Ableton Forum

Hi guys,
I hope someone can shed a little light on problems I have been having with a Macbook Pro 15" Retina and Kernel panics. It's been an ongoing problem since
I made the switch as a lifetime Pc user, with no problems what so ever, to Mac...zzzzz.
To keep it short the machine has been checked, checked and checked again by Mac and they say there is nothing wrong with it. They have replaced the logic board as a precaution. But recently it has Kernel panicked on me again. I think it is down to my Ableton configuration, but can't confirm this. I have Live 9 Suite installed and use a Motu 8 pre soundcard via a firewire adaptor into the thunderbolt socket when at home. I run the machine in clamshell mode as a desktop when home. I keep my audio projects on a usb 3 drive and my sample library on another usb 3 drive. These drives are only used for that purpose. Both of these are 7200rpm drives. When at home I have a usb 3 hub connected to one of the Mac usb sockets. This has the sample drive, keyboard, trackball other drives etc going through it. The other usb socket has the audio drive connected straight into it.
Now after having the laptop settle after a Mac shop software reinstall it had given me no problems at all when running this setup at home, for about 6 weeks!

However this is where I think I am having problems and hope maybe someone here can shed a little light on it. When I work away from home I don't take my Motu 8 Pre with me I just rely on the internal Mac sound to do the work. I also don't take the usb 3 hub as it's a big one with a power supply etc. So I plug my Audio drive and Sample drive directly into the Mac. This has worked on several occasions but recently I tried this and when I started Ableton the computer screen went bright Green and then kernel panicked. It then got stuck in a loop of crashing as it kept trying to restart Ableton once it had rebooted. I had to turn it off and remove my Sample and Audio drives and then it worked, well the computer stopped crashing. I eventually managed to get Ableton going and do some work.
Last week I was away from home again, the first time since the last session I just mentioned. I tried to start Ableton and it crashed and the Mac Kernel panicked. This time I was unable to start Ableton at all and had to give up. No matter what I did, trying to start Ableton caused a panic. Very strange. I also run reaper and when I opened that it all worked fine so. So it was just Ableton that was crashing it. I then read up on how to reset Ableton, deleting config files etc. When I got home I hooked it all up again, usb 3 hub, Motu 8 pre etc etc and it has worked great since.

Now what I hoping someone has the answer to....if I am working on Ableton at home through the Motu 8 Pre and then start it while away from home and the motu isn't connected, can this cause problems???? If I do this with Reaper it says that the soundcard isn't found etc and I just select the internal sound of the Mac. In Ableton it usually defaults to this when the Motu isn't connected. Also is the slight variation in my hard drive connections a pointer to problems. At home the Sample drive goes through the USB3 hub, when away from home it connects direct to the laptop?

I know these problems can be hard to solve but the laptop has been checked so many times, data captures etc etc, software reinstalls about 3 times, all by Mac and passed everything. The latest problems all seem to be related to working with Ableton when away from my home setup.

Mac were great initially but now I can't get any answer from them at all.

One last thing...does anyone know if the internal Mac soundcard is capable of recording at 48000 sample rate? I started a project recently with that setting and was wondering if that may have added to the problems? Fine through the Motu 8pre but wondering if that isn't connected and the Mac can't record at that rate then it crashes?

I'm thinking of moving my Audio drive to the internal Mac system drive so at least then that is consistent if I work away from home. Is there ay disadvantage to this. Keep the Samples on a usb drive but the audio running on the same drive as the program. I've always kept them apart but ......just want the crashing to stop.

Sorry, I tried to keep this as short as possible. Many thanks for any advice.

I don't see how jumping between motu and internal card use would cause kernel panics but I can't say for sure. but from my personal experience and the times I experienced panics, I remember going into the crash log that OS X spits out at crashes. I remember going thru it and isolating a vst. that was one instance and after deleting it, solved the problem. another time, resetting the PRAM solved the issue. doesn't hurt to double check permissions on ur HD also. good luck

get windows machine

The few times I've had a kernel panic, it's almost always been due to some external USB device or a bad usb cable. Maybe you can try narrowing down the issue by only using a couple usb devices and see if you can figure out which is possibly causing the issue?

Just seconding what Tarekith said. That gels with my experience too. As I read your post, I started to feel that's a whole lot of possible USB random factors. USB and MIDI/audio can be a crap-shoot... Some otherwise perfectly good controllers can become flaky when plugged thru certain USB hubs, for example.

Kernel panics are pretty much always related to some type of hardware failure. At least I've never experienced one that wasn't.

This does not seem to really be the Mac. As others have said, it sounds like an external hardware fault.

It seems likely to me that, once you get this cleared up, you will not even slightly regret moving to Mac. I went from a PC user (and still use them for software testing) to Mac a few years ago and have no desire to ever do anything on a PC again. For me, Mac just makes life easier.

Good luck!

This does not seem to really be the PC. As others have said, it sounds like an external hardware fault.

It seems likely to me that, once you get this cleared up, you will not even slightly regret moving to PC. I went from a MAC user (and still use them for software testing) to PC a few years ago and have no desire to ever do anything on a MAC again. For me, Mac just makes life easier.

Good luck!

Hi guys,
Thanks for your advice. I will try and narrow things down hardware wise but it is weird how it only happens when I'm away from home and not using the motu sound card and having each hard drive, audio, sample, connected straight into the mac rather than one through a USB hub.
That fact alone stears me in the direction of a configuration problem with ableton. As I mentioned, Reaper starts even when ableton won't.

Thanks.

launch the Console application (it's in /Application/Utilities) and search for "panic"...

I have always used UAD products as my interface until 2-3 months ago when I picked up a MOTU MK3 Hybrid. Since then I get 1-2 kernel panics on 2 different macs per month or so. I am almost certain it has to do with this new interface. Another irritating thing is I often have to reboot in order for the macs to pick up the MOTU as an interface.

Just wanted to chime in that you are not alone.

Edit: I am on Yosemite.