DP6 - how many times per session do you crash?

[Frodo]

Are you running all the plugs in real time???

No. That was disabled the first day I tried it out. There was some improvement for a while, then the beachballs started up again with it turned off. If I turn it back on, the beachballs last longer.

[jroadrage]

I have yet to crash in the audio only domain or when I'm doing work specific in any of DP's windows, but when I'm opening/closing, activating/deactivating, loading/unloading VIs, instruments or sample sets, especially K3, I'm good for about one an hour.

[Babz]

DP 5 has never crashed a single time for me. Crashes in previous versions of DP were extremely rare for me, only a few times over the years. I haven't used DP 6.01 that much yet, but it seems to crash (unexpected quit) in about a 30-40% of my sessions. DP 6.01 is the least stable version of DP ever released, in my experience. Still it's not that bad. I can go through entire days of using it with no crashes. I just save often and hope that 6.02 (or 6.1!) is on the way soon.

My sessions w/ DP 6.01 have been relatively simple, a single stereo track, or 5-6 multitracks, very few plugins/VIs, very little third party stuff installed (BFD2, EZ Drummer, Drumcore, UAD-1). Most of my sessions so far have been stereo mastering sessions w/ 1-3 UAD-1 or MOTU stock plugins. G5 2x2, 10.4.11, 3 GB RAM.

Babz

[motufos]

I use a lot of VI plug-ins. The same ones that I used in DP5.13 and I've found DP6.01 unusable. It bombs out resizing windows, it's slow on simple arrangements with a mixture of audio and VIs even though it's CPU use is low. Makes no difference if Pre-gen is being used.

I've had to go back to v5.13.

Also what was really annoying, when I started using DP6.0 and used the new split/drawer window pane, DP6 crashed everytime. It was only on my 3rd long call to MOTIU tech that they said it was a known bug. SO that also knocked my confidence in the product.

[nk_e]

OK. Maybe I spoke too soon. I just installed EW Voices of Passion and I have a reproducible crash every time I try to use DP's proverb instead of the built in convolution reverb. More info here in this thread.

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 45#p273145

[jmc]

Overall DP6 is working alright for me. When tracking, I use it for MIDI only, and have all my VI's in stand-alone mode on a separate computer, and then use it for mixing once the VI's are rendered. So I do utilize audio plug-ins only. I do tend to get a few crashes per session, but usually when I click on too many things at once. Nothing repeatable, though. But honestly it's about the same as when I was working with 5.13...one or two crashes per day, but nothing debilitating (I've been burned enough to get REALLY good about saving). I tend to get a little spastic when I'm doing a lot of MIDI editing and the system gets confused I guess, although I have a 2.8 octo mac, so it's a little surprising that DP could get bogged down with that kind of horsepower. I also suspect there's something a little unstable about Altiverb.

[Prime Mover]

I can now detect what things are likely to cause crashes, and save before doing them. Anything during the mastering process is usually volitile. Bouncing Down has only about a 50% success rate, but I find that it goes up to 100% if I save, shut down DP6, and reopen it... then do NOTHING but bounce down. It ALWAYS works. So NEVER Bounce unless you've saved first. Freezing is less volitile, but still problematic.

I get lots of minute-long freezes and beach balls when I'm doing stuff with continually playing sections of music over and over again, like using the memory functions or loop functions when mixing. A tip I've learned is to NEVER keep the memory functions on. Make your selection, turn on your memory functions, turn on your loop, then turn off your memory functions, I find myself waiting around a lot less these days. Still, I definitely enounter more than my share of temporary holds and freezes, don't know if it's my hardware or something buggy in my system, but it is kind of annoying.

All in all, I've cut back to maybe one unexpected crash in a 6 hour session, with maybe 15 or so "minute-long" freezes. Since I save so often (a habit I've picked up from using buggy versions of Premiere on PCs at work), I haven't lost anything more than a few minutes of work in months. DP6 isn't the most stable program in the world, but I find that I've never had a workstation that didn't crash every so often. It's much better when you understand what functions are volitile and what are not, because you can change your behavour to limit crashes. DP6 is pretty consistant on what causes it to go down, which is probably more important to me than being really stable, but crashing once a week really unexpectedly.

I use a lot of effects, LOTS of tracks and quite a few VIs. Though, if I'm doing orchestral work, I use few effects and lots of VIs... rock the other way around. And since I primarily do progrock, every section calls for different tracks/effects/VIs. So for one 5 minute tune, I may have as many as 10 guitar tracks, 8 drum tracks (that stays constant, due to my number of pres), 6 stereo keyboard tracks, 6 voice tracks, and 2 bass tracks, plus a good 10-15 stereo aux busses, so we're talking 40-60 tracks a project, all with an average of 2-4 effects. Thank god I've got a powerful enough machine to handle all of this.

[martian]

depends on the project I am working on - I am 100% audio post head..

all my projects start out from an identical template - and have the same plugs each time - I do wild sound design on a 2nd machine and capture those moments

some sessions are prone to crash on save - which will generally occur every 30 to 40 mins... others will go days or weeks without issue - generally on a film we have 5 reels - each of which is a seperate project... 1 reel of a film will invariably develop problems.... we suspect it is either the number of soundbites - or something in the sound files...

havent figured out why in 6.01 - but in 5.11 to 5.13 - we traced it DEFINITELY to a graphical issue - using view filter to hide volume automation we could turn crash on save on and off - MOTU's magic word claimed this was just a symptom of my machine ( yes all 3 imacs I own and the mac pro - hmmm )

we also found another way of causing this in 6.01 - and basically if we load the bundles when loading seq's ( ie getting "duplicated" bundles) we can create a crash on save scenario....

[abtop]

I've figured out an interesting thing about DP crashes..

I have a Techtool pro 4.6.2 installed, and there is a "protection" process there that operates in a background to save critical disk information that can help restoring data if file system goes corrupted.

Of course I disabled this function in TechTool, but today I've noticed in Activity Monitor that it still exists as a background process and takes up some memory.
I force quite the process called "TechTool protection" in activity monitor and...
DP 6 didn't really crash since then! I used VI, both motu's and third party (Novation V- & Bass station and IK Sampletank), used UAD plug-ins, loaded recycle files and audio files, created new tracks and so on.. and it didn't crash!
I even didn't notice CPU spikes in DP which had happen to me pretty often.

I don't make any statement hidden conflict between DP and Techtool processes, I just share my experience.

[Prime Mover]

Eh, I just wish I could resolve my hangs. Crashes haven't really been an issue, but the thing hangs like a sonofabitch. What have most people found works in trying to cutting down on hangs?

[Shooshie]

I've figured out an interesting thing about DP crashes..

I have a Techtool pro 4.6.2 installed, and there is a "protection" process there that operates in a background to save critical disk information that can help restoring data if file system goes corrupted.

Of course I disabled this function in TechTool, but today I've noticed in Activity Monitor that it still exists as a background process and takes up some memory.
I force quite the process called "TechTool protection" in activity monitor and...
DP 6 didn't really crash since then! I used VI, both motu's and third party (Novation V- & Bass station and IK Sampletank), used UAD plug-ins, loaded recycle files and audio files, created new tracks and so on.. and it didn't crash!
I even didn't notice CPU spikes in DP which had happen to me pretty often.

I don't make any statement hidden conflict between DP and Techtool processes, I just share my experience.

Wow. This could be a clue. A LOT of people have TechTool on their drives, because it comes with AppleCare. I don't, and I don't use any sort of disk tool other than what comes with OSX (UNIX has the most robust disk-management of all operating systems, and it's hard to improve on it). I just don't really get many crashes. I can't remember any in 6.01 except for one that I caused, knowingly, but I forget how I even did that. OH... it's from starting to open a new pane in the middle of Consolidated Windows by grabbing the handle at the bottom of the screen and raising it, then turning loose before you get more than about a quarter inch of travel. That will crash DP 6.01. But other than that bug, which I'm careful to avoid, I have no crashes in DP 6.01. I say that in full knowledge that having said it, I'll start having routine crashes from now on, but the truth is that I have not been having crashes. I leave it open sometimes for several days in a row. I DO save often, though.

Interesting factoid about the TechTool dealie.

Shooshie

[abtop]

I experienced long hangs with DP6 when:
1. Zooming into the waveform or even into the MIDI editor (bug!)
2. Fades being created, files analysed or something else happens in the background (bad but reasonable.)
3. Pre-rendering for effects or instruments is enabled (does this feature work for anyone at all?)
4. Saving a big project with rich undo history (although I'm still surprised why does it take almost a minute to write a 3MB file!)
5. Another applications work in the background, like toasting a disc or doing session backups (makes sense).

[RobKral]

I needed to go back to DP 5.13 (actually 4.6 is even better but there's a quicktime issue with that one).

I need to port over to a new laptop and don't have the DP 5.13 upgrade file...I have the DP5 disk but have a ton of 5.13 files to port over and use, etc...

Anyone know where I can get the DP 5.13 upgrade file to upgrade from teh DP 5 disk?? It's urgent!

[Frodo]

Anyone know where I can get the DP 5.13 upgrade file to upgrade from teh DP 5 disk?? It's urgent!

It's New Year's Eve, so urgency may be playing against necessity. Hmm.

Contact MOTU first thing Monday. They may charge you a fee (something new I hear they're doing with support for older versions of DP), but considering that they've botched everyone's online download accounts I would think that they owe you a favor.

[bootsncats]

10.5.6 and DP 6.01

I have been able to trace my problems to plug in problems. I haven't had a problem with DP itself unless using a specific plugin. It turns out when I use these in protools or logic I can reproduce the crash. Proverb gives me grief every now and then but I save right before I plug it in. I have done about 8 live shows now running DP without a crash. I know, I'm insane, but I'm pretty confident if I just use the plugs I know won't crash I'm good. I try and max out my system before attempting any live or live recording scenario, hard disks have been another cause of crash until I striped some and no problems there either. 5 hours of live recording at 192, I had a backup but never needed it. so i can say I know what will make my dp crash :: melodyne cough cough, omnisphere cough :: and when it comes down to it, I just don't use them in critical situations. ramble ramble ramble....