DP 7.22 crashing on long takes

AncientMariner · Post by **AncientMariner** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:57 am

Big problem for me, as I often record long live performances. DP 7.22 just takes a powder after about 25 minutes or so. PLENTY of disk space and CPU capacity ...

I thought it might have been a corrupt installation, but it's now confirmed on multiple machines under my supervision. Is this maybe a problem fixed in the latest version?

My problem is, I can't afford to experiment ... I just lost a priceless take ...

stephentayler · Post by **stephentayler** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 11:26 am

What sample rate and file format? Interleaved??

Stephen

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:01 pm

AncientMariner wrote:Big problem for me, as I often record long live performances. DP 7.22 just takes a powder after about 25 minutes or so. PLENTY of disk space and CPU capacity ...

I thought it might have been a corrupt installation, but it's now confirmed on multiple machines under my supervision. Is this maybe a problem fixed in the latest version?

My problem is, I can't afford to experiment ... I just lost a priceless take ...

And from your sig...

Whole Lotta Plugs (mostly Waves V7)

You may want to disable ALL your plugs in DP when recording. Frankly, in a live situation one NEVER depends on one device to record. Aside from a direct feed to video, I always use a Zoom H4n in multi-record with a direct feed from the board and another feed from live mics.

Even in playback from a computer, you should have redundancy. Yeah, it's expensive, but saving a priceless take? Um... priceless.

AncientMariner · Post by **AncientMariner** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:14 pm

Stereo, 24bit/44.1K interleaved

And, NO plugs enabled on this run. I know better. Plug folders stripped clean.

I am beginning to localize this to an old, strange problem. Exactly one specimen of the 828MKII. I have been forced to review my notes (I keep them for years).

I have had strange problems with this particular hardware box, and DP, and DP ONLY. Began with version 4 ... MIDI timing got totally screwed when this box was on line. Even when I wasn't using it for MIDI. MOTU denied even the possibility of this, but I know what "microcode" and "firmware" are, and I think this is a lemon. Something didn't take in this piece ... something peculiar to DP communicating with MOTU hardware. The latest symptom is new, but it traces back to the same hardware.

The reasons for this conclusion: Version 9 of ProTools ... and Cubase SX3 ... have no problems with this box. DP seems to work OK with anything else I have ... Focusrite and M-Audio. It's only that crazy stuff happens when DP talks to this particular hardware piece.

At one point, I had the chief hardware tech at a "major national retailer" on the case, and I had sent him enough evidence that he was believing me ... but then his wife went into a long, hard labor, and the matter got dropped.

So, I guess I just have to junk this 828. I got screwed. I can't even (honorably) e-Bay the stupid thing, because I KNOW there's something wrong with it. My notes also reveal that this is the 2nd MOTU "lemon" I've got from the same retailer (the first one, they admitted to and replaced). Fool me twice, and it's me that's stupid, I guess. Won't be dealing with them again.

adamsegal · Post by **adamsegal** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:12 pm

I've had this same problem since DP 7.12 I believe. DP 7.0 still works flawlessly. I'm on my second MOTU tech link guy trying to trouble shoot all the usual suspects. It happens on DP 7.24 as well, preventing any Lion upgrade on my studio Mac Pro. Tried safe mode, no plugs, three different hard drives. Doesn't happen if no bundles are enabled to actual inputs (meaning it can record forever with no input signal). I used to have an 828 Mk II, but not for a while now and still have the problem.

My gut tells me it started when DP changed the way it draws wave form overviews.

Sure like to know if anyone else had this and solved it.

Thanks

FutureLegends · Post by **FutureLegends** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 9:54 am

Try DP7.23 or 7.24?

lgonz · Post by **lgonz** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 6:17 pm

I have the same problem! Really frustrating. Had a client recording an audio book (which requires long takes here and there) and after a few minutes of recording, big crash. Happened a few more times the first day. Needless to say, had to discount an hour from the session. Next day I went and made sure all plug-ins were dissabled, even opened a fresh new session to make sure the other one was not corrupted. 40 min. into the session, in the middle of one long take (10 min. ) DP crashes just like the day before. It kept happening afterwards.

Anyways, what was suppossed to be a very relaxed, easy session, ended up being very stressful. We have a last generation Mac Pro, Snow Leopard, plenty of RAM, (which I tested already, and seems to be fine), fast dedicated audio HD (not ssd), motu 2408mk iii and yet, DP doesn't seem to like doing continous, long takes.

I am baffled about this, because when I am recording/mixing large projects, with many tracks and plug-ins, DP seems to hold way better, rarely a crash. The only thing that seems to differ is for how long you keep recording continously, if that makes any sense. Now for sessions with long takes, I use ProTools 9, which so far is not crashing in that particular type of situation. For the rest of the stuff, DP it is.

Luis Gonzalez

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:23 pm

We still don't know the file formats, however, wasn't there a thread once upon a time ago about a 2G limit for WAV files? Did we ever get to the bottom of it? Did this apply only to WAV files, or was it platform wide? This thing on? Magic Dave?

lgonz · Post by **lgonz** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 4:49 am

i'm using WAV. 48/24.

Luis

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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=25.698321,-80.160264" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:02 am

cuttime wrote:We still don't know the file formats, however, wasn't there a thread once upon a time ago about a 2G limit for WAV files? Did we ever get to the bottom of it? Did this apply only to WAV files, or was it platform wide? This thing on? Magic Dave?

I thought it only applied to SD11 files.....

AncientMariner · Post by **AncientMariner** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:07 am

Hi folks ... been on the road. Glad (in a perverse way) to see that whilst it's rare, I'm not the only one who's ever heard of this (as MOTU would have me believe).

I don't have time to do their Q&A for them ... the real science that MOTU should be paying someone to do ... but I'm suspecting a hyper-sensitivity to the tiniest of firewire glitches. In the course of things, I have replaced the firewire cable with one that "fits tighter" for lack of a better word (who designed THAT silly connector? And who was the genius who decided to use it?) ... and taken the suspect 828s unit off-line. Now using only a Digidesign 003 rack+, or an M-audio USB piece. The 828s are acting as monitor mixers, managed by another CPU.

No problems for quite awhile now, including a few situations with 90 minute + takes, involving 9 to 14 tracks.

So here's my current hypothesis ... during a transient "lost contact", or other hardware event, a pointer in the driver code goes temporarily invalid, which none of the coders involved thought was possible, so nobody's code checks for it. If the DP process accesses the driver at the exact instant the pointer is bogus ... kaboom. Invalid pointers are the number one reason (by FAR) that programs crash, mainly because a coder was too lazy to write the couple extra lines it takes to catch the error.

This fits the symptoms I have observed, and explains why it doesn't happen all the time to everybody. Both DP and the hardware/driver have to do the wrong thing at exactly the same nanosecond. It is not, of course, the only possible scenario ... it's really MOTU's job to find and fix.

Dave

MOTUnation.com