Something is definitely wrong with DP9 AUTOSAVE...

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:00 pm

Hello.

Amongst my worst DP9 problems, is this issue I've been observing for weeks. Now, I'm pretty confident there's definitely something wrong with Autosave.

1.- It is the cause of a lot of my crashes, especially when I use VE Pro, and when I use MachFive (hosted within VE Pro and as a regular VI instrument as well).

I've tested this by killing autosave temporarily, and things get a little better. But just a little. Crashes will happen eventually anyway.

These crashes coincide with the moment DP autosaves, and worst of all, when it crashes when autosaving, it will CORRUPT THE AUTOSAVED file beyond recovery. Not even the Load command will be able to recover it. When trying, I always get an OS error indicating some kind of "End of File Error".

2.- The timestamps of the Autosaved files I see in the Finder DO NOT match my autosave settings in DP9's preferences.
I have it set to autosave every 6 minutes and to keep the latest 10 copies. In the Finder, I see time gaps of 20, 30 and even 50 minutes between the 10 most-recently autosaved files.
WHY????

Because of issue #1, of DP corrupting the last autosaved copy, and mysteriously NOT having more recent copies (as set by me in the preferences), I already lost more than 3 intense hours of work. Now I'll have to retrace my steps.

This is EXTREMELY WORRISOME.
I accept my responsibility for not manually saving enough. But then, I would do it every minute if I KNEW I could not trust autosave for sure. So, I say, MOTU fixes it ASAP, or they should take out that feature immediately, since it's worse to advertise something that doesn't work as if it worked! It creates a false sense of security

I LOVE LOVE LOVE DP. But it's been a naughty boy lately, and it's seriously starting to annoy me due to all the wasted time with crashes and troubleshooting.

MOTU, what would have to happen for you to understand that you need to dedicate most of your resources, at least for a full cycle, to IRON OUT ALL THE BUGS! No more features! No more plug-ins until everything just works. Please!

Oh, and did I mention that, since I updated to DP9's latest build, I NEVER get MOTU crash reports anymore. It just disappears without an explanation or anything. So now MOTU won't even know of these constant crashes!

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:12 pm

Auto save in ANY app is risky business. Gave that up long ago. Cmd-s is a reflex action for me. I save way more than the apps. With good Time Machine backups you should be fine. I also suspect that saving a "backup" as well as the primary project is overkill. Again, Time Machine, preferably with two or more drives dedicated to redundant backups.

Autosave es no bueño, amigo. IMO.

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:37 pm

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
Autosave es no bueño, amigo. IMO.

Sí, me he dado cuenta de eso... No es NADA bueno

Saving was a reflex for me as well (when we didn't have autosave). I guess I will have to start behaving as if didn't exist in DP! Sometimes I just get so immersed in what I'm doing that I forget. But I will make it a habit again... or live the consequences of lost work and time

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 3:05 pm

Gracias, Dio, por la Bing Translator!

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 7:07 am

I haven't checked my autosave preference since autosave was introduced (what version was that?). Just checked it now and it's set to 1 minute. Seems to be working fine on my end, although I have seen an occasional crash in DP9. Hmmm.

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 9:39 am

Same here. No problems with Autosave. I tried double clicking on a couple of older versions of the autosave file and they loaded OK. My template has 4 tracks each of MachFive and Kontakt. I've had one or two crashes with DP 9, but no more than any other version. Could some of the problems be associated with VE Pro?

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:54 am

bayswater wrote:Same here. No problems with Autosave. I tried double clicking on a couple of older versions of the autosave file and they loaded OK. My template has 4 tracks each of MachFive and Kontakt. I've had one or two crashes with DP 9, but no more than any other version. Could some of the problems be associated with VE Pro?

Yes, it could definitely be the case, and I'm strongly suspecting it myself now.

When DP hangs, and I open the Force Quit Applications command, I see DP and VE Pro "not responding". In anger, I always quickly force-quit both, but if I only do so with VE Pro, then DP comes back to life right after VEP quits, which must be some kind of indication.

It's almost as if, when DP autosaves, there's some kind of error in transmission between these apps, as if VE Pro is trying to do something and can't do it. I'm almost positive, if this is the case, that it's related to the Decouple and Preserve properties.

But if MF is hosted directly within DP, as a VI, then DP crashes. I think I've tried both, the MAS and the AU versions.
I must say that MF will ALWAYS crash DP, autosaving or not. Anything will crash it. But Autosave GUARANTEES the crash. It's really weird...

And most frustrating of all, is that some of you appear to be having no problems, whatsoever. This is the first time I've had such a bad system in years. Everything used to be so solid around DP7 and DP8

Killahurts · Post by **Killahurts** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 1:52 pm

The only problem I have with VE Pro and Autosave is that it comes at bad times (while I'm working), and it takes a long time. I'm at a place in the project I'm doing where I can use the preserve/decouple feature in VEP, so I may see if that helps.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 2:05 pm

Killahurts wrote:The only problem I have with VE Pro and Autosave is that it comes at bad times (while I'm working), and it takes a long time. I'm at a place in the project I'm doing where I can use the preserve/decouple feature in VEP, so I may see if that helps.

Do you work with the System Preferences for "Energy Saver" set to "Put hard disks to sleep when possible?" I uncheck that option before I begin working in DP. (sometimes forget to recheck it, and notice hours later that my computer is unusually loud, what with all the drives spinning all the time!)

If the disks are up and running, Autosave takes merely a few seconds, maybe less. I have some gigantic project files that save without my even realizing it. I even save deliberately sometimes while recording, and it never slows down DP at all.

Of course, I'm running a desktop with a lot of huge drives and more RAM than I had in hard drive space until well into this century. That may have something to do with the saves DP manages so effortlessly.

I'm just saying it shouldn't be a big problem. The other day I had a problem that I thought was related to an autosave, but now I suspect not. Currently, I think DP is doing a great job of saving and auto-saving.

Shoosh

frankf · Post by **frankf** » Sun Mar 20, 2016 7:01 am

Over the last year or so I've upgraded my boot, DP Projects and VI drives to SSDs. The speed difference in loading projects and VIs, streaming, video streaming, saving, auto saving is amazing. Most importantly I can't remember the last time I had any disk speed or related problems which seem to be causing these auto save problems at least in some cases. I'm still running a Mac Pro 3,1 with 32gb ram. Just sayin' & knock on wood

Killahurts · Post by **Killahurts** » Sun Mar 20, 2016 10:35 am

Shooshie wrote:
Killahurts wrote:The only problem I have with VE Pro and Autosave is that it comes at bad times (while I'm working), and it takes a long time. I'm at a place in the project I'm doing where I can use the preserve/decouple feature in VEP, so I may see if that helps.
Do you work with the System Preferences for "Energy Saver" set to "Put hard disks to sleep when possible?" I uncheck that option before I begin working in DP. (sometimes forget to recheck it, and notice hours later that my computer is unusually loud, what with all the drives spinning all the time!)

If the disks are up and running, Autosave takes merely a few seconds, maybe less. I have some gigantic project files that save without my even realizing it. I even save deliberately sometimes while recording, and it never slows down DP at all.

Of course, I'm running a desktop with a lot of huge drives and more RAM than I had in hard drive space until well into this century. That may have something to do with the saves DP manages so effortlessly.

I'm just saying it shouldn't be a big problem. The other day I had a problem that I thought was related to an autosave, but now I suspect not. Currently, I think DP is doing a great job of saving and auto-saving.

Shoosh

I have all hard drives set to never fall asleep. My problem is really because of the size of the template I'm working with at the moment. Even though most of it is hosted in VEP, there is still a great deal of info saved from DP to VEP. The decouple option in VEP is a wonderful solution, just that you have to go through a couple steps (preserve server instances) to ensure the safety of the VEP setup, in case DP were to crash while decoupled.

Clevelandrawks · Post by **Clevelandrawks** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 11:10 am

FMiguelez wrote:Hello.

Amongst my worst DP9 problems, is this issue I've been observing for weeks. Now, I'm pretty confident there's definitely something wrong with Autosave.

1.- It is the cause of a lot of my crashes, especially when I use VE Pro, and when I use MachFive (hosted within VE Pro and as a regular VI instrument as well).

I've tested this by killing autosave temporarily, and things get a little better. But just a little. Crashes will happen eventually anyway.

These crashes coincide with the moment DP autosaves, and worst of all, when it crashes when autosaving, it will CORRUPT THE AUTOSAVED file beyond recovery. Not even the Load command will be able to recover it. When trying, I always get an OS error indicating some kind of "End of File Error".

Oh, and did I mention that, since I updated to DP9's latest build, I NEVER get MOTU crash reports anymore. It just disappears without an explanation or anything. So now MOTU won't even know of these constant crashes!

+1 FM Autosave has really messed with me since version 8. I use my own auto save now "Command/S" after ever track or edit. Hassle? yes indeed. And MOTU really needs to fix it or scrap it. I never have problems with Reaper, Logic pro X or even some save functions in PT11.3
Craziness

frankf · Post by **frankf** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 11:41 am

Have any of you experimented with not using VEP to drill down on the crash behavior? Asking because I stopped using VEP when DP went 64 bit and I haven't seen this here with DP9.02 and Yosemite.

Clevelandrawks · Post by **Clevelandrawks** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:54 pm

I don't use VEP. mainly because i had heard too that 64-bit was a problem. So I never upgraded.

Killahurts · Post by **Killahurts** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 6:56 pm

Clevelandrawks wrote:I don't use VEP. mainly because i had heard too that 64-bit was a problem. So I never upgraded.

VEP did 64 bit and 32 bit at the same time. Still does. They've been ahead of the curve in every respect, for years now. Not sure what you're referring to?

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