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

[kenwheeler]

I don't know if this might spark some idea of whats causing this problem. Just updated to DP10.13 and Mojave (10.14.6 ) from DP 10 (earlier version) and Sierra, and immediately started getting the hangs during BTD.
Never experienced this before, always been impressed by the speed of the bounce.

Went back to DP8 (which I have always found trouble free, never tried DP9) on another drive (High Sierra) and found no problems with BTD.


Mac Pro 5.1
32 GB ram

[kenwheeler]

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.

I'm not getting the BTD problem when booted into High Sierra which I believe is also APFS.

[kenwheeler]

Just gone back to DP10.11 on Mojave and I'm not experiencing any BTD problems, so for me the BTD hangs are only happening with DP10.13 (on Mojave).

[mikehalloran]

Just gone back to DP10.11 on Mojave and I'm not experiencing any BTD problems, so for me the BTD hangs are only happening with DP10.13 (on Mojave).

I had this in DP 10.11 over High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina. It stopped when I a) moved my active projects to my System drive, b) created new templates in 10.11 per MOTU's recommendation, c) made sure that my plugins were up to date.

I can re-create the condition by moving a project to one of my SATA III externals and re-bouncing. I do this occasionly including this morning. It is sometimes more convenient for me to re-mix and re-bounce one of my archived projects for the coming Sunday than to copy it back first. It will likely hang but will eventually finish with no data loss and it doesn't lock up my system. Bottom line: it may be an issue but it's not a problem for me.

Currently on DP 10.13 over Catalina.

[mikehalloran]

I still suspect this is a timing issue of some kind and that MOTU needs to fix it someday.

The only way for me to see if I'm right is to replace my SATA III SSDs over TB2 with a fast NVMe 3 x4 over TB3. OWC has the 4TB Envoy Pro @ $120 off on a BF sale. I'm just not feeling the need to spend $879 to see if I'm right when this is not a problem for me. My VIs and Apple Music stream just fine to SATA III.

[kenwheeler]

With DP10.11 on Mojave, with project (no plug-ins) on a different drive to system,no problems with BTD.

With DP10.13 on Mojave, with project (no plug-ins) on system drive, still getting hangs in BTD.

[Kenny B]

So I am tempted to contact Matt at MOTU and just let him know that this problem is still on-going and for me spoils the fun of having a relatively fast computer and hard drive only to be knee-capped by bad performance of BTD. I am still willing to put a sample of my DP setup on dropbox for anyone interested to give it a try to see if the problem is the way I've set up my Aux sends/receives or something to that nature. Maybe the problem is with the way I've setup my project??

I've done a huge amount of debugging with this since day one. I was a programmer (career job) so I know something about how to isolate a problem. I think I've tried everything I could think of to try and isolate this, still to no avail.

And YES... I am working on my boot drive SSD with bounces going to the same project that I'm working in. And I have created a new template from scratch... did all those things... maybe I did something wrong????

If anyone wants to send me a project with no plug-in or recorded data that has at least three Aux sends... let me know. I will fire it up here and see if I can get this thing to fly.

And, I've stopped working in El Capitan because my iTunes did not transfer over to Catalina and I'm sick of going back and forth between the two operating systems. I'm just working in the latest Catalina OS with DP 10.13 and suffering whenever I do a BTD which btw I do almost every day as I play guitar, record, master, BTD, export to my hard drive in DP.

[mikehalloran]

Suffering?

Are you still running the AHCI blade in your MP 6.1 or have you upgraded it to NVMe? I’m guessing AHCI since El Cap will not run on a NVMe blade. Your bus is only x2 so a slow blade like the Crucial P2 is as fast as your system can handle. Still, you can nearly triple your R/W speed with this simple upgrade. Under $225. Should go a long way to relieving the suffering.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-1TB-NAN ... =8-17&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-Adapter ... 933&sr=8-5

The heat sink is not supposed to be necessary with a slow NVMe blade like the P2 — no room for it in any of the laptops I’ve installed them in. Not a bad idea in any case. If installing a fast blade like the Sabrant 4TB, it’s absolutely necessary. You can’t use the extra speed but that’s the only way to get more than 2 TB onboard.

https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Heatsi ... 78&sr=8-15

[kenwheeler]

With the latest thing I've tried, on DP 10.13 on Mojave, with the project on system drive and a new template, I'm seeing an improvement, with only one very short hang in the first of 12 bounces.

[kenwheeler]

Looks like the new template has sorted this issue for me, latest project on external (not system) drive, lots of bounces with no problems at all.

[mikehalloran]

Looks like the new template has sorted this issue for me, latest project on external (not system) drive, lots of bounces with no problems at all.

What works, works! Good to hear.

I still think it's a MOTU issue that needs to be fixed but, till then, we all have work to do and music to make.

I'm convinced that it has something to do with timing. If you have an AHCI blade in there (Apple or OWC), an external SATA III SSD is running around 55% the speed of your system. If you have an NVMe blade inside (fast or slow makes no difference with your 2-lane bus), that ratio goes to about 30%. On my system, that ratio is closer to 10%. This assumes an SSD connected by anything other than a USB 2 cable — SATA III is your bottleneck.

[mikehalloran]

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.

a) I was directing that at you — and every other Mac Pro 6.1, 2013–2016 iMac and 2013–on non-Retina MacBook Air and MacBook Pro owner (Retina MBPs have soldered in NVMe SSDs,). A lot of DP involves write to disk such as BTD. Replacing the stock AHCI blade with an NVMe doubles the speed on those with PCIe x2 busses such as yours and quadruples the speed on those with PCIe x4 busses (2015–2016 iMacs and 2015 non-Retina MBPs with replaceable SSDs). For around $225, you can double your speed and capacity, not counting data migration, the install takes less than 5 minutes.

Those with x4 busses should use a fast blade such as an EVO 970 or the ones that OWC sells. Those with x2 busses should save a couple hundred $ by installing an Intel 660p or Crucial P2.

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

Nope. I had it as have others but no more. This is not the first thread on this nor is it likely to be the last.

There's a whole group on the Facebook who have it who, instead of trying my suggestions, tell me I don't know what I'm talking about—yet they still have the problem. They also wonder why MOTU cannot duplicate it. That's easy. MOTU is running it on their in-house systems, not the end users' machines.

[uncle dunc]

Ever since I moved from DP 7.24 in OS 10.6.8 to DP 10.11 in OS 10.12, BTD hangs consistently. I was hoping DP10.13 would fix it, but after reading comments here, I suspect I won't be going that route. I'm using a spinning drive for audio and an SSD for system, no plugins, new project, 24/44.1, on a 2010 Mac Pro. Sending a 20-track project to a non-DP studio is bad enough, having to render each track individually. Having to wait for the BDT hang every 5th or 8th track is killing me. I'd be moving to a new DAW if I was busier in my studio. As it is now, I just go on FB and wait for the hang to resolve itself. Really disappointed in DP.

Second issue is the inability to save custom presets for non-DP plugins. I tried the advice I found here - create a folder the exact name of the plugin, blah blah blah, with no luck. Started a ticket with DP tech support, but after the initial contact, silence.

I had a feeling I should have stuck with DP 7.24 in OS 10.6.8. That was one stable system.

ETA: So... I moved the project to the SSD system drive - no hangs! That's a relief, thanks to this community. Previously, 4 out of 9 tracks hung during export.

ETA 2: The bad penny is back. After exporting maybe 20 tracks, I get a random hang maybe every 10 to 15 tracks - still better than before, but still broken. On the upside, I finally got the 'save custom preset' thing for non-DP plugins to work.

[kenwheeler]

Unfortunately the new template "fix" didn't work for long for me, BTD hangs have started again with increasing frequency, so in desperation I have gone back to DP 8 on High Sierra (from DP 10.13 on Mojave). At least that still bounces very rapidly with no problems.