you reach for "Tracks" you get the source.

Is that a intelligible explanation? I realize I have a problem describing this issue - I was unable to make MOTU understand it at all when I brought it up in about '04.

JW

different thing. if i'm in sequence 1 and in the tracks window (utilizing consolidated windows feature) and then click on the mixer button or sequence editor button, DP will for some reason switch to sequence / chunk 2. so, that's the issue. restarting fixed it. (for now).

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 6:23 am

msmith92 wrote:thanks shooshie. it's good to know (unfortunately) that it's not an isolated problem. but i read in another thread about chunks where you said to make a new mix and save it for plugin preservation. i think that's a good idea. as for the sequence "jumping" i dunno. consolidated windows could be the culprit but i haven't tested that. seems like the best guess.

thanks all.

Consolidated Windows may BE the culprit. The first time it happened to me, Consolidated Windows were still pretty new. But I blamed it on the Aggregate Device in Apple's Audio/MIDI Setup. I had just created such a device, and all sorts of hell started breaking loose. Several other people who had done the same thing experienced similar craziness, so we all attributed it to Aggregate Devices. (Aggregate Devices did fix another nasty bug, however -- the clicks and pops associated with using multiple audio interfaces. Through the Aggregate Device, all your audio interfaces become one "mega-interface," and the pops and clicks cease to exist, suggesting that they were a clocking problem all along)

Anyway, the problem you're experiencing is a difficult one to explain to people who have not seen it. Thus, the response of well-meaning people here who simply have never seen the problem before. But fear not... it seems to leave no lasting ill-effects.

Shooshie

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:06 am

PS: I'm a big fan of the Consolidated Windows. I absolutely love how they enhance my workflow. I have a couple dozen window sets that I keep on a list beside my monitor, and I can switch configurations in an instant. I guess it's a matter of personal preference. I thought I was going to hate the CW until I tried it. Then it became one of my favorite features of DP.

Shooshie

Here's my window-set cheat sheet: