After months of trouble free running, I'm getting "Illegal Region Number" error messages popping up with no clue as to
which region or any other information. Usually (but not always) it happens when I've hit stop after recording an audio track.
It doesn't matter which song I'm in, and I've trashed the preferences.
This error message doesn't affect anything; nothing is lost, and the arrangements in question play just fine, so I just dismiss the error box and continue.
But I'm curious - any insights?
PM dual 2.5 4GB, iMac G5 2GB, internal WD Raptor, various firewire HDs,
Mac OS X (10.4.3),
Saffire, Rosetta 800+XFire
I would guess you have too many regions, done too many edits or event memory is low. I am not sure on this though.
If you remove all unused regions from the session, rename them with numeric suffixing (easy from the arrange), save, kill your undo history, save. Do you get the error? And what is the size of the session? I have encountered 'several region' address error messages, which occur usually at 3000 regions for 1 file but can also happen if event memory is low. These are little self destruct sessions, if doing intense audio editing this happens without proper maintenance, and sometimes with proper maintenance.
I would guess you have too many regions, done too many edits or event memory is low. I am not sure on this though.
If you remove all unused regions from the session, rename them with numeric suffixing (easy from the arrange), save, kill your undo history, save. Do you get the error? And what is the size of the session? I have encountered 'several region' address error messages, which occur usually at 3000 regions for 1 file but can also happen if event memory is low. These are little self destruct sessions, if doing intense audio editing this happens without proper maintenance, and sometimes with proper maintenance.
If you remove all unused regions from the session, rename them with numeric suffixing
Well, that helped a lot. I'd been slicing and dicing some audio files more than usual; still only 60 or 70 edits in 4 or 5 guitar tracks, but once I'd cleaned house and got rid of all the dead wood I haven't seen the error message again.
However, I have far more complex sessions with many more audio files and regions that have never displayed any problems, so I'm interested in what set of circumstances cause these hiccups.
These are little self destruct sessions
I've had a couple of those where the Logic Gods decided that my song s*cked and refused to record it properly. Rare, thankfully.
There are a few preferences like lowering undo steps, reducing autmation res and data, as well as emptying (Logic's)trash upon save which free up memory. If you open song information you can see what is taking up memory and what may be expendable. Cutting a region creates multiple regions so removing unused can really help to keep memory low. Leaving lots of room on your sytem drive and upping your RAM will also give you less problems. Committing edits (like if there is a passage with 200 regions and they all have fades on them-gluing them together and removing unused should also free alot of the memory. Some peope really like reorganizing memory, I consider kind of risky. Keeping backups of songs instead of high udos and backups for the glued audio files, etc is another good practice for this problem.
Come to think of it, I have run into this one. Last I had it was while chopping away at bass takes, creating stacks of cuts fades regions, etc. If you let it continue it just starts making things up, region placement, bad fades, anchor voodoo, just little problems like that which don't matter (!?!-JK). Cleaning house, saving all audio files as SDII or AIFF (whichever the existing ones are not), renaming regions were what I had done to overcome the problem long enough to get everything into another session. The memory situation is IMO a huge limitation in Logic, it really restricts what a user can do and requires us to put on the janitor jumpsuit way too frequently : (
7.1.1 was also a bad move for me, some people get along with it fine but it just caused more problems than any other version of 7 on my system.
I would guess this is a Logic issue and not an audio file or system issue and these are the things I do to overcome this problem and related ones. In fact, it is very unlikely IIME that it is anything nut a Logic issue. Good luck and if you see this one start moving things to a new session ASAP.
Thanks again. Your advice is very good - I do most of what you suggest, except I have 50 undos set as I find it useful when hacking and move stuff to build guitar or vocal comps, and sometimes (gasp!) I make mistakes or change my mind. I've got lots of memory, and many FW drives and I'm fairly obsessive about backups, more backups and even more backups which often saves my bacon.
Personally, I think Logic's internal mapping sometimes get screwed up, and I'm convinced there's a bug or two in there. I have had a few occasions when the region will simply play back the wrong file. Fortunately it hasn't happened very often but when it has I immediately create a new session and rebuild. Bit disconcerting when 4 bars of backing vocals turn into a bass solo.
I guess my original error is related to the MIA file syndrome when Logic just gets confused.
Your renaming regions tip really helped: I'd thought of it, but I thought that it might make the situation worse, not better. But I tried it and it worked great. As did gluing audio files together first, which I do routinely, but until now, I never renamed regions, and removed "unused" from the session.
I have my undos on 5 with 30 song backups right now. As opposed to undos I just make a copy of what I am hacking beforehand. I think you're on regarding the internal mapping. It also can destroy fade regions. I really don't enjoy all the walking on ice precautions this seems to cause. Oh well, we'll live with it for now. Cheers and enjoy your bass section : )
