Like a Bad Penny.... Bounce to Disk Issues

[Kenny B]

So for it seems like 2 years now I've been trying to get DP latest versions to BTD without hanging, stalling for quite a long time, minutes sometimes before finishing a simple BTD. I've been with Tech Support.. and painfully been trying to figure this one out.

I almost bought a new Apogee Symphony MKII yesterday thinking that would solve the problem but even with my Apogee Sym. MK1, completely disconnected and running the Mac Built-in Outs... the system hangs on a very fast machine with SSD boot disc, etc. etc.

So I implore this group to verify that their systems when running Catalina or Mojave, can do a BTD without stalling. Anybody out there? oh, btd is bounce to disk.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Mojave. BTD has always worked except when certain plugs get or need updating.

Have you tried bouncing with no plugins in any slot?

[Gravity Jim]

Mojave here. Never had a problem with BTD.

[dix]

Kenny. A more descriptive Subject line might get more responses (you can edit the Subject line in your OP)

I was about to start a thread about intermittent BTD problems on certain projects. Not sure if it's related to this.

On certain projects, after the BTD process finishes I get a loud low-end CLUNK sound and my I/O is killed (same occurs on two different I/Os). I have to open Hardware settings to get sound out of DP again. The audio tracks created when this happens are just errors, no sound - black blocks. My first thought was that a problem-plugin is causing the issue. I've tried eliminating various plugins, haven't yet found a culprit.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to create a sequence where this occurs 100% of the time. Predictably, it only seems to happen when I'm working on a deadline, never when I'm troubleshooting

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Kenny. A more descriptive Subject line might get more responses (you can edit the Subject line in your OP)

I was about to start a thread about intermittent BTD problems on certain projects. Not sure if it's related to this.

On certain projects, after the BTD process finishes I get a loud low-end CLUNK sound and my I/O is killed (same occurs on two different I/Os). I have to open Hardware settings to get sound out of DP again. The audio tracks created when this happens are just errors, no sound - black blocks. My first thought was that a problem-plugin is causing the issue. I've tried eliminating various plugins, haven't yet found a culprit.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to create a sequence where this occurs 100% of the time. Predictably, it only seems to happen when I'm working on a deadline, never when I'm troubleshooting

Have you tried running all your plugs and VIs in realtime?

[mikehalloran]

So I implore this group to verify that their systems when running Catalina or Mojave, can do a BTD without stalling. Anybody out there? oh, btd is bounce to disk.

Mojave. BTD has always worked except when certain plugs get or need updating.

Have you tried bouncing with no plugins in any slot?

Never happens on either of my machines, iMP over Mojave or MBP over Catalina unless

a) My template contains a plug that needs to be updated. Creating new templates in DP 10 with the latest versions of my go-to plugs (as MOTU recommends) has eliminated that. Takes a few seconds to a couple minutes depending on how many plugins you have to check and correct first. Use Save As Template from the File menu.

b)The project is located on a drive other than my System/Boot drive. In fact, I can count on this occurring. My attached SATA III SSDs may be connected via Thunderbolt 2 but they cannot run faster than 1/6th the speed of my boot drive (and that's a theoretical 1/6 — real world performance is slower).

c) I open an old project that has an old plug just to create a new bounce, usually for time but there are other reasons why a client may request this. No sense updating a plug first just for that lest it change something else.

This bounce "hang" for lack of a better term, always resolves if I wait it out. On the rare occasions I open a project on one of my attached drives to rebounce, I know to expect that so it doesn't bother me. DP 9.5x and 10.11 have done this.

I haven't had BTD crash in years. Crashing has always told me that I had a bad stick of RAM — and I always found it when that occurred.

Some have blamed not enough RAM for this but I have 128GB onboard my iMac Pro and reboot daily to clear the cache so I'd bet that's not the culprit.

On certain projects, after the BTD process finishes I get a loud low-end CLUNK sound and my I/O is killed (same occurs on two different I/Os). I have to open Hardware settings to get sound out of DP again. The audio tracks created when this happens are just errors, no sound - black blocks. My first thought was that a problem-plugin is causing the issue. I've tried eliminating various plugins, haven't yet found a culprit.

Probably should start a new thread for that one. The "bounce hang" is a frequent complaint on the FB page but I've not heard of this one.

[dix]

Have you tried running all your plugs and VIs in realtime?

No. That would mean opening all my VIs and and non-aux plugins before I BTD I guess. I'll try that next time it comes up, or if I can ever create a reliably unreliable BTD scenario. Another thing I'm planning on trying is a New Mix, which will eliminate all the plugins, and see what happens on BTD.

On certain projects, after the BTD process finishes I get a loud low-end CLUNK sound and my I/O is killed (same occurs on two different I/Os). I have to open Hardware settings to get sound out of DP again. The audio tracks created when this happens are just errors, no sound - black blocks. My first thought was that a problem-plugin is causing the issue. I've tried eliminating various plugins, haven't yet found a culprit.

Probably should start a new thread for that one. The "bounce hang" is a frequent complaint on the FB page but I've not heard of this one.

I think you're right. I will do as soon as I can recreate the issue consistently.

[Kenny B]

Okay, working in Catalina now with latest OS update and went to create a New Document and Create Tracks (which I believe used some things from my old template but not the tracks, Plug-ins were available that I like to use from Fab Filters and VSR Relab)...

And the I recorded on 4 tracks, 24 bits, 88.2 kHz for about 8 minutes on Acoustic guitar...

My first BTD was brisk and without hangup.

Then I added some MOTU plug-ins on the Master tracks... worked fine.

Then I added my 3 Aux tracks and gave those the MOTU plugins of EQ/Verb/Trim/Limiter... results were a slower BTD but importantly no hangups.

Then I added my Fab Filter plug-ins one at a time, each time doing a BTD. All worked perfectly without hangups. Added the VSR Reverb and another Metric Halo bass lift... and again all seemed to work.

That last test was very similar to what I always do with recording Acoustic guitar, exception being some of the plug-ins use custom settings.

I don't think in all my debugging of the problems in the past, I ever tried this. Still probably need to create a new template from scratch. Not sure why the new document had remnants of the old template.

So I think this is going to work. Going to continue on in the next few days to see what happens. So far we have a happy ending to this thread. And thanks to all who contributed with ideas.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Have you tried bouncing with no plugins in any slot?

I just love a happy ending.

[mikehalloran]

Still probably need to create a new template from scratch.

Shouldn't have to.

You have a project open set basically the way you like. Now's the time to go through each plug, make certain you have the latest version installed where you want. In my case, I set many to Bypass—but that's just me. Do not Save — this changes your open project.

Now you Save as New Template and rename at that time. This creates your new template without doing one from scratch.

Back to your open project. Close without saving which leaves it alone.

[taka]

Hello--

I've been suffering from hung BTD from time to time too.
In my experience, it's not due to plug-ins or VIs, nor whether I'm using internal or external disk to record.
It seems to me that it happens more when there's video involved in the project, but I've had the problem with audio only project in the past, too..

So I have no idea what's causing this to some people but not to the others..
I'll see if I can get to the bottom of this someday-!

Taka

[MIDI Life Crisis]

... it's not due to plug-ins or VIs, nor whether I'm using internal or external disk to record.

Have you throughly tested this? One errant plugin can really mess things up, but usually only it it's active in the mix being bounced, so that's a pretty easy troubleshooting. Internal v external? Eh... depends on disk access, healthy directories, and what you're recording. Just MIDI it shouldn't matter, but I also do fast and dirty audio with video projects all on my boot disk and don't have a problem. But as a rule, it's best to have a separate drives for the OS, VIs, and project & media.

...It seems to me that it happens more when there's video involved in the project, but I've had the problem with audio only project in the past, too..

Now THAT gets my attention. I cannot use the HELP feature in DP 10.11 while a movie is open. If I close the movie window, I can access the HELP menu. MOTU is stumped. It's probably a video codec or something I installed (I have a few as I do video post as well as scoring and sound design).

You might try closing the movie window (not just parking it in the consolidated window, but actually closing it) and trying to BTD again. I'd be interested to hear if that works.

And as pointed out in many threads, creating a new user on your system and trying with that new user. It the problem goes away (as it does for me) the answer is definitely a third party thing running somewhere on the system.

There was a thread about some camera software causing all sorts of mischief recently (might even have been mentioned above but I'm too busy (read: lazy) to go thru the thread. lol

[Kenny B]

Just wanted to add to this thread... I thought my problems were solved but boy was I wrong. Still having BTD hangups/pauses despite going with new template and starting over. I sometimes get 5 pauses on a BTD and it takes forever to bounce 4 tracks. 7 minutes long project.

IMO after all I've been thru, the problem is with DP and the way it parses data back to the soundbite window or back to the computer hard disk. That is the reason it does not happen in earlier MacOS's like in El Capitan.

With Catalina the drive is formatted as APFS and MOTU never worked out a good way with this operating system format. Just an opinion but I have to say that there is no other difference between running the same program, same project, etc. in Catalina vs. El Capitan except one drive is formatted differently.

Shoot me if I'm wrong about this.

[mikehalloran]

No video in my recent projects. Those videos are shot to one of my guide tracks and I sync to that prerecorded video after the audio is done—and not in DP.

I don't see that you ever answered my question: Are your active Project folders on the System drive or an external?

[Kenny B]

Mike, not sure if your question was directed to me, but I am doing my project and all files on the APFS boot drive, 1 TB SSD that came with the machine. It is very fast.

Back when I started debugging this with Matt at MOTU we did all sorts of things to try an uncover the issue. I even sent him a project with my setup thinking maybe I was doing something wrong with my use of plug-ins while setting up 3 aux tracks for basic EQ, Reverb, and Extra bass (sometimes used). He couldn't find any issues with that.

Still, why does it work perfectly in El Capitan but not in Mojave or Catalina?

I do notice that both Mojave and Catalina configure the boot disk differently than El Capitan did.
for example.... when viewing the drive in Disk Utility, the Internal boot drive is separated into two volumes. One volume contains the operating system and nothing else. It is about 400 GB in size. The Apple program decided this, not me, in other words, I did not do anything to create two separate volumes.

The other volume is "Data" volume and looks to have access to the entire 1 TB but also shares space with the first volume, if that makes any sense. So maybe, just maybe this is where the problem lies. It seems that only APFS drives do this thing, creating two volumes for OS and data.

And, am I the only one having issues with this? Ha!