Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

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kensonic
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Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:49 am

Another Update Note (2/29/12): Sorry for the update but I want to get this right. I discovered that this crash bug only seems to happen when Auto Warp Long Samples is turned Off. Plus, the bug only shows itself if the manually inserted Warp Marker has no other Markers to the right. The steps below have been updated to reflect this:

Hi,

Windows 7 SP1 - Live 8.2.8.

I've confirmed this bug on 4 different Windows PCs with Win 7 and Vista. So far, no one has reproduced this on Mac OS, so this may very well be a Windows only bug.


This CRASH bug that has been in LIVE for many, many updates, is STILL not fixed!!!!

****Turn off Auto Warp*****

Step 1: Drop an mp3 or wav file that doesn't already have an .asd analysis file, into a Session View Clip Slot

In Clip View:

Step 2: Set 1.1.1 - This automatically inserts a Warp Marker at that point.
Step 3: Select All and Delete All Warp Markers (of course this leaves the single Marker at 1.1.1)
Step 4: Move to the cursor to a position somewhere in the wave form and *manually* Insert a Warp Marker (note that there must not be any other Markers to the right).
Step 5: Move the Marker, dragging that *point* in the wave form to a different place on the timeline (e..g. to beginning of a measure).
Step 6: Manually Delete the Warp Marker you just inserted (notice that the point of the wave form that you dragged does not snap back to the original location).
Step 7: Undo Delete Warp Marker.
Step 8: Undo Move Warp Marker - Live will CRASH. Every time.

Is this a known bug? I did my best to search the forums here but the result I got didn't seem to include this bug though of course I may have missed it?

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks!
Last edited by kensonic on Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:48 am, edited 10 times in total.

kabelton
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Re: Old Bug still in 8.28 - Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kabelton » Wed Feb 15, 2012 6:02 pm

Many month ago reported a few crashes (not only bugs) I could reproduce, they didn't fix it as well...

kensonic
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Re: Old Bug still in 8.28 - Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:23 am

Update 2/17/12: I disovered that Auto Warp Long Samples needs to be Off to reproduce this crash bug. I updated the steps below and my original post to reflect this.

****Turn off Auto Warp*****

Step 1: Drop an mp3 or wav file that doesn't already have an .asd analysis file, into a Session View Clip Slot

In Clip View:

Step 2: Set 1.1.1 - This automatically inserts a Warp Marker at that point.
Step 3: Move to the cursor to a position somewhere in the wave form and *manually* Insert a Warp Marker.
Step 4: Move the Marker, dragging that *point* in the wave form to a different place on the timeline (e..g. to beginning of a measure).
Step 5: Manually Delete the Warp Marker you just inserted (notice that the point of wave form that you dragged does not snap back to the original location.
Step 6: Undo Delete Warp Marker.
Step 7: Undo Move Warp Marker - Live will CRASH. Every time.

Is this a known bug? I did my best to search the forum here but the result I got didn't seem to include this bug though of course I may have missed it?

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks!
Last edited by kensonic on Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:46 am, edited 2 times in total.

kensonic
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:58 pm

Re: Old Bug still in 8.28 - Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:43 am

Can someone please try the above steps to see if they can also reproduce this crash bug and let me know? It would be very helpful to find out if this is related to my specific PC system.

Thanks!

@kabelton
Ignoring reproducible CRASH bugs over several versions is damaging for any company, IMO. When it's a product that's intended for live performance, it's, well (pick your dire word).

All of this just erodes my confidence in Ableton's management. How long ago was it that they published that letter to the users about how reliability and stability were now going to be their highest priorities? All I can say is that I've got my eyes peeled for an alternative that will deliver on those attributes.

tom.luft
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Re: Old Bug still in 8.28 - Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by tom.luft » Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:03 pm

Can't reproduce it. When I delete the warp marker, the wave form does snap back to its original location. Therefore undo doesn't make live crash.
What do you mean exactly by "move the waveform"? Is there any possibility to move the waveform and not the warp markers?
Live 11.0.2
Windows 10
i7 6700k, 16GB
Scarlett 18i8

kensonic
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Re: Old Bug still in 8.28 - Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:51 am

tom.luft wrote:Can't reproduce it. When I delete the warp marker, the wave form does snap back to its original location. Therefore undo doesn't make live crash.
What do you mean exactly by "move the waveform"? Is there any possibility to move the waveform and not the warp markers?
Hi Tom, Thanks for getting back to me on this. By "move the waveform", I mean manually inserting a Warp Marker and then dragging the Warp Marker to a different place on the time line, which drags that *point* on the wave form with it, rather than sliding or moving the entire waveform.

So, I've done some additional forensic work (that's what this feels like) on this crash bug. What I discovered today is that this only seems to happen when Auto Warp is turned off. I never use Auto Warp because it almost never gets anything right, at least not up to the standards that I need as a DJ, so I didn't even try this until now. So, to recap, here are the revised steps to reproduce this crash, which I've confirmed in two PCs running Win7 SP1: one running Live 8.25 and the other running Live 8.2.8:

****Turn off Auto Warp*****

Step 1: Drop an mp3 or wav file that doesn't have an .asd analysis file, into a Session View Clip Slot

In Clip View:

Step 2: Set 1.1.1 - This automatically inserts a Warp Marker at that point.
Step 3: Move to the cursor to a position somewhere in the wave form and *manually* Insert a Warp Marker.
Step 4: Move the Marker, dragging that *point* in the wave form to a different place on the timeline (e..g. to beginning of a measure).
Step 5: Manually Delete the Marker (notice that the point of wave form that you dragged does not snap back to the original location).
Step 6: Undo Delete Warp Marker.
Step 7: Undo Move Warp Marker - Live will CRASH. Every time.

kensonic
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Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:50 am

To avoid confusion, I've updated the *first* post in this thread a few times to make sure that I got the steps to reproduce it right. Please refer to those steps.

Thanks.

tom.luft
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Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by tom.luft » Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:57 am

Now that is one annoying bug! I followed your instructions once again and now it worked (not :wink:)!

I usually only work with auto warp on but I see some serious workflow FAIL.
Live 11.0.2
Windows 10
i7 6700k, 16GB
Scarlett 18i8

kensonic
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Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:13 am

Hi Tom,

Thanks for taking the time to test and confirm it.

FTR, this wasn't just an academic exercise on my part: I kept running into this crash forever but it it seemed rather random. When 8.2.8 came out, I hoped they would have fixed it but when it happened again, I decided I had to narrow it down to simple repeatable steps. Problems with seemingly random crashes are the most frequent complaint that I hear from other Live users.

Well, I've done my job on this bit. Hopefully, someone at Ableton at least scans these msgs and will take the time to follow up with the developers. If not, at least now know we know what *not* to do <g>.

DoobieBrother69
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Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by DoobieBrother69 » Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:29 am

Read about your troubles with this a while back and have never had Ableton crash when I do your list of steps to take.
Over & over & over, and no matter where I put the warp marker, no matter how little I move it or haw much I move it, using only one warp marker, or adding dozens of them and moving them erasing them & undoing them, nor does it matter if it's an MP3 or a WAV file being warped. Also, never had a problem with it on the Lite version, or the Suite version.
So there is something else going on for you guys and your configuration.

My system specs:
Windows Vista Home 32-bit (latest SP)
Asus P5K Deluxe motherboard
Intel Q9450 overclocked to 3.51gHz
4-GB of Corsair XMS2 RAM
M-audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard
2 hard drives (swap file is on one, OS on the other)
MPK61 (using the USB interface)
Ableton Suite 8.2.8
All drivers & BIOS's & Service Packs are the latest ones available.
No AV software running, no software firewall.
I know it doesn't solve your problem, just wanting to let you know that at least one of us out here doesn't have your bug to report.
But I hope you can get it sorted out.
Life is too awesome, and I have no time in to waste on dipshits, malcontents and people with no sense of humor.

kensonic
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:58 pm

Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Fri Mar 02, 2012 10:17 am

Thanks for taking the time to test it and for responding, Doobie. I appreciate it. Yes, it's possible it's a configuration issue of some kind. There a some many variables with hardware, Windows configuration and Live preferences that some or all of these could be a factor that take this beyond a universal problem in Live. I have many years of experience dealing on a fairly deep technical level with hardware and Windows and I think in this case it's less like that they are the culprits here. I can consistently recreate this bug on an HP Intel Core 2 Duo laptop running Vista SP2 (Live 8.28), Acer Aspire 5100 AMD Turion dual core laptop running Win 7 SP1 (Live 8.25 and 8.28) and an older Dell Dimension 8300 Pentium 4 running Win 7 SP1 (Live 8.25) and XP SP3 (Live 8.04).

The only suggestion I would have for you is to make sure you followed the updated steps that I posted on a couple of days ago on 2/29. The two newest things I discovered is that

Auto Warp Long Samples must be turned Off in Preferences

The manually inserted Warp Marker must the furthest one to the right (I can get it to crash when this isn't the case but not consistently. However, it will crash every time when it's the right most Marker).

Once again, thanks for your efforts and comments.
Last edited by kensonic on Fri Mar 09, 2012 6:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

DoobieBrother69
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Location: Oregon (Willamette Valley)

Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by DoobieBrother69 » Fri Mar 02, 2012 7:59 pm

I also have a couple of decades of technical experience with computers, specifically trouble shooting hardware & software problems.
I don't skim over a person's post, I read every word several times.
Especially if I'm going to take the time & effort to run experiments and offer a report on the results.
So I am aware that your post was edited and had already re-ran the test, step by step, verbatim, and could not reproduce your consistent crashes.
I can do it over & over on the same song (non-analyzed in an .als as per you criteria), then cut that song from the clip, insert a new audio file (non-analyzed), and do it all again & again & again.
One warp marker, or dozens.
No crashes.
Have you checked your windows crash logs to see if anything consistent comes up when Ableton crashes?
Life is too awesome, and I have no time in to waste on dipshits, malcontents and people with no sense of humor.

kensonic
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Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:58 pm

Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Sat Mar 03, 2012 4:34 am

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as though you didn't know what you were doing, I was just trying to be thorough. Given your thoroughness and expertise (both of which are appreciated), it seems this isn't as cut and dried and I thought. I'll take it upon myself to keep checking this on other systems whenever the opportunity presents itself and try to keep track of it somehow. So far the score is 4 to 1 <g>. My reward for my efforts so far is that at least I know how to avoid it....

Thanks again for your time.

tom.luft
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Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by tom.luft » Sat Mar 03, 2012 7:36 am

I just updated to Live 8.2.8 and still can reproduce your bug.

Live crashes when trying to undo the deletion, however, and doesn't wait till the second undo step. So it crashes at step 7, not 8. It did so too in the previous version; I forgot to mention that.

I always have to hurry when replying to you, soon after producing this crash I will get a BSOD with a System Service Exception (everytime live crashes, actually).

The windows event log doesn't show any error related to live.
Live 11.0.2
Windows 10
i7 6700k, 16GB
Scarlett 18i8

kensonic
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Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:58 pm

Re: Crash Bug still in 8.28: Delete Warp Marker and Undo = Crash

Post by kensonic » Sat Mar 03, 2012 8:56 am

tom.luft wrote:I just updated to Live 8.2.8 and still can reproduce your bug.

Live crashes when trying to undo the deletion, however, and doesn't wait till the second undo step. So it crashes at step 7, not 8. It did so too in the previous version; I forgot to mention that.

I always have to hurry when replying to you, soon after producing this crash I will get a BSOD with a System Service Exception (everytime live crashes, actually).

The windows event log doesn't show any error related to live.
I've also sometimes seen the crash when Undoing the the Delete Warp Marker.

The only side effect that I see when Live crashes is that the Live .exe can't be killed with Task Manager, so I have to wait approx 10 or more min for the Live .exe file to unload from memory on it's own. That's annoying but Live is hardly the only Windows exe that behaves this way after crashing. It's certainly a bummer and a PITA for you to have to deal with a BSOD. Considering the extra headache, I appreciate even more that you've been willing to help me track this down.

In general, a Windows .exe crashing should never bring Windows down with a BSOD. The original architecture of Windows NT had extensive protection in this area, however with Windows XP, MS made a decision to move drivers back into OS kernel mode for performance reasons. Since Live is obviously interfacing heavily with audio and midi drivers, this Live bug could be hitting something in that realm on your system. There are of course a myriad of other hardware/driver issues that could cause a myriad of other unique behaviors on every PC. Consider the mind boggling array (100's of thousands, maybe millions?) of hardware/driver/software combinations out there, I've always found it's kind of amazing that PCs work as well as they do. Of course that's not much consolation when our own systems are crashing, etc.

You said you're getting System Service BSOD. Do you also get the Bug Check Code (e.g. 0x0000007D, etc. etc. etc.) or any info on the BSOD that indicates which driver is at fault? If you have an audio interface built into your MB you could try disabling the EMU (via the Sound Panel) and running the built in MB audio and see if you still get the BSOD. Then again there's all of the other USB MIDI stuff. That sounds like too much work!!! Maybe the path of least resistance here is the best way to go. Just avoid the steps that cause the crash and get back to making music. That's what I'm doing ;-).

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