a tale of spontaneous corruption (with a happy ending) -ACID Product Family

Subject:a tale of spontaneous corruption (with a happy ending) Posted by: Snappy Date:7/11/2003 4:13:15 PM started a tune last night. messed around with it a bit more today. all was good. i started combing some .mpegs and .movs for samples, using Windows Media Player and QuickTime Player, respectively. I'm not sure if i had WMP and QTP open/playing simultaneously, but after i closed QTP i started to hear ALL SORTS of wierd stuff coming over the audio bus. crackles, clicks, squirleys, fuzz/noise, etc - compared to the program material, they were pretty quiet, but compared to the usual noise floor of my crap generic soundcard, they were loud! (actually some kewl stuff was going on - i wanted to record some, but that's a different story.) ( also, i'm not sure if acid was open at this time or not - i don't think it was) i didn't find anything good in the video clips, so i went back to acid to resume work. the squirley noise is still going on at this point. i am thinking to myself "if it doesn't go away after i playback, i will reboot". so i try a playback & stop it after a couple seconds. silence. "ok kewl - i'll keep working". playback again - this time, about 10 seconds in, Acid crashes! UH OH! tried again, same results. reboot time! fresh boot: loaded up my song again. 10 seconds in, crash! OUCH! cold sweat + 'that sinking feeling'!!! but i'm a veteran, so i regain my composure and start the troubleshooting process: other songs work fine. so experience tells me it is either a plugin problem, or a problem with Acid's stretching algorithm. still, both of these possibilities confuse me, since the song has been played FINE at least 30 times, and i haven't changed anything, yet all of a sudden these crashes start in... not wanting to face the possibility that it was the stretching algorithm causing the crashes (since my algo settings are an integral part of the song), i start bypassing plugins. playback with all plugins bypassed WORKS! WEEEEEE! i am back on terra firma - i can recover everything, even if i have to dump to a different program or device. now i want to isolate the problem, so i start un-bypassing plugins while playback is rolling. soon all plugins are active again and no crashes! i let it roll through the song a couple times... NO CRASHES - ALL IS RESOLVED! whew! so - any theories on what plugin data could be corrupted causing Acid to crash, AND persist between boots?! keep in mind, that it's NONE of the user settings - i hadn't made any changes, and the only steps i took to fix the problem were bypassing/un-bypassing plugins... the moral of the story (AFAICS): beware quicktime player! i have been through this scenario before, using only WMP (since .avis/.mpegs/.asfs/.wmvs are much more common than .movs for raw material), and never had a problem. this one time i introduced QTP to the equation and got squirrel noises + acid crashing! what other conclusion can i draw??? maybe it was something about the encoding of the particular clips i was viewing, but still, IMO this falls into the category of "QuickTime's Fault"! ANYWAY.... just thought i'd share this tidbit & maybe help somebody out down the line. good luck & have phun! =)

started a tune last night. messed around with it a bit more today. all was good.

i started combing some .mpegs and .movs for samples, using Windows Media Player and QuickTime Player, respectively. I'm not sure if i had WMP and QTP open/playing simultaneously*, but after i closed QTP i started to hear ALL SORTS of wierd stuff coming over the audio bus. crackles, clicks, squirleys, fuzz/noise, etc - compared to the program material, they were pretty quiet, but compared to the usual noise floor of my crap generic soundcard, they were loud! (actually some kewl stuff was going on - i wanted to record some, but that's a different story.) (* also, i'm not sure if acid was open at this time or not - i don't think it was)

i didn't find anything good in the video clips, so i went back to acid to resume work. the squirley noise is still going on at this point. i am thinking to myself "if it doesn't go away after i playback, i will reboot". so i try a playback & stop it after a couple seconds. silence. "ok kewl - i'll keep working". playback again - this time, about 10 seconds in, Acid crashes! UH OH! tried again, same results. reboot time!

fresh boot: loaded up my song again. 10 seconds in, crash! OUCH! cold sweat + 'that sinking feeling'!!! but i'm a veteran, so i regain my composure and start the troubleshooting process: other songs work fine. so experience tells me it is either a plugin problem, or a problem with Acid's stretching algorithm. still, both of these possibilities confuse me, since the song has been played FINE at least 30 times, and i haven't changed anything, yet all of a sudden these crashes start in...

not wanting to face the possibility that it was the stretching algorithm causing the crashes (since my algo settings are an integral part of the song), i start bypassing plugins. playback with all plugins bypassed WORKS! WEEEEEE! i am back on terra firma - i can recover everything, even if i have to dump to a different program or device.

now i want to isolate the problem, so i start un-bypassing plugins while playback is rolling. soon all plugins are active again and no crashes! i let it roll through the song a couple times... NO CRASHES - ALL IS RESOLVED!

whew!

so - any theories on what plugin data could be corrupted causing Acid to crash, AND persist between boots?! keep in mind, that it's NONE of the user settings - i hadn't made any changes, and the only steps i took to fix the problem were bypassing/un-bypassing plugins...

the moral of the story (AFAICS): beware quicktime player! i have been through this scenario before, using only WMP (since .avis/.mpegs/.asfs/.wmvs are much more common than .movs for raw material), and never had a problem. this one time i introduced QTP to the equation and got squirrel noises + acid crashing! what other conclusion can i draw??? maybe it was something about the encoding of the particular clips i was viewing, but still, IMO this falls into the category of "QuickTime's Fault"!

ANYWAY.... just thought i'd share this tidbit & maybe help somebody out down the line.

good luck & have phun! =)