Is DP8 unusable?

[b.g.]

DP8? I'm soaking in it now...

Madge?

Getting (some of) MLC's humor: One of the few good things about getting old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndaZp0PI ... re=related

[labman]

It starts out with a command or two, then after a while, most of the commands are not working. The keyboard commands just gradually quit working. It could be happening to you, but you don't notice it, since it could be commands that you don't use often.

I first noticed it when trying to resize the tracks in the Sequence Editor while holding down W to apply it to all of them. W didn't work. T didn't work. Then I needed to Select-All, which I then pare down to the tracks and range I want. Command-A didn't work!

It's 100% reliable on my system: leave it for a while, and the commands will always stop working.

Shoosh

we see that and we dont even have to leave it idle for very long.

I feel Stuarts queries are extremely valid. If, like some of us, one is on a serious deadline with large contracts you cannot be having lost keyboard commands, mice hits not always working, video having odd issues, or a work pace slowed down by a 'slower feeling ' version of the tools you are used to. There are some who use DP quite enjoyably a few hours here and there for their own enjoyment, and there are some who use DP for 50+ hours a week on nice $ contracts. I dont feel MOTU or any of us should expect any seasoned veteran with their tails on the line and huge trk counts, to have to check and double check to see if the last command actually worked. That takes valuable focus away from the actual score, and thus the craft suffers. (which of course equates to our being hired/fired)

I for one am ecstatic about the fixes of DP8 with VEP. I just hope these other issues are properly addressed in days, not weeks or months.

[James Steele]

I'm frustrated with DP's reputation among people who don't know the software, but it will become harder to defend if these issues are here for a year or more as other known issues have been.

Gotta say, the other "known issues" haven't gotten in the way of me and thousands of other people getting their work done, obviously.

Speaking of defending DP... here's a quote from Dave Polich in another thread on this board about GearSlutz discussion on DP:

Well, the anti-DP folks have reared their ugly little heads over at GS now -
I've been doing my best to respond. Didn't take long for people there to
seize on the various comments in the Troubleshooting section.

Yep... some people just come here to dig up fodder for anti-DP diatribes.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

New MOTUNation slogan...

Something for everybody!

[Gravity Jim]

I have spent a total of about one hour actually working in DP8, and have already had the keyboard go completely unresponsive once. Clicking on the Finder and coming back to DP didn't work: I had to quit and relaunch.

You might think the term a cliché, but I call that "unusable." I sure as hell won't be quitting and relaunching a DAW with clients in the room, so I'll be working in Logic Pro til they fix DP.

Don't get me wrong... I'm really looking forward to working in DP again. I miss a lot about it, and it feels like coming home to be editing audio here again.

But I'm going to point out one little thing: after we all saw MOTU's Powerpoint slideshow at NAMM last January (seems obvious now it wasn't really software actually running under Windows), and as users grew impatient waiting and waiting and waiting for the program to ship, the mantra here became, "I'd rather wait and wait and wait and have them release something that really truly works." Well, we all waited, and it doesn't work. So.... we don't have our cake and didn't get to eat it, either. This is kind of discouraging.

[James Steele]

I have spent a total of about one hour actually working in DP8, and have already had the keyboard go completely unresponsive once. Clicking on the Finder and coming back to DP didn't work: I had to quit and relaunch.

I don't doubt you. That's why it's all the more perplexing that this doesn't happen to me at all.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'm just finishing a magic show in DP8 and have probably logged maybe 14 hours in it (maybe more, I don't track these things) and aside from experimenting with DP launched in 64 bit (which was a disaster for my older VIs and plugs) and problems with the consolidated window and LAME at 256k, it has not crashed once, runs at least as fast as DP7, saves as it should, doesn't loose soundbites, etc. Rock solid. Wait, what was that...?

[Stuartfox]

I'm frustrated with DP's reputation among people who don't know the software, but it will become harder to defend if these issues are here for a year or more as other known issues have been.

Gotta say, the other "known issues" haven't gotten in the way of me and thousands of other people getting their work done, obviously.

While I understand what you mean, but, with respect I must say I find it little insulting that any issues I have should be considered less important because I'm in the minority of people who experience them.

When I say known issues - these are things confirmed by MOTU to me via tech-links or directly by Magic Dave so this isn't just me blaming the tools for a bad setup or 3rd party problem.

There are indeed certain types of projects I know I will have no trouble in and certain types I know I will - but the fact that they are faults that MOTU are aware of make them just as valid, especially since they affect productivity while using DP, even if they only affect a smaller number of people using DP in a specific way.

I have been using DP for 8 hours plus every day this year pretty much with a VI track count of 100 - 150 and multiple chunks (for each cue) per project, I'm bound to unearth bugs that a singer songwriter who uses 20 tracks of audio in his / her spare time won't. In fact by using folks that use a piece of software more intensely to iron out the rarer bugs, you could achieve a more stable product on the whole.

Speaking of defending DP... here's a quote from Dave Polich in another thread on this board about GearSlutz discussion on DP:

Well, the anti-DP folks have reared their ugly little heads over at GS now -
I've been doing my best to respond. Didn't take long for people there to
seize on the various comments in the Troubleshooting section.

Yep... some people just come here to dig up fodder for anti-DP diatribes.

And on this subject - I think the support / troubleshooting section should be for registered DP owners only - there could be some sort of verification, perhaps even MOTU would support it by allowing use of the serial number algorithm. Also would serve to stop pirates getting free support - something thats bound to become more of an issue with the windows version of DP imminent.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

...I find it little insulting that any issues I have should be considered less important because I'm in the minority of people who experience them.

I see it quite the opposite, If you are among the very few experiencing a particular problem, then it is likely something in your system that is the culprit. That could be bad RAM, a loose RAM stick, a graphics conflict, a misbehaving plug, a drive about to fail, a permissions problem. All these are NOT DP problems and if others aren't seeing what you're seeing, then it is not meant that YOU are at fault or that YOU'RE less significant.

It does mean that you might want to start looking at your system very carefully and do some "extreme" things, like even reinstalling the OS on a clean drive if need be. More than once, I found myself alone with particular problems - more so in Finale than DP, and a clean install solved those problems which, in the end, was a permissions issues. Nevertheless, it was crippling Finale and a few other apps on my Mac.

We're on your side, dude. I doubt James is running this place to satisfy his own ego. Crap... that's what music's for.

[crduval]

Running pretty well for me. I'm not having the keyboard problems some are seeing. I have run across a couple quirky things that were not an issue in 7.24 but they are minor - not enough for me to switch back. Had a crash today but at least half the problem was operator error. I'm running 32 bit, no rush for me going to 64 bits yet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Stuartfox]

...I find it little insulting that any issues I have should be considered less important because I'm in the minority of people who experience them.

I see it quite the opposite, If you are among the very few experiencing a particular problem, then it is likely something in your system that is the culprit. That could be bad RAM, a loose RAM stick, a graphics conflict, a misbehaving plug, a drive about to fail, a permissions problem. All these are NOT DP problems and if others aren't seeing what you're seeing, then it is not meant that YOU are at fault or that YOU'RE less significant.

I understand the system variables that can contribute to these issues - and I'm not quick to blame the most obvious. I always try to eliminate everything methodically while troubleshooting, and I've managed to come up with information thats helped developers isolate, in some cases pretty major bugs in the past.

My original point relates to some specific, long term issues which MOTU have confirmed are DP's issues. There's no question of these being a local problem as MOTU have confirmed the issue and confirmed a fix in 8. These include some GUI issues and a specific crash that I can replicate (which is good because I know how to avoid it).

This particular crash, I'm told by MOTU, has been fixed for DP8 - but they were aware of it for many months and did nothing to fix it in DP7. I fully understand that they probably would have fixed it if they could, I think part of the fix related to DP8's new video engine so thats why, but all I'm saying is that bugs that are definitely DP8 related need to be addressed faster now.

I'm not complaining about any 'bugs' or issues I don't categorically know to be an issue with DP itself.

I'm on MOTU's side - I want DP to be more widely used and respected, I'm just voicing my opinion on what needs to happen to achieve this, if they do indeed know about bugs, even if they only affect certain users, they need to be stamped on quickly.

[Stuartfox]

Of course this may all be academic - DP8 may indeed fix all the issues MOTU said it would and I may not see any of the reported problems - I just got my confirmation email - I get my copy tomorrow!

S

[labman]

[quote="Stuartfox"][ In fact by using folks that use a piece of software more intensely to iron out the rarer bugs, you could achieve a more stable product on the whole. [quote]

My engineer said the same thing the other day as we kept running into things. Best tests after general code completion are under worst case scenarios. (he used to design spy planes so running worst case there was sort of an important scenario. A DP users worst case is certainly not life and death. Just that clients cant rehire us cause we cant deliver as we once did)

[labman]

On a grateful side note, having this forum for discussion and helping is one of the only reasons we decided to even try DP8.0. In the past, we never, ever jumped on an initial release. EVER ! We have some pretty stringent protocol for building our rigs, installing software, and in house tests. And motunation is a sort of safety net for us when those things dont work.

So I am grateful to James for taking the reins several years back. And to all the seasoned folks who give confidence that these things can be identified, discussed, and solved.

[James Steele]

.. with a VI track count of 100 - 150 and multiple chunks (for each cue) per project, I'm bound to unearth bugs that a singer songwriter who uses 20 tracks of audio in his / her spare time won't.

Don't have much "spare time" these days and I do use more audio tracks but obviously your number of chunks per project and number of VIs is atypical as you've said.