eventual SFP crash

[Neutron]

Hi all, a strange scope problem has popped up.


If i leave my system and come back after a few hours. when i start using SFP (4) it will eventually freeze up, usually when changing a preset or something.

The sound will still work on its current preset, synths and audio play without distortion.

i just have to restart SFP, and ableton not the whole computer, so it doesnt take long.

The project it happens to has a modular with a very simple gate in it, a mixer, with send and return from external reverb, a few inputs from external synths, a MIDI monitor. and ableton is running through ASIO.

theres a DX7 "controller keyboard" and another midi input merged in midi solutions hardware box (it got rid of the dx7 "active sensing")

It seems to work perfectly fine when i am there, but if i go away for a few hours or overnight. and come back it always fails.

Its not a huge deal except i am worried it might happen some time when im in the middle of something important. kind of hard to trouble shoot iit, because any changes i make wont show up for hours.

PCI latency is set to 96 (tried 64 and 128, no difference) anyways im pretty sure
its not hardware because everything works fine after i restart the apps.

also tried removing any delays/reverbs being used in inserts

Today i got rid of the MIDI monitor maybe it is filling up memory? we will see tomorrow

Its 2x14 dsp scope and a 6 dsp p2. in a new xeon 3210 with intel chipset (supermicro) 4gb ram (tested ok)
running SFP 4.0 and ableton 6

If anyone has something to try please let me know!

best regards
Neutron

[Music Manic]

Have you de-activated "power down if idle" setting in windows device manager?

[Neutron]

I see a check for "reset board if idle" which is in the scope/pulsar settings should i turn it off?

[garyb]

yes. that's the one he's speaking of.

[Mr-Bit]

true

[Mr-Bit]

Whoops missed

"i just have to restart SFP, and ableton not the whole computer"

[the19thbear]

hmmm.. well would it help to get a very cheap soundcard and do the midi there???

[at0m]

Hoi Neutron,

I have the same problem when Scope needs to read from an idle (not spinning) disk. Before I continue to work when the system's had such powersavings, I browse the disk or open a file on it so it spins up. IMHO then, when Scope needs something from the disk, it has direct access. Scope seems to be unable to wait or to spin up the disk properly.

Related problem - and fix?

Been a while
at0m.

[Neutron]

well this smorning i tried something different. i played a couple of notes. they were delayed. then it started to work normally. after i ran some audio and played a bit on the keyboard, then i tried changing presets and it seemed to be fine.

maybe it has got something to do with power saving mode,
i guess changing presets right away to test it before it fully powers up (or whatever it is doing) is a bit much

atom i had my disks set to spin down "never" but it seems similar to that.

[Neutron]

This seems to be a recurring theme. I can get my Pulsar II to freeze the system by just sending midi to Ableton Live all ver. I have tried everything at the moment the system is totally stripped down fresh XP, C2D E6700 2 Gb Ram on an intel board no cable whip or Z-link attached.It will freeze within 2hr sometimes 5min.Works fine with just audio.
I live in hope of a system tweek solution but fear that I have a duff board.This is a bit more serious for me because I want to use my setup live so regular lockups are a no no.
Waiting patiently for a revelation or my bank balence to reach xite levels

sympathie

Bit

well i know ableton 7 has some problem with MIDI for me, thats why i went back to 6. it could not send sync properly to external machine (spectralis) either through pulsar midi or soundbastard. i dont use any built in instruments from ableton anyways. never any trouble getting midi IN though.

I think you might have a MIDI feedback loop, because i have not had trouble inputting MIDI from keyboard/guitar through scope to ableton, even with 6 channel guitar to MIDI output.

[Neutron]

Ok when i got home same thing. play some notes. wait a bit then everything seems fine. this time i left a massive delay running overnight to see what happens

[symbiote]

try turning off xp's swap file. fixed it for me, plus now xp grinds a *lot* less! it's magic!

[Mr-Bit]

A new thing in A Live 7 is that we can now choose between DirectMusic and MME ports both seem to work which is preferable ?

[Neutron]

This is still happening, generally if im working it is fine, i have no thad any crashes unless i come back from a long break. i have tried turning off power saving modes where i can find them think it might check through the rest of the motherboard components in device manager and see what else might have a power saving option switched on.

Getting rid of the swap file. that might be an option, why would it matter though the hard drives dont do anything except when im loading a sample or program.?

[Music Manic]

Heat problem?

[Neutron]

Nah, i have a 120mm fan on the huge heatsink on the CPU, which runs cool anyways, and the cards have their own fan blowing fresh air between them.

today i found a lot of USB devices in the device manager that have power management options in the driver, so i turned power management features off on them.

[greenbluegold]

Neutron, Did USB power managment adjustment fix the problem?

I'm experiencing a similar problem with Scope 4.5 and Ableton 7.0.7.

I'm routed like this:

in scope

midi out from keyboard into scope midi in
scope midi in routed to sequencer

in ableton

midi in from Scope
midi out to MOTU microlite to keyboard

All works fine for a while, but every session ends in a crash.

I can still play the keyboard through the midi routing (local midi is off for the keyboard) and the audio will still play (I monitor though scope)

However, the computer is frozen, I can't move the cursor with the mouse. I can still sometimes execute commands from the computer keyboard.

Sometimes if a a midi sequence is looping in ableton, as short phrase of it will continue to loop after the crash.

If audio is playing in Ableton (routed by ASIO back to scope for monitoring) then it will loop a few samples of it chkchkchkchkchkchk.

[Neutron]

Did you try that thing i posted on the tips and tricks about disabling USB selective suspend? my system is working great now
I have also built another one to put the sequencer and most of the USB crap on to just a keyboard and mouse on USB, and scope has the system to itself. also with extrnal sequencer without using scope internal MIDI drivers the clocked things like sb404 stay perfectly in time.

[Tau]

Greenbluegold: are you using the MOTU's ASIO driver? Could you try using the Scope ASIO driver in Live and see if it makes a difference?

[greenbluegold]

Neutron: I do suspect it might be the MOTU usb-midi device that's causing the problem. It's the only usb device I have plugged in, unfortunately it doesn't seem to have USB selective suspend setting in the driver. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I did turn off the reset on idle setting for the scope card and turned off the page file.

Ok I found USB root hubs in the device manager that have a power management option. I've now turned them all off, maybe that will help.

Tau: The MOTU is midi only. I use the scope ASIO drivers for audio in and out of ableton.




[quote]I can still play the keyboard through the midi routing (local midi is off for the keyboard) and the audio will still play (I monitor though scope)[/quote]

I thought I had my local off but my keyboard reset this on power down. When I turned the local off, I was unable to play it though the routing.