eventual SFP crash

[greenbluegold]

I've got good results!

I did another clean format and reinstalled windows.

I installed scope, and then ableton.

Tested the stability using the scope midi in/outs >2000 bars no crash. satisfactory

Installed the MOTU drivers.

Tested again with scope midi in / motu midi out -- it crashed at ~180 bars.
So there was a problem with the MOTU.

I checked my IRQs there was a conflict with the onboard ethernet and onboard audio with a USB device. I turned off the onboard ethernet and onboard audio in my bios.

Tested again with scope midi in / motu midi out -- it crashed at ~310 bars.
A little better, but not good enough.

I then added the DisableSelectiveSuspend key to my registry.

Tested again with scope midi in / motu midi out -- no crash at > 7100 bars ~ 3.5 hours. That's good enough for me.

The difference between this time and the previous clean install is that on the first try I installed drivers for a pci ethernet connection, installed anti virus software AVG and a firewall Comodo, and then fully updated my windows.

I would turn off the net connection, the firewall and the anti virus before testing in ableton, but somewhere along the way something was changed or something unhappy was added that gummed up the system.

I'll keep this install a net virgin (As I know you should keep your DAW off the web) and do internet from an old win2k partition.

Now that it's working, I'm a bit less inclined to upgrade, even though my system is pretty old, as long as it's running what I need I'm happy and the longer I wait to upgrade the exponentially better the next computer will be.

thanks again everyone, there were numerous problems that needed to be fixed and each of you gave advice that was essential in the end.

woot! to planetz!

[Neutron]

Thats good! you worked it out very well, although you probably could have gotten away without all the reinstalling. however that probably was what helped you to figure it out.

can you post on the selective suspend thread about how it helped you

[greenbluegold]

I think there was more trouble in my setup than just the USB selectivesupsend issue. It could be that was just what pushed things over the edge into completely unusability. I suspect background processes related to some piece of software was causing mischief as well. I had previously corrected the IRQ sharing issues and edited the registry to turn disableselectivesuspend and was still being plagued with crashes and hanging cursors etc. Even after turning off my ethernet device, the firewall and antivirus programs using processmanager I still had a few extra processes running compared with my current clean slate install. <shrug>

I believe a large part of my trouble in pinpointing the problem was that there were more than a few of them contributing to the situation.

[garyb]

[greenbluegold]

And the saga continues!

Happy that everything was working I decided to install Flexor 3 and Wavelab 6 so I could really get working.

Wavelab 6 uses (uhoh) a usb dongle for copy protection. After it's installation the MOTU midi output in Ableton was unstable again. The system would hang up and I could move the cursor longer enough to open up SFP but it would crash soon after. I was unable to use the cursor to change anything in Ableton. This would sometimes happen after only a few bars, but never lasted longer than ~300 bars. Perhaps it happened sooner when I was actively using ableton rather than just letting it loop, but I can't be sure. It was erratic.

I unplugged the MOTU microlite, rebooted and tried ableton using only the scope midi in/out. It lasted long enough >1000 bars that I feel confident that it's stable like that.

I checked the IRQs and after installing the dongle there was a new ATA device that shared a IRQ with part of the USB system. I disabled it in device manager.

I uninstalled wavelab, uninstalled the dongle software and then restored xp to a restore point before any of the new installs.

This did not remedy the situation and the Ableton/microlite combination is still crashing.

I can't imagine that the Flexor modules would somehow be influencing this behavior so I didn't try uninstalling them.

I'm pretty pretty positive this is not a problem to do with scope, which makes me happy. I continue to post here because this is the best computer audio community on the web that I've known.

I'm getting pretty fed up with this midi interface. I can return it for exchange no problems. Can anybody recommend one that is not such a prima donna?

I have an old opcode studio 64XTC which I would be happy to use if there were XP drivers for it.

[Neutron]

get the system to how you had it before, and then install a cracked version of wavelab. you paid for it so theres no problem doing that.

personally i wont buy any software that requires a dongle.

[greenbluegold]

That's an option, but I don't like to run cracked software, whether I own it or not. Sometimes they're stable but I've seen a lot stability problems when people I've known have demoed software that way.

Most of the user reviews of the MOTU microlite end with "it's gone back to the shop." There is an m-audio 4x4 usb that has better reviews that I could exchange it for, I think I'll give that a shot to see if it works better.

I also found xp drivers for the studio64xtc. So another option is to find a serial cable and see if I can get the opcode working, but I'm not enthusiastic about running something that hasn't been supported for 10 years.

sigh

[kylie]

personally i wont buy any software that requires a dongle.

so I assume you never bought any scope plugin? (SCNR)

[Neutron]

personally i wont buy any software that requires a dongle.

so I assume you never bought any scope plugin? (SCNR)

I am sure you know exactly what i mean but are nit picking

i meant a USB one. things that run on their own hardware, when the hardware does something useful are fine.

[kylie]

I am sure you know exactly what i mean but are nit picking

of course I do. it's summer, heh?

[kylie]

Thats just a joke

and a good one. i often referred scope cards as a giant dongle with a firmware protection algorithm

and that's just true. although not everybody might agree I consider it a great idea anyway not to introduce another hardware (just for software protection) that can lead to more trouble, if the existent hardware can do the job as well.

-greetings, markus-