Incredibly long DP10 load time with Catalina OS

[timlanders]

Hello All,

I could not find a thread with this issue so started this - if there already exists one just point me to it!

Anyway, here's my setup:
DP10.11.8xxx Catalina 10.16.7 iMac 27" late 2013 3.5ghz Quad core 32gb mem 1 TB SSD

DP takes 5-10 minutes to load. Incredible. It seems to spend quite a long time loading MAS and VST3 plugins but I can't be sure of what's really happening. I finally upgraded my OS recently and this is the only real issue I'm having. Prior to the OS change DP10 loaded in seconds. Luckily once DP has finally launched I'm fine, unless there's a crash of course - but that initial load time! Geez Louise!*#!

Any suggestions on how I might remedy this?

Thanks in advance

[FMiguelez]

I see the same with DP9.52 and Mojave. Things got better after I uninstalled DisplayLink, but now it does it randomly, and it's nerve wracking with deadlines.

If you open OS's Console as DP is opening a project, I bet you will find all kinds of error messages and weird things in there. It seems it's constantly trying to fix paths or insist on looking for things it can't find.

I'm seriously considering a full complete reinstall of everything.

I wonder if digging deep into the kext files would help find a culprit.

[mikehalloran]

…
If you open OS's Console as DP is opening a project, I bet you will find all kinds of error messages and weird things in there. It seems it's constantly trying to fix paths or insist on looking for things it can't find.

I'm seriously considering a full complete reinstall of everything.

I wonder if digging deep into the kext files would help find a culprit.

Console.app was how I figured out the Mackie HUI load issue and fix (reinstall DP).

The other thing to check is DP's background processing window. You can set it to be visible in the Preferences. When I was in 7.24 hell and my old projects wouldn't load, that's how I figured out the problem (loaded fine in 7.01, took a long time in 7.11 and crashed completely in 7.24 — the window in 7.11 showed me what to look for) and it wasn't "corrupt files" as MOTU Support was telling me.

I checked my 2012 MBP i7, 16GB RAM, 2TB SSD running Catalina. I'll guess that it's not dissimilar to one of your 2012 Minis. It has test projects only but does have a full installation of SampleTank 4 Max, Komplete 11, RX and Ozone so DP takes awhile to load. If your times are much longer than mine, you might have a problem. In not…

I ran the following tests just now on that MBP and my 2017 14 Core iMP with 128GB RAM. I rebooted between each test to eliminate the faster boot times due to cached RAM. Then I tested the effect of cached RAM. DP 10.11

There is a difference in time before the project screen opens depending on if you start by double-clicking on the project or clicking on DP to get to the recent project list. I tested both.

2012 MBP Catalina
a) Click on DP app alias in Dock till Project List appears: 2'49" Click on project till screen appears: 5"

b) Double-Click on project icon till screen appears: 2'44"

c) Restarting project after quit till project screen appears without rebooting (cached RAM): 56"

2017 iMP Mojave
a) Click on DP app alias in Dock till Project List appears: 1'05" Click on project till screen appears: <1"

b) Double-Click on project icon till screen appears: 59"

c) Restarting project after quit till project screen appears without rebooting (cached RAM): 36"

Testing how long a project finishes loading once its screen appears doesn't matter. The length and number of audio tracks has a significant effect so results count only if you're loading identical projects on the two machines.

My iMP has a great deal more VIs and plugins. I'd bet that, if the two machines were set up identically, the iMac Pro would load even faster.

[timlanders]

Thanks folks - It looks like I may need to do a fresh install to be sure I can resolve this. I'll have to wait for a free weekend because it'll take at least an entire day .. what with all the un-authorizations, re-authorizations, plugin re-installs, libraries and the whole drill.
But I think you're right on, there is likely a bunch of old data clutter that DP doesn't know how to deal with or tries checking and/or processing during launch. That's what it feels like anyway. Luckily I haven't had any probs loading projects, it's just on the initial DP start-up when it seems to suffer.

Oh well. It won't be the first time I've had to do this. Or the last ;-/

[mikehalloran]

Thanks folks - It looks like I may need to do a fresh install to be sure I can resolve this. I'll have to wait for a free weekend because it'll take at least an entire day .. what with all the un-authorizations, re-authorizations, plugin re-installs, libraries and the whole drill.
But I think you're right on, there is likely a bunch of old data clutter that DP doesn't know how to deal with or tries checking and/or processing during launch. That's what it feels like anyway. Luckily I haven't had any probs loading projects, it's just on the initial DP start-up when it seems to suffer.

Oh well. It won't be the first time I've had to do this. Or the last ;-/

FM and I showed you where to look. MOTU Support can ask for a log on either of those if needed.

In the mean time, the first thing to try is simply download and reinstall DP. This can resolve many conflicts and takes far less time.

In addition, I gave you two timing marks as a benchmark. If your iMac has an HDD or Fusion Drive, expect your load times to be slower than mine. If you’ve replaced your hard drive with an SSD, expect it to be about the same. If you’ve installed a large NVMe 3 x4 blade in the AHCI slot, expect load times to be between 2/3 to 1/2 that of the MBP. If you wonder how to give your 2013 its Wheaties, that’s the ticket, BTW — it can’t maximize the speed of a fast blade like a 970 EVO but there are inexpensive blades that are just as fast in that 2013.

[mikehalloran]

2017 iMP 14 Core 128GB RAM 2TB Mojave
a) Click on DP app alias in Dock till Project List appears: 1'05" Click on project till screen appears: <1"

b) Double-Click on project icon till screen appears: 59"

c) Restarting project after quit till project screen appears without rebooting (cached RAM): 36"

I didn't expect an 18 Core to make a difference but…

2017 iMP 18 Core 128GB RAM 4TB Mojave
a) Click on DP app alias in Dock till Project List appears: 34" Click on project till screen appears: <1"

b) Double-Click on project icon till screen appears: 33"

c) Restarting project after quit till project screen appears without rebooting (cached RAM): 21"

Again, I rebooted between (a) and (b) to eliminate the effect of memory caching.

I'll have upgraded to Catalina by Fri or Sat and will run these tests again.

For now, I'm liking this a lot!

[mikehalloran]

Now running DP 10.13 over Catalina 10.15.7. Let's see what happens.

2017 iMP 18 Core 128GB RAM 4TB Catalina.

a) Click on DP app alias in Dock till Project List appears: 44" Click on project till screen appears: <1" 11 seconds slower

b) Double-Click on project icon till screen appears: 43" 10 seconds slower

c) Restarting project after quit till project screen appears without rebooting (cached RAM): 16" 5 seconds faster

Again, I rebooted between (a) and (b) to eliminate the effect of memory caching.

Conclusion: Catalina is not the problem — something else is.

The most likely culprit is something old or corrupted. Like most apps, DP will attempt to load it 3 times before moving on — used to see this with the Mackie HUI plugin after other plugs were installed. Console.app will show if this is happening. The fix was to reinstall DP and reboot. That's still the first recommendation.

After that, do a Safe Boot with the Shift key held down to rebuild corrupted pathways.

If the machine takes too long to boot or won't shut down, Reset Launch Services (I had to do this twice during my recent upgrade to Catalina). At one point during my upgrade odyssey, I couldn't connect to the internet and rebooting didn't fix it but resetting Launch Services did.

Reset Launch Services

1. Open Terminal and run these commands (copy and paste):
2. sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network
3. killall Dock
4. sudo mdutil -E /
5. Restart your Mac