Logic 9's UI extremely laggy - any fixes?

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Level 1

69 points

Logic 9's UI extremely laggy - any fixes?

I've been a pretty happy Logic user since 2004, but lately version 9 has been really cheezing me off. It seems that whenever I'm playing my current project, the user interface becomes completely unresponsive to key commands and mouse clicks, which will be delayed for many seconds, or ignored entirely.

This is a fresh install of Logic Pro 9.1.4, 32-bit, on one of the new Mac minis (dual 2.7GHz i7, 4GB RAM, stock 500GB hard drive), with a PreSonus FireStudio Project. However, this was also happening on my previous system, a 2008 15" unibody MacBook Pro. It was happening a little bit on Snow Leopard but it's gotten much worse under Lion. My MacBook had aftermarket RAM (8GB) and an aftermarket SSD, but everything in the Mini is stock.

It's happening even if I only have one or two tracks, although it seems to be worse if I have any of the various metering plugins running and open, or ChanEQ with the analyzer turned on. I wonder if maybe those plugins aren't handling UI updates correctly, or something.

Just to be clear, I have absolutely no third-party AudioUnits installed, and it's neither a CPU nor an I/O issue (both gauges are pretty much empty, and Activity Monitor shows Logic as taking about 10% of one CPU), and yet it takes anywhere from 3-10 seconds for a simple mouse click to go through.

This is getting EXTREMELY frustrating, especially since the lag seems to always happen at the worst moments (i.e. I'm trying to turn down the volume on a track which suddenly got really loud, and the lack of responsiveness means my ears get blasted and I have to take a break for them to recover before I can start mixing again).

Has anyone else been experiencing this and found a workaround? Is anyone at Apple even paying attention to these issues? I feel like it's the same problem that was being discussed in this thread, which was never resolved: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2396951

Message was edited by: robert113

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.7GHz i7, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD

Posted on Jul 30, 2011 7:31 PM

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Answer 1

fluffy Author

Level 1

69 points

Aug 22, 2011 9:19 AM in response to fluffy

It seems to happen most frequently if I have multiple ChanEQ or Multimeter panels open displaying live spectrum analyzers. Unfortunately, that's something I need a lot of the time when mixing/mastering...

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Answer 2

Pancenter

Level 6

14,692 points

Aug 22, 2011 10:37 AM in response to fluffy

Sounds like Lion's new graphics system is taxing the Mini's GPU. The fact that it shows up when the graphic metering windows are open is telling.

What does Activity Monitor show being used?

pancenter-

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Answer 3

fluffy Author

Level 1

69 points

Aug 22, 2011 10:43 AM in response to Pancenter

This was actually happening somewhat in SL too, but it's way worse in Lion.

Activity monitor doesn't show anything as using a large amount of CPU. It also doesn't feel like a GPU strain - everything on the screen is updating completely fluidly and so on, but it seems like there's just a problem with how events are being processed in the app itself. Like they're using a timer to update the meters that's overriding the input event queue or something.

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Answer 4

Aug 28, 2011 12:21 PM in response to fluffy

I have the same problem UI is extremaly laggy with all plugins. I've the last MacPro 8 cores, 6gb ram and a faster HD. The monitor activity show always less than 20% but i have the problem when Logic is running small & larger projects. Any solution?

Regards.

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Answer 5

juemu65

Level 1

0 points

Dec 22, 2011 1:28 AM in response to fluffy

i have the same problem here ( mac pro late 2008 2 ghz ) / Lion 10.7.2 / Logic 9.1.5 / 9.1.6.

Using more than 4 tracks or some spectrum analyzers or other complex plugins makes logic nearly unusable. the response time to mouse events gains to 2-10 seconds. The tip from ( https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3226612?start=0&tstart=0 , just switch shortly to exposee, klick on Logic again), seems to help very good, but only for the next mouseaction. Then everthing is laggy again. Grrrrr ! Come on Apple ! Fix this ! And do it fast ! There is definitely something wrong with the event handling queue in Lion i guess. The same version of logic ( 9.1.5 ) worked without any problems under Snow Leo.

kind regards from germany

juergen

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Answer 6

ph47

Level 1

14 points

Jan 5, 2012 12:28 PM in response to fluffy

Same problem here. Gets to be unresponisive/slow. I wonder if it has anything to do with a dual-monitor setup? Only thing I can think of. Anybody else?

Login 9.1.6 and Lion (latest).

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Answer 7

Pancenter

Level 6

14,692 points

Jan 5, 2012 12:33 PM in response to ph47

Slow interface is also being discussed on other forums using other applications... Lion seems to be the common denominator.

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Answer 8

ph47

Level 1

14 points

Jan 5, 2012 12:57 PM in response to fluffy

Okay. Unplugging the second monitor (iMac 2.4 Core 2 Duo) seemed to fix this maddening problem. Hopefully it's a Lion bug and not a hardware limitation. I will miss the extra screen real estate, but I won't miss this terribly laggy interface.

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Answer 9

ph47

Level 1

14 points

Jan 5, 2012 1:54 PM in response to ph47

Negative. Unplugging the monitor did not perma-fix the issue. It came back. The problem persists.

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Answer 10

Feb 27, 2012 8:07 AM in response to fluffy

I posted this originally on Mac Pro Help, but I thought it would be helpful here too!....

Same problem here with Lion. I'm on a Mac Pro 2.6 quad.

I have another Mac Pro tower I use for video and graphic design, and since the issue seems to be GUI related and not processor related (Logic's CPU meter is never peaking), I swapped out the video card from my video machine into my Logic machine. I removed the GeForce 7300 GT and replaced it with my ATI Radeon X1900 XT ...and, NO MORE Slow downs!

The problem seems to be video card related, and at least in my case, specifically the GeForce 7300 GT. Hopefully Apple will read this and fix this issue. Until they do, try a video card upgrade. I don't think they make the X1900 any more, but there are faster/better ones available now anyway. I'm sure this will continue to pop up as more and more Mac Pro owners take the jump and upgrade to Lion.

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Answer 11

fluffy Author

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69 points

Feb 27, 2012 8:34 AM in response to Darren Burgos

Nice start to finding the issue, but unfortunately unhelpful for those of us using a laptop or a Mini. :/

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Answer 12

ph47

Level 1

14 points

Feb 27, 2012 9:12 AM in response to Darren Burgos

I think it's more likely to be driver related than the actual hardware. I had zero problems in 10.6 - same hardware.

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Answer 13

fluffy Author

Level 1

69 points

Feb 27, 2012 9:19 AM in response to ph47

Of course, and Darren's answer points out that Pro users have a quick fix in that they can change their GPU while waiting for Apple to remember that non-GarageBand users exist. Integrated graphics users, not so much.

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Answer 14

Feb 27, 2012 11:21 AM in response to ph47

I also didn't have any issues on Snow Leopard with my Mac Pro's original GeForce 7300 GT. The X1900 I swapped into my Logic Mac Pro has 512 megs of VRAM ...the old card only had 256. I doubt it's the driver, but possibly related to Lion's graphic system requiring a stronger video card 😕. Hopefully not. BTW, I forgot to mention that I'm using two displays also.

Just to assure everyone, I swapped the card on Saturday and I've used Logic non-stop since then. It seems that the vid card swap out alleviated the problem 100%.

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Answer 15

Mar 30, 2012 2:34 AM in response to fluffy

I've expiriencing this problems for like two mounths after new Waves and Plugin Alliance plugins come out! It was like ****! Kramer HLS, PIE, TAPE on master channel and few Maag EQ's + Character, and i just cant work no more =( Cant Mouse click, Stop/Play, Mute/Solo ((

But for me opening Logic in 64bits makes little differense ! It is little better and UI can stand some extra Plugins. However i cant work normally with 32bit AU's with that stupid one plugin window !

So yesterday i rolled back to Snow Leopard! There is no easy way to do that, so i did a clean install and collect files from Lion's Time Machine backup manually!

And i got to say :

I REALY FORGOT HOW SMOOTH AND FAST CAN LOGIC UI be !!! ITS INCREDIBLE !!! Problem is completely solved ! Logic acting realy great with lot of heavy graphical plugins and tons of ChannelEQ's visualisers on HIGH !

Im not going back to Lion till 10.7.9 or something and logic 9.1.9 =)

Btw.

Macbook pro i7 2.2, SSD+HDD, 8GB ram, 6750m 1GB

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