logic 9 - very slow response to commands and glitchy gui....PLEASE HELP

One possibility, and something else to try.

Possibility: I've seen similar behavior if there's a MIDI loop.
Also, are you using any third party plugins?

Open activity monitor and see if there's a process using an extreme percentage of you CPU resources.

pancenter-

peaka101@hotmail.com wrote:
thanks for the idea, but it didn't work for me..i deleted all midi loops and removed 2 third party plugins from my session ,

I should have been more clear.

A MIDI loop is a "type" of feedback loop that can happen when using a MIDI keyboard. MIDI data is transmitted then retransmitted in an endless circle.

Are you using a MIDI keyboard?

You said 40% of the CPU was free, was Logic using the other 60%?

pancenter-

Are you really sure that spotlight is not indexing in the background? This happened to me once and I had exactly the same symptoms as you. Just click on the spotlight magnifying glass icon at the top right of your menu bar and see if it's working on an index. If it is, then that's your problem right there.

Other possibilities are that you don't have enough physical RAM, or there might be a hardware problem with a RAM stick in your MBP. 2GB is pretty tight for running Logic especially if you use a lot of sample heavy instruments. Also, you said you have a Seagate Momentus 500GB system drive. Not sure if you are aware of this, but there are two different models of this drive, one of which had Seagate's own anti-schock technology built in, which is known to conflict with the anti-shock system built in to MacBook Pros. The other model doesn't have this tech built in and works fine. I was careful to make sure I got the right one, and I've had no problems. The model number of the Seagate Momentus 500GB that I put in my MBP is: ST9500420AS
Check in your about this mac menu (more info, then look at serial ATA) to see which one yours is. If it's not the same as mine, then this is a strong possibility as the cause of your problem.

Last thing I already mentioned before: How much free space is left on your system drive? OSX (and Logic) use a lot of disc access for automatic swap-files and caching that you can't control in any way yourself. You should always have a very decent chunk of free space on your drive for this reason. Opinions vary on this, some people say never less than 5GBs, others say never less than 20% of the total capacity of your drive. Mine currently has around 30GB free and I like to keep it no lower than that. If you're down to like 500MB free space, then there's your problem right there.

tbirdparis wrote:
Are you really sure that spotlight is not indexing in the background? This happened to me once and I had exactly the same symptoms as you. Just click on the spotlight magnifying glass icon at the top right of your menu bar and see if it's working on an index. If it is, then that's your problem right there.

Spotlight is a dog for sure, but don't you think 6 months is a bit long to be indexing the drive! 🙂

pancenter-

Pancenter wrote:
Spotlight is a dog for sure, but don't you think 6 months is a bit long to be indexing the drive! 🙂

No, it isn't, because Spotlight and its buddies mds and mdworker never stop. Any change in files, or any search or any opening of EXS instruments provokes an indexing or search reponse from Spotlight cs.

OP: Is there a Windows Partition in the your system? It should be excluded from Spotlight in the Privacy list. These are the exact symptoms of having a Windows partition being indexed/used by Spotlight. Excluding it will solve the issue. It may also be a Journaling issue. Using *Disk Utility* and the option/alt key while accessing the menu, turn journaling off for every disk but the startup disk.
Otherwise it might be the anti-shock system conflict Tbird's mentioned. Sounds pretty plausible too.

regards, Erik.

Spotlight is a dog for sure, but don't you think 6 months is a bit long to be indexing the drive! 🙂

pancenter-

Sure, but people forget to mention things here so I figure it's best to not leave any stones unturned. The OP may have added a new drive from time to time and never let spotlight finish indexing on any of them, who knows? But my money is on either the Seagate drive being the wrong model, or some other disc problem. Or a RAM problem, either not enough of it, or a faulty or badly seated RAM stick.

tbirdparis wrote:

Spotlight is a dog for sure, but don't you think 6 months is a bit long to be indexing the drive! 🙂

pancenter-

Sure, but people forget to mention things here so I figure it's best to not leave any stones unturned. The OP may have added a new drive from time to time and never let spotlight finish indexing on any of them, who knows? But my money is on either the Seagate drive being the wrong model, or some other disc problem. Or a RAM problem, either not enough of it, or a faulty or badly seated RAM stick.

tbird...

You may be correct about the drive, wasn't it the 500GB Seagate's that had some problems?

pancenter-

It was specifically one of the two models of Seagate Momentus 500GB drives that had an incompatibility issue with Macs because of a conflict between their own built-in antishock system and the Mac's one. I researched this before I got mine, and made sure to get the appropriate model. The one I have has been (touch wood) spectacular.

Hello,

I have the same problems with L9.1.1. The whole thing is extremely slow.
I'm on a brand new 8 Core Mac Pro here with 6 GB of ram, fresh Snow Leopard install.
I use an SSL Madi xtreme card.
I tried L9 with and without any 3rd party plugs. That doesn't made any difference.
It just feels like i installed it on a apple II. Moving plugin windows feels like moving concrete.
Same goes for faders or pots. And that's how it is right from the first track.
Unusable sadly 😟.

I installed L7 and it runs ultra fast and smooth.

Any ideas apple???

Thanks

If you want to investigate your problem, this is what I suggest. Make sure you have no non-Apple kernel extensions. You can do that by running this command in Terminal:

kextstat | grep -v apple

Temporarily empty these folders:

Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/
Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/MIDI Drivers

Remove the card. Unplug all non-Apple gear (especially any audio interface and/or midi interface).

Create a new OS X user account (in System Preferences/Accounts). Login as that user (via Apple Menu > Log Out).

Launch Logic, and don't change the default settings (in particular, leave it set to built-in audio). Run the benchmark referenced here. Let us know the results of that benchmark.

I think my 8 core mac will probably score as it should with this benchmark. the problem is not the audio performance but L9s gui. the gui is very slow and there's a lot of lag.
logic 7 runs just super smooth. if you hit a button it responds within a nano second.
logic 9 however sometimes don't even recognizes i actually hit a button.
midi editing is a pain because after moving your events moving the mouse will move the events again because L9 didn't recognized i already let go of them.

after taking 3 to 5 valium i'm as slow as logic and we get along very smooth. unfortunately i always pass out after a few minutes.

i wish apple had just implemented flextime and the the advanced i/o plugin in L7.

cheers

Message was edited by: prozzessor

I think my 8 core mac will probably score as it should with this benchmark.

I mentioned a number of different troubleshooting techniques, and running that benchmark is only one of them. What your machine is doing isn't normal. You might be able to find the cause and fix it.

So what happened?