Sudden crashes... are there good instructions of what to do next?

[RodneySauer]

I've been tracking on Digital Performer 11.21 on my new M2 Max MacBook Pro (32 Mbytes memory, Ventura 13.2).

I've been getting two or three sudden crashes per day: suddenly DP disappears. After a bit, an Apple crash report window pops up. Opening DP again takes me back to the last autosave.

It has happened at various times: during recording, sometimes during playback, sometimes while moving a single audio soundbite in the Sequence window. I'm not doing much that's challenging -- 8 tracks of audio at 48 Hz, 24 bit from a MOTU 8M. Almost entirely audio, plus a couple of MIDI tracks that trigger a digital piano, no virtual instruments.

I tried deleting the preference file and folder, and connecting my Motu 8M directly instead of through a Thunderbolt hub, and various other things. Nothing has fixed it.

I'm sure someone has written up somewhere what the next steps are for debugging this (for instance, I've seen mentions of getting a crash log, but I can't find out how that's done) or other simple resets to try.

Can someone point me in the next direction to check, please? And thank you.

[stubbsonic]

Welcome to my world. Your post describes my experience for almost as long as I can remember. I gave up long ago. I just use DP, save often and know that it remains the crashiest app I have ever used.

[RodneySauer]

Welcome to my world. Your post describes my experience for almost as long as I can remember. I gave up long ago. I just use DP, save often and know that it remains the crashiest app I have ever used.

Well, that hasn't been my experience until just recently. And many people on this site are saying the latest version is quite stable. So I still believe there is a solution for this.

[HCMarkus]

I get those sudden, "poof - DP is gone" crashes now and then, maybe one every third day or so. My crash reports always reference the video file (I'm working on a score at present) and there seems to otherwise be no rhyme or reason.

The M1 starts DP up so quickly, the crashes are little more than a small irritant for me.

I did notify MOTU and shared a crash report with them. You may wish to do the same, Rodney.

[bayswater]

If there is a simple way to add a OS 10.x volume or partition, install DP 11 on that and see what happens. I’ve found DP 11, if anything is more stable than DP 10 on my system.

[RodneySauer]

Yes, I've got Catalina on my 2012 iMac, and DP 11.21 is perfectly stable there (though I use it less, so it has less chance to crash).

[HCMarkus]

I am still using the template I created on my Mac Pro 5,1 with DP9.5. I've run into a few anomalous behaviors (for instance, NI Battery refusing to recall sample locations, requiring a Spotlight search every time the file is opened... when I remove the track and re-add Battery, this stops), so I plan to rebuilt from scratch when my current project is concluded.

Which leads me to ask: could old templates could be the root of the issues raised here?

[mikehalloran]

If things are crashing—something I experienced with DP 10 a lot—I will open the Apple Activity Monitor to see if anything turns red and, if so, drill down on it immediately.

This is why I no longer allow Corel products on my Mac except for Toast. There's a license manager/update monitor that can't be turned off and only removing it completely made the problem go away. It took disabling SIP and using Find Any File to catch everything but that's what it took.

Otherwise, if DP gets cantankerous, I will boot DP in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key. The Audio Engine and any other extensions will not load but that's ok. When open, I Quit and boot again. Safe Mode rebuilds paths to the Shared Resources file and extensions. Again, I had to do this in 10 a lot. A Safe Boot of the OS is done the same way and rebuilds paths and the desktop as well as resets caches to default. How to do this depends on whether Windows or Mac and has changed again on the M1, M2.

I updated to Ventura the other day and was having all sorts of issues with Apple apps including Messages, Mail and Music. wt…? I had this exact issue after updating to Mojave three years ago and the fix was the same: reinstall the MacOS as I did last night.

If DP or other apps or the MacOS take too long to start up or shut down, rebuilding Launch Services is the normal solution.

[James Steele]

I updated to Ventura the other day and was having all sorts of issues with Apple apps including Messages, Mail and Music. wt…? I had this exact issue after updating to Mojave three years ago and the fix was the same: reinstall the MacOS as I did last night.

Ahhh! Bummer! Is this how you discovered that we can't revert to Monterey from Ventura using local APFS snapshots? Again, that sucks. I had figured that would be my insurance policy if I updated to Ventura and it didn't turn out well. I'm even more hesitant to move to Ventura at this point. Maybe after MOTU fixes the Core Audio export issue in DP. Really hoping for a DP 11.3 update and they're not sitting on something waiting for NAMM in April. Actually not even sure if MOTU will exhibit at NAMM this year and are waiting for January 2024 when Winter NAMM really becomes Winter NAMM again!

[RodneySauer]

Which leads me to ask: could old templates could be the root of the issues raised here?

One thing I tried was opening a new, blank project, then Loading the existing project into it, in the hopes of leaving any weird glitches behind. That didn't do it... but thanks for the idea.

[mikehalloran]

I updated to Ventura the other day and was having all sorts of issues with Apple apps including Messages, Mail and Music. wt…? I had this exact issue after updating to Mojave three years ago and the fix was the same: reinstall the MacOS as I did last night.

Ahhh! Bummer! Is this how you discovered that we can't revert to Monterey from Ventura using local APFS snapshots? Again, that sucks. I had figured that would be my insurance policy if I updated to Ventura and it didn't turn out well. I'm even more hesitant to move to Ventura at this point. Maybe after MOTU fixes the Core Audio export issue in DP. Really hoping for a DP 11.3 update and they're not sitting on something waiting for NAMM in April. Actually not even sure if MOTU will exhibit at NAMM this year and are waiting for January 2024 when Winter NAMM really becomes Winter NAMM again!

Oh yea. Hours wasted on the phone with Apple Support techs who don't know the latest MacOS. Had I taken the advice, I'd be in the middle of a full Restore — Yikes!. When I called after hours, the system looked up that my iMP is still under AppleCare (24 hr Support!) and, instead of disconnecting me, hooked me up with Engineering in Australia who confirmed that I was right.

Of course, had I known that Ventura cannot be rolled back, I never would have updated. Sheesh! Something about MacOS 13 residing in its own Volume now.

In any case, the workaround for the Core Audio Export bug is easy — weird because neither my interface or System Out are shown but easy. I may have threatened death squads to any of my PL users who update before that bug is fixed.

Which leads me to ask: could old templates could be the root of the issues raised here?

One thing I tried was opening a new, blank project, then Loading the existing project into it, in the hopes of leaving any weird glitches behind. That didn't do it... but thanks for the idea.

Ooooooh… I forgot about Templates. Examine yours to make sure all of your plug-ins are up to date, then, once everything is ship-shape, Save as New Template while giving it a new name. Some of mine still had RX6 when I did that in 2020 and 2021.

[bayswater]

Yes, I've got Catalina on my 2012 iMac, and DP 11.21 is perfectly stable there (though I use it less, so it has less chance to crash).

So why not to just use DP in Catalina? Some that have bought new Macs are stuck with later OS version, but otherwise is there any reason to update the OS if things are working well?

[James Steele]

In any case, the workaround for the Core Audio Export bug is easy — weird because neither my interface or System Out are shown but easy.

I must have missed it. What’s the workaround? Use native export?

[mikehalloran]

In any case, the workaround for the Core Audio Export bug is easy — weird because neither my interface or System Out are shown but easy.

I must have missed it. What’s the workaround? Use native export?

The non-Core Audio export options work.

Screenshot 2023-02-02 at 8.45.16 PM.jpg (58.95 KiB) Viewed 2188 times

This is good because a TM Restore on a nearly full 4TB System Drive took 40 hours last time. That stuff about TRIM and Garbage Collection needing time to prepare the cells for new data is no longer academic for me. It probably would have taken 4 hours or so had that been half of an 8TB drive.

[James Steele]

All of that looks good and you could then covert to MP3 or other compressed audio formats after the fact if desired. I guess there is no workaround if you have a movie file associated with the project you want to bounce to a QT movie. I suppose you could do an audio only bounce and then add the resulting audio to the movie in video editing software. Seems like best to just hang with Monterey until MOTU fixes this. Nothing super compelling for me about Ventura.