Sudden stops in Logic when a new track starts playing

This problem has dogged me for years, with three different Macs, loads of different OS versions, loads of different interfaces and loads of different Logic Pro versions. I have upgraded from 7 to 8 and it's still happening, in fact worse in 8 than in 7: A song will occasionally just suddenly stop, usually exactly where a track starts. So for example if I have a track with data starting at bar 17, Logic sometimes, randomly, simply stops when it reaches bar 17. The track can be Audio recording, or midi playing a Logic or AU virtual instrument - makes no difference. If I reset to the beginning and start again it will always play past the problem point no trouble, every single time. Occasionally though it will stop later in the song where another track starts. It makes no difference how much processing is going on. I have songs with only four bounced (not frozen) audio tracks and a bit of external midi, where the CPU bars on my Macbook Pro don't even move, and yet it can stop, not always, but sometimes. I use Logic Pro live on stage and it's a killer I can tell you. Anyone else suffering the same problem? I'm thinking of abandoning Logic and going to Ableton!

Macbook Pro 2.16, Powermac G5 2.3DP, Mac OS X (10.4.9), RME Fireface 400, Logic Studio 8

Posted on Nov 13, 2007 4:25 PM

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10 replies

Nov 16, 2007 9:37 PM in response to Rob Williams

Hi,

Do you do regular maintenance tasks on your computer regularly? The Unix shell likes to be maintained regularly.

You can use something like Onyx to force the tasks when you want to do them. This gets rid of corrupt kernel files, clenas up cache files, etc... this makes for a better performing computer, overall.

Also, if you do use an external hard drive, defragmenting it once a month or so is a good idea.

Cheers

Nov 17, 2007 3:02 PM in response to noeqplease

It has been debated whether this behavior is a bug. There is a link around here somewhere to a youtube movie where this happens during a Logic demo at a convention. I can say this bug definitely happens to me. People usually say that it happens at the first instance of a real audio data (as opposed to sequenced parts).

From what I've read, it seems there's no certain way to avoid this behavior, but some disagree.

Nov 18, 2007 6:52 AM in response to bdevoid

I'm glad you said that. I've been using Logic since it came into existance, and I've had this kind of behavious, often accompanied by a message saying Midi and audio have gone out of sync, since Logic Audio came out. I'm no Mac guru, but I do know my way around with the OS, and with audio generally, and I'm sure I'm not doing anything silly, but this problem makes it very dangerous to use Logic in a live situation. The Pet Shop Boys tour with a similar rig to mine, and I know they have exactly the same problem. They're lucky enough to be able to run two rigs in parallel, but even so, it must be scary not knowing when Logic will suddenly decide to stop in the middle of a song! If anyone has had this and cured it, please, please tell me what you did.

Nov 21, 2007 4:28 AM in response to Rob Williams

This must be a problem with Logic because a lot of people experience it, including me. I've noticed that giving the song an extra minute to load cuts down on these drop outs. That leads me to believe that Logic hasn't fully loaded the files and that may cause it to drop out. Regardless, it seems silly when we're running such powerful systems.

Can anyone confirm if this is fixed in Logic 8?

Nov 21, 2007 11:14 AM in response to stevetothink

Sadly, I can only confirm that it is NOT fixed in Logic 8. I've been rehearsing using 8 for three weeks now, and although I can report that since the last Pro Applications update, stability is much better - no "Unexpectedly Quit" messages since then, the sudden stops are still happening. Tonight I'm going to try it with the error messages preference switched back on to see what Logic thinks the problem is, but I bet it will just be the old "Midi and audio sync error" type thing again!

As an idea, does anyone know if letting Logic 8 copy all the assets into the song folder has any effect on DSP or load times? Seems like a waste of disk space to me, but I'm getting desperate now!

Dec 20, 2007 8:21 AM in response to Rob Williams

Just to bump this thread again: I turned the error messages back on in Logic Preferences (I had disabled them because it's even more irritating having to click an extra window every time I get an unexpected stop) and I see that Logic reports an out of CPU error when it stops unexpectedly. However, I run a Macbook Pro with 2GB of RAM, and it even does it on songs with only 3 or 4 tracks playing, where the CPU activity bar is lighting up one segment only! I'm going to try 8.01 tonight, but I've had this behaviour with every single version and sub-version of Logic since the very first Logic Audio, so I'm not expecting much to have changed in a .01 upgrade.

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Sudden stops in Logic when a new track starts playing

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