Why is Logic so Unstable?

Logic runs fine for me on an underpowered machine with plenty of plugins and all sorts of other funky stuff like web development tools, database management systems and plenty more besides.

If there's a probem, there's a cause, and random glitches or crashes are often much more likely to be system issues than straight up Logic ones, otherwise everyone would have them.

Logic runs rock solid for me, I can count the times Logic has crashed on the fingers of, er, three hands in the four years or so I've been running on a Mac.

Remember, your third party plugs from various manufacturers are running on top of Logic, which is running on top of your audio hardware's drivers, which is running on top of your system, which is running no top of your hardware. If Logic goes down, it does not necessarily mean it's Logic's fault.

Strip down to a bare bones system, and taking it incrementally from there slowly is the only real way to be sure, although this is generally necessary in extreme cases - I've certainly never had to do this.

I have had issues with third-party plugins and crappy audio drivers though...

I don't think anyone was suggesting you should permentantly use Logic alone, merely as a starting point for troubleshooting.

You said now that you know how to troubleshoot - you have to understand that without mentioning your skill levels in your original port, we can't guess whether you are fairly green at Logic or have been an Logic expert for fifteen years. We tend to side on the fairly basic because it's easier to work upwards than assume everyone is an expert and work downwards - I wish more people would introduce themselves and describe their level so we can tailor tourbleshooting advice accordingly, it would certainly save some typing!

It seems that you still haven't got to the causes of your issues over multiple installations of Logic on multiple machines. That seems weird to me - do you have specific crashes or random ones? Are there any common factors, like third-party RAM, or the same audio hardware? In your troubleshooting procedures, did Logic not crash when you disabled third-part plugins? Any reproducible crashes that maybe someone here has some experience in? You haven't really given us much to go on.

We try to help people get to the root and fix their problems, but if you are basically saying "It's Ok, I'm confident I've tried anything anyway and don't want any advice, I just want to moan about how bad Logic is" then there's nothing anyone else can do - perhaps then you are right and maybe you should look to a platform that doesn't cause you so many problems?

I'm not being argumentative at all, I just don't know whether you are genuinely looking for help (in which case you have to humour us a bit) or just to vent.

Helping we can participate in. Venting is just pointless for everyone and solves nothing I'm afraid...

Stripping down to bare minimum and going from there is so
impratical and virtually impossible

It is a pain, I know. Sometimes though, you have to go through that pain if you want to make any progress, otherwise you get stuck.

I need other things such as plugs and softsynths...

Of course, pretty much all of us do.

It should be Apple's job to inform us of what problems they have
incurred with which software so that we can be aware.

Not really, it's not Apple's responsibility to make sure third-party plugs work, it's the developers of that software who are responsible to make sure their products work in the manner they advertise.

This should tell me that it has to be something in logic?

Again, not necessarily - just because an issue occurs under Logic doesn't mean it's Logic's fault. If one plugin is coded badly, it could be fine under all hosts except Logic under specific circumstances.

Now, I'm not saying your issues aren't Logic, I have no way of knowing, especially as you haven't described any of the problems in any level of detail. But I'm saying that things aren't as clear cut as we'd often like them to be - and troubleshooting is sometimes the only way forward.

I am the biggest fan of Logic and how it works in terms of functionality,
but seems to people so many people blame other things when Apple
havent exactly bent over backwards to give us a great stable app like
FCP, Motion, and Shake..

I hear you, and you are obviously having real issues, I know how frustrating these things are and I feel your pain. Remember though that even though you and your colleagues may have had issues, that doesn't mean every other Logic user has them as well. Like I say, Logic is very stable for me, and I run a shedload of stuff.

And there are plenty of people here with great solid systems too.

I'm not an ardent defender of Logic (well, I sorta am!) - it has many issues which really should have been finally sorted by now, and I'm hoping they get addressed as much as the next guy. Maybe you'll have better luck with some future versions..? shrugs

OK Rob, time to get to the nitty gritty here... The following is a general list of things that I've found will crash Logic, or, crashing behavior I've experienced. Please reply with the numbers of those things which you've experienced...

1. Logic Quits unexpectedly for no apparent reason. No crash reporter appears, your song is not automatically saved as NameOfSong(crashed).lso

2. Logic Quits. The crash reporter appears, your song is automatically saved as NameOfSong(crashed).lso but with a file size of Zero KB.

3. Same as #2, your song is actually saved and has a legitimate file size. When you open that song, it plays back fine.

4a. Opening a single native Logic plug-in GUI

4b. Opening/closing many native Logic plugin GUIs in a row (for instance, to remind yourself of what you have loaded up in various instances of EXS's)

5a. Opening a single non-native Logic plug-in GUI

5b. Opening a single non-native Logic plug-in GUI and accessing one of its built-in menus (crash occurs upon clicking on the menu)

5c. Opening/closing many non-native Logic plugin GUIs in a row (for instance, when examining what you have loaded up in various instances of Kontakt Player)

6. Simply opening, or editing within the score editor

7. Simply opening, or editing within the matrix editor

8. Using particular key commands

9. Programming "Quick Access" (causes me to crash every time)

10. Programming any of the Control Surface parameters

11. Opening a song which results in an error -10018 message (not enough memory to load plug-in) and playing the song anyway. (I think that's the correct error number).

12a. Loading a song that uses a lot of sample RAM, closing it, then opening another sample-intensive song. No errors are reported. Soon after playing this newly-opened song, Logic crashes. Or...

12b. Loading a song that uses a lot of sample RAM, closing it, then opening another sample-intensive song. No errors are reported. Upon loading up a new sample-based patch, Logic crashes.

13. Editing "header" text while Logic is playing (score editor)

14. Performing beat mapping operations

That's the short list. Any of that ring a bell?

OK, this is good. This is all pointing to a corrupt song (or corrupt autoload song). But before we totally go there, your next set of questions...

When you experience crashes...

1. Are you performing any beat mapping or tempo window operations (creating tempo maps)? If so, please state the frequency with which you do these things.

2. Do you ever set your song start point to a place other than 1 1 1 1?

3. Have you ever recorded something right at 1 1 1 1 that results in your sequence start point getting pushed backwards, i.e., to 0 1 1 1?

4. How old is your autoload song file(s)?

5. When's the last time you trashed Logic's preference files?

6. Do you use the Project Manager scan functions (i.e., manual scans)?

7. Have you ever trashed the Project Manager database (sometimes this is a good idea)

8. Do you use EXS's? If so, is Virtual Memory switched on or off?

9. Do you use DFD (direct from disk) or other disk streaming operations when using other sample-based plugs?

Nah it's cool, you get some leeway from us! We all moan from time to time... 🙂

disabling my third party plugs and putting them back one by one
and taking the time to figure out which one seems to make Logic
behave irratically is something that I have done in part, but could
never get a clear indication of the prob as logic would crash
without anything installed aswell

The thing is troubleshooting "in part" (without knowing what you have done) doesn't work - you have to be thorough otherwise it doesn't really tell you anything.

But, you say you've had some of the random crashes with all third-party plugs disabled, so let's use that as a baseline (that doesn't mean other plugs aren't also causing an issue, because you might have multiple issues going on).

Now, you might have tried some of the following things, but I'll mention them anyway.

What I would do next, with this baseline system, is use Logic on the inbuilt audio, and your normal card. Do you still get crashes on both, or just one?

This one is a pain - remove A ll third party RAM, and just put in your factory supplied RAM. RAM issues are about one of the biggest hassles to deal with, because their effects can be so random. Again - just because you haven't noticed random crashes using FCP etc doesn't "prove" the issue is a Logic one. But if you can still replicate the crashes with just your factory RAM in, then that's a pretty good indication that you can rule out the RAM.

Next, backup your preference files and trash them, including the control surface prefs. Load Logic, close your autoload, Option-click on File->New to create a fresh song, and work with that for a while.

Can you replicate the random crashes now? If so, that points me towards thinking there might some fundamental instabilities in your system (again, we haven't ruled out that these are in fact Logic issues yet). Are you running the latest ProApps runtime?

Have a go through that lot and let us know how you get on. You can always mirror your drive first if you want to get back to your regular system quickly.

Yeah, we're rocking now! 😉

Is your autoload built fresh though, or is it from a legacy file?

For instance, my current autoload has a legacy going back to Logic 4 on the PC, I haven't built a fresh one since then, I've just continually modified it and updated it over time.

If my autoload got corrupted at some opint, that corruption would be in all my songs subsequently and thus pretty much whener I used Logic.

By building a fresh song (Option-click File -> New) you can create a fresh, virgin song file. If you don't get crashes using this, then it was an autoload song corruption...