Hoping to fix my hangs - any Big Sur issues?

Dorico
#1

When I started I was getting a lot of hangs and crashes, on upgrading a driver they mostly went away, now are back with a vengance (crash/hang logs haven’t helped Daniel much, just that it’s waiting on some window). I’m on a tricked out Mac Pro 2013 and am at the end of my wits. I’m moving on to Windows and abandoning Mac forever but I’m not quite ready to do that yet for the music. For one Focusrite just ported their RED drivers to Windows in December and I want to let those mature a while.

Anyhow I’m thinking of upgrading to Big Sur to see if that helps, usually I wait on OS’s. Any issues with Dorico or anything else? One of my beefs with Apple is how they keep restricting their little ecosystem and becoming more incompatable with others.

#2

Dorico works fine for me on Big Sur, and I think most Mac users don’t have these problems, which means there’s something particular to your setup that’s causing it.

I’d start by testing without all other third-party processes that are running concurrently: audio drivers for external hardware; ‘utility’ background processes; anything in System Prefs > Users . Login Items.

Testing in a brand new user account is a good test, as it instantly rules in or out user vs. system-related issues. If a brand new user account works, then some setting or process triggered in your old user account is the cause. If not, then it’s a system-level issue (conceivably something in /Library).

What was the ‘driver’ that you updated that fixed the problems? What OS are you currently running on your Pro? If it’s sufficiently old, then updated third-party drivers may actually not be helpful, if they’re designed for newer systems.

What particular restrictions and incompatibilities are you referring to? If you think Windows will be free on incompatibilities and driver problems… :wink:

#3

I think it’s highly unlikely that upgrading your operating system will make any difference, since I suspect that the problems are caused by the combination of virtual instruments, IAC buses, external audio devices, etc., and not by the OS itself. If you upgrade, I’d wager that you will end up introducing additional problems, rather than solving them.

#4

Well I think I may have figured it out. I’ve had it off of a MOTU Micro Lite and also tried a MOTU Express XT MIDI interfaces (Doepfer LMK4+ keyboard), finally I just tried having it use the USB MIDI port of the Doepfer and Dorico is behaving itself. No hangs, no crashes and it’s more responsive.

Odd thing is Nuendo, Cubase, Logic, MainStage and a ton of other apps I use here all are fine with the MOTU interface, but Dorico doesn’t seem to like it. Even more oddly is that Dorico is using the OUT ports on the interface for external instruments, but just removing the keyboard in coming from it has quieted everything down.

Crossing my fingers, been testing this for a day or two and it’s working perfectly.

#5

Do you have any IAC buses active? If so it’s possible you might have an infinite feedback loop

#6

Good thought, I do but no that’s definitely not the issue.

@PaulWalmsley Feedback to the team is that the MOTU Micro Lite MIDI interface is poison for Dorico, at least on my computer. I’ve been sitting on this doing tests and making sure I don’t start seeing hangs and crashes again, but its looking pretty certain that Dorico doesn’t play well with this interface on OS X. Not using any of its ports isn’t good enough, you have to physically disconnect the interface for Dorico to behave (the drivers are still in the system).

Interestingly the MOTU MIDI Express XT which I got both to expand the number of ports and to help with this problem appears to be just fine. They have different drivers and installers, and all my multiple other DAW’s are just fine with them both (including both Cubase and Nuendo), but for some reason Dorico goes haywire with it in the system.

Keeping my fingers crossed … I won’t call all clear until I give it a couple more days but haven’t seen any issues since I pulled the USB to it.

#7

Can you re-enable the device to cause it to crash or hang again and then do Help > Create Diagnostic Report, and attack the DoricoDiagnostics.zip file from the desktop? This may give is some clues as to where the problem is (it includes the crash logs)

#8

@PaulWalmsley I’ve given loads of crashlogs and spindumps to Daniel, this has been plauging me since I bought the software in summer. Shows my dedication that I stayed with it despite constant crashes :grin: (and because Dorico is worth it). I don’t remember him asking for a Diagnostics report, but to be honest I’m not too inclined to try to get it to crash again at the moment because it appears I finally have some peace :grin: I’m used to waking up my computer with Dorico crashed or hung, this morning it’s just fine and ready to go so I can get some work done finally - I need a break from the trouble for once!

Tell you what, if you folks have an idea of a specific test or procedure you’d like me to try let me know and I’ll do it later this month after the dust settles, and otherwise you can check with Daniel for the existing set of logs.

#9

Daniel has sent me of the previous reports, but there aren’t any crash reports in that one. I could only find the record of one hang after a 10 hour editing session on 29 Dec, but unfortunately there’s not enough information in that to work out what the problem may be.

I note in one of your earlier threads you mention that the MOTU device was quite unstable in Logic too, especially on waking up, so this suggests that the device is not behaving as expected. Obviously we want to prevent Dorico crashing where possible, but device drivers can fail in many unexpected and unpredictable ways.

#10

@PaulWalmsley Of course it was too good to be true, this morning a hang again. I sent another diagnostic to Daniel, but the problem is predominantly hangs not crashes.

The MOTU unstability with Logic is just that Logic and MainStage would simply complain about missing MIDI ports on startup. The Micro Lite is bus powered, so presumably they scanned for the ports before the bus powered the device up again, that’s all. I’d just have to hit a cancel button to prevent remapping the ports, and it would sort it out.

At any rate the Micro Lite is gone but still the hang this morning, though it has been more stable since then.

#11

If you do experience the hang again then please try to collect a spindump as described here: Dorico and VST Audio Engine continuously crashing - #4 by Ulf

and attach that, along with the diagnostic report and the time that the hang occurred.

#12

I’ve sent loads of those to Daniel so you can check with him on that if anything is useful, once he mentioned it was waiting on a window. Next time it happens, which it will, I’ll do what you say.

One thing that makes me think of is I make extensive use of Spaces, I have 16 of them with Dorico in its own. Shouldn’t matter but if it’s trying to do some window thing and space isn’t active it’ll get upset. I’m a software developer so if you want me to run any other tools or things I can do that.