I have a friend who is a keyboard player who setups shows for major Broadway productions. I asked him what do you use and he replied, “MOTU Mach 5”. I asked why not Mainstage or Gig Performer. He replied, “I really don’t know Gig Performer, but Mainstage would be a catastrophe as it crashes. In my line of work, any crash for any reason is not acceptable. We employ hundreds upon hundreds of patches, thousands of splits and mapped chords, and custom samples recorded at Abbey Road.”
So, I am curious as to GP Users’ experiences with crashes and what actually caused the crash?
I never faced a crash of Gig Performer during a show.
Almost every crash I got when I customized sounds in VST plugins.
And when there was a crash the report always showed that the plugin itself crashed.
Most important: at least 2-3 weeks before a show do not change your system.
But that is well known
Never change a running system
or even better
Never run a changing system
Only unstable plugins can crash GP I think. If GP would crash because of a bug, from what I know, fixing it would immediately become the highest priority for the devs. They are themselves touring with GP.
I am not trying to cast dispersion on GP, on the contrary, I love it. I am trying to find users’ experience of crashes and why they occurred and then what action they took to correct them. I am currently a CEO of a software company and know that all software has problems. Isolating and confronting a list of experiences will only serve to strengthen GP and provide users a better experience.
The discussion you are alluding to identifies a scenario that identifies a crash when opening a gig file …and yes, the technique of removing plugins one at a time in order to discover the bug is appropriate for that case. I am more interested in bugs that occur down the line during a performance.
From my point of view, the best way to eliminate bugs, for the most part, is to identify them, list them, and make users aware of them.
You say, “Please tell your friend to try GP3 or upcoming GP4, I think that he’ll be pleasantly surprised.” I tell all my music friends about GP, LOL!
The friend I am alluding to works for a fellow named Andrew Lloyd Webber. I am trying to get him to try GP and I even volunteered to help him . He is considering it based on my recommendation.
@Phil First, thanks so much for your support of Gig Performer. We really appreciate it.
From our point of view, the best way to eliminate bugs is to fix them
We have a strong beta group, modern development tools including version control, proper bug tracking systems and even automated tools that exercise Gig Performer way more than could be done by an actual performer.
GP has been around commercially for about four years now, pretty much all the teething issues have been solved a long time ago.
When we decided to develop Gig Performer, our highest priority was stability.
As one of the developers of Gig Performer, I’ve toured much of the world (US, Canada, Europe, Japan) over the last 8 years or so and once I switched completely to Gig Performer about 4 years ago, I have not had to deal with a single crash on stage. None of us wanted to get up on stage and have GP die in the middle of a show. To that end, I believe we have been remarkably successful.
I don’t know if the use of the word “irresponsible” is appropriate when translated from German, but in my native language it seems a bit awkward. My assumption, while a bit suggestive (hence the “I think”) and therefore necessarily questionable, is still statistically correct… “I think”. Anyway, it is the most synthetic one I can formulate based on my own experience and what I perceive from other users, as I have been consulting this community forum daily for… well, quite a long time now.
I hope @dhj was able to reassure the software development CEO you are about the modern and “responsible” software engineering methods that are used at Deskew. So, sorry about that, but we don’t have too many crash reports to share here, as most of the bugs stay behind the scenes and get fixed before you go to own the stage with GP!
First and foremost, you should realize by now that I am on your side as I am an exuberant supporter of GP.
Of course, we all try to fix bugs as fast as we can … however, bugs come up that you sometimes can’t fix - those that are really not intrinsic bugs but bugs caused by, for example, Windows itself, MIDI hardware, and audio interfaces and drivers. It is those bugs that should be denoted even if they are isolated cases and maintained in a knowledge base.
I personally have a situation where GP frequently crashes with a Windows Blue Screen of Death when I save a gig. Rather than reporting this problem to you, I want to make sure it is not my problem EG: Windows, I/O problems, etc. We have been shooting this problem for a week and have not found its root. However, maybe another GP user has experienced a similar problem … and if there were a list of encountered problems, it might save other users a lot of time getting to the solution. Just my two cents
If you are getting a Blue Screen of Death, then there’s something else wrong with your system. Gig Performer is a standard application and has no intrinsic “driver” code, etc. It cannot cause kernel crashes. Something running at root/kernel level is responsible for that crash.
Nope, not outside of Windows Defender. Yep, that’s what I thought as well and that’s why I didn’t report it as a ticket. I am just wondering if other users have experienced this type of elusive crash and reported any specifics?
Windows Defender has its issues too – have you turned it off?
On the occasions where BSOD is involved, such things as ensuring there are no hard drive or RAM issues, completely disabling anti-virus and other programs that have kernel/root access, and making sure that the OS and drivers are all up to date.
I believe Defender is running as a background task on my computer. So, you are recommending I turn it off and see what happens?
On a parallel note, I am still confused as to which driver I should be using for my RME Fireface 800s? I have downloaded the driver that Jeff Petersen @ Synthax has recommended but maybe that one is problematic with GP?
I’ve had GP expose system issues that result in a BSOD, but the structure of Windows (as dhj said) would make it difficult for GP itself to be the cause of of a BSOD.
In my case, I had a CPU that was failing. I was running GP when the issues first started showing up, but statistically that’s just what I happen to run most of the time I’m using that machine. Over a few weeks the crashes became more frequent and eventually it became clear it was either a motherboard or processor problem. Replaced the processor, problems gone.
RME drivers tend to be very solid, especially for a “well seasoned” product like the Fireface 800. If there’s a driver problem, my suspicion would lean more toward whatever your underlying firewire driver is. Firewire and Windows never really got along perfectly, and some firewire devices don’t play well with some firewire-equipped motherboards or expansion cards. I have a firewire-based MOTU interface that I had to take some special care with to make sure it worked reliably with my system.
I have had several BSOD issues with GP but it always centers around either changing or unplugging the audio interface. I am sure this is in the interface drivers and not GP and of course I would never do that while performing!
The only issue I ever had while performing is when I accidently hit the laptop power button when reaching for the ESC key. Fortunately that was between songs and very near the end of a set so we took an early break, but it really sucked!
Now that you mention it, my problem could be my ancient Firewire card! I am going to replace it the first chance I get.
As far as RME drivers go, I just spoke with Jeff and he said, "use Version 3.125 for Windows 10 - Firewire and Fireface 800. I believe I am using that versions, but I will double-check that this evening.
I will also run memory diagnostics this evening.
It is just frustrating when my computer crashes every 1/2 hour … it takes the fun out of it and destroys my thought process along the way LOL!
