logic pro x, constant system overload.

I have just updated my OS to 10.9.4.. since then my logic hits constant overload, even if I

turn of all the plugins and only have one synth playing.

 

It was running fine before and the cpu never went beyond half way..

 

Maybe it's not the OS update,

 

Anyone else experiencing similar problems since 10.9.4 update?

 

I spend more time trying to get logic and plugins to work than making music. I might buy a mouth organ and be done with it!

Which version of Logic X are you using?

10.0.7

Have you tried turning off background apps or eventually useless functionalities (bluetooth, wifi, etc...)?

Bluetooth isn't on, wifi is always on and makes no difference.

 

It's started to happen since the update...

 

I run logic with just a few plugins and after about 30 secs it crashes with system overload.

 

I'm doing nothing different than I've been doing for months with no heavy cpu readings or system overloads.

 

I've shut down and rebooted and its the same.

I've also tried different songs that have never caused any problems with completely different plugins and it's still happening.

I have run my activity monitor. I have also opened synths in standalone etc. The cpu activity with synths is around 17% cpu.

 

When I load logic the cpu shoots up to 70% and continues to clime up to 290% within 45 secs to a min then logic crashes with 'system overload'

 

I've tried different songs that have different plugins and the same thing happens.

 

I open the cpu/HD monitor and the threads start with one spiking then 2,3,4 climbing until it overloads.

Could be Native Instruments (wild guess). Any updates on any of your 3rd party stuff?

If it was my machine, I would try re installing the 10.9.4 patch but don't install it from software update. Download the actual patch and run it from your computer.

 

You could also try something else.... Try creating a new separate user account. After creating the account, reboot, login to the new account and run Logic, see if you have the same problems. IF you do then re apply the patch manually.

 

Here's the link. I think you have to have the actual download link emailed to you.

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1755

 

Please report back what happens.

 

Good luck

 

Wayne

Thanks Triplets and BIGwayne! (Are you really BiG?) I digress...

 

I've got no NI plugins going in the song that was causing meltdown to happen, I've updated all third party plugins.

 

I conceded defeat last night and went to bed. Today I woke and opened lpx up and I've started to work with imposcar, fxpansion Amber and spark 2 with the creative drum controller. It's running on 2 threads, each hovering around half way on the cpu/hd monitor.

 

I'm going to gradually introduce other instruments and see how it goes, but it's a marked improvement on yesterday when I would only run a synth and it would overload...

 

Watch this space

Maybe retrieving the crash log could be informative.

I will retrieve it the next time it happens..

 

I have some more info from my testing this morning..

 

I have been closely keeping an eye on the activity monitor and the cpu/hd monitor.

 

I'm definitely seeing logics cpu usage increasing when I open firefox. And the more tabs I open while logic is playing the more the cpu activity increases.

 

Now, I know this is going to be obvious to most, but I've never had a problem with using firefox and logic at the same time..For example If I want to troubleshoot a plugin online while I"m using it..

 

I have set my 'processing threads' to 8 instead of the default 'auto'. Not sure if this is helping,

 

Buffer is set to 128,

 

In my test song I have Spark 2 and creative drum machine controller, trillain, fabfilter twin, imposcar2, fxpansion Amber and strobe. All playing at once with firefox open with one tab typing this and it's playing flawlessly and lpx cpu is 65% on activity monitor and about a 35% on the logic cpu/hd monitor.

 

Everything seems ok atm...I hope I didn't talk too soon.

Well that proved to be short lived...logic is back to overloading even with a couple of synths and spark 2... It seemed to be running okay in the morning and as the day went on it got progressively worse.

 

I think it's sensible to pose this question.

 

Do you think running my Mac , specs in signature

with

Fxpansion amber and strobe

Gforce imposcar2

Fabfilter twin

Arturia spark 2

Trillian bass module

 

And buffer size 256

 

Should cause this CPU overload ?

 

There is an intro to the song where is spark his playing and then an arpegiated patch inn imposcer then trillian bass comes in at this point CPU starts to rise and just before all the other synths come in Logic overloads

If it was my machine, I would try re installing the 10.9.4 patch but don't install it from software update. Download the actual patch and run it from your computer.

 

You could also try something else.... Try creating a new separate user account. After creating the account, reboot, login to the new account and run Logic, see if you have the same problems. IF you do then re apply the patch manually.

 

Here's the link. I think you have to have the actual download link emailed to you.

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1755

 

Please report back what happens.

 

Good luck

 

Wayne

. Is there a way I can remove the 10.9.4 updates and go back to 10.9.3... I have a guest user account on my Mac is this what you mean to log into and to try Logic from there?

OS X uses all your memory and internally allocates it. I've been using "Memory Clean" by Filab. Some people report its dangerous. I've been using it for several months. I'm on an Apple Macbook Air with an Intel Core i5 and 4Gig of RAM. I usually have way too many simultaneous apps running. One bit of further advice: power down completely after the first 75 plugin instances every so often...

OS X uses all your memory and internally allocates it. I've been using "Memory Clean" by Filab. Some people report its dangerous. I've been using it for several months. I'm on an Apple Macbook Air with an Intel Core i5 and 4Gig of RAM. I usually have way too many simultaneous apps running. One bit of further advice: power down completely after the first 75 plugin instances every so often...

 

Thanks for the pointers. I don't really want to install any 3rd party 'cleaners'. I'd prefer to do the research on what files I need to manually clean from my mac. I can't afford to have it go wrong on a OS level. Atm it's my only mac. I usually have a mac desktop but I've lent it to my friend and I'm using my mbpro (june 2013)

 

I'm typing this now while lpx is playing in the background for the last hour with all the synths listed above running and logics cpu monitor isn't even a third of the way. This is what's baffling me. When I start the daily logic session it works fine. But as soon as I start to mess with the plugins and edit on the fly the cpu loads goes up until I can't even play a drum and synth track without it overloading, When I play a single synth and drum track I don't mess with the plugins or have firefox open. Just lpx open and the two lanes playing and it overloads after 20 seconds.

 

So, being the ever optomist I know lpx running on my mac can handle more than i'm throwing at it, It has proven this in the past...All I need to do is find out why this strange behavior is happening..

 

I mentioned I use my mbp for work too. This only involves a light amount of word doc storage. My mac is very organized and I don't have loads of photos etc and useless apps. And when I'm running logic I do tend to have firefox open in the background, like now for instance and It's never proved to be a problem in the past. Obviously when I'm working on lpx I don't browse so FFox is closed.

 

Why do you suggest the power down after 75 plugin instances? I would like to know more about this if you would take the time to explain.

 

Many thanks.

Hey DMC,

 

Have you tried either thing I suggested?

 

They are both easy steps to try that won't set you back if they don't help. They are designed to be steps to see if it a system wide problem or maybe something with that particular user login account. There are lots of moving parts in an OS in general. Sometimes when you run software update, it gets "confused" on what files to overwrite or not. I've seen lots of macs and pc's behave much better when applying os patches manually.

 

Secondly, I asked you to create a fresh new account, that can easily be deleted btw, to see if there is some mysterious app running in the background when you login with your normal account that you may have forgotten or didn't even know ran.

 

These are common troubleshooting steps. Since you didn't mention wether you ran them or not, I don't know where to go to help you.

 

All the best,

 

Wayne

 

P.S. Yes I am a big boy. Played football half my life. Nosetackle.....

...following your signature this happens on a macbook pro, right?...i have massive cpu problems respectively cpu spikes (in mainstage) when my battery is below 70/80% charge even if the laptop is running with the power supply connected...

...following your signature this happens on a macbook pro, right?...i have massive cpu problems respectively cpu spikes (in mainstage) when my battery is below 70/80% charge even if the laptop is running with the power supply connected...

 

Need a little more info on your system, total number of cores, amount of RAM, and how much free space on your system drive.

 

…do you think there could be a "solution" for this behaviour?…i thought it's "just" because the cpu needs a lot of power and when the battery is not fully loaded the cpu is not able to work 100%?…my solution is to perform only with the battery at 100% and power supply connected…then i have zero (!) problems…but anyway:

 

my macbook pro is a i7 quadcore clocking at 2.4 and with 16gb ram…my ssd has 200 gb of 500gb free space…i have a kinda big mainstage (2.2.2 at 32bit) concert with roundabout 50 patches…parallel to that i have maschine (64bit) standalone…i reckon the cpu spikes come from my maschine project (and surely also effect the mainstage concert cpu wise) since the spikes often happen to be in rhythm to the maschine sequencer…like the cpu is peaking / pumping when the maschine sequencer plays back the midi notes…yesterday i tested it: the battery was at 60% and regarding activity monitor just opening the maschine project raised it's cpu consumption to 140% (without any note playing!)…for the same project activity monitor showed "only" 100% when the computer's battery was at 90%…but like i said…i don't have any problems when the battery is at 100%…and that with mainstage's buffer set to 256 samples and maschine's to 128 samples…and i also record my mainstage output to the same internal ssd...

 

my macbook pro is a i7 quadcore clocking at 2.4 and with 16gb ram…my ssd has 200 gb of 500gb free space…i have a kinda big mainstage (2.2.2 at 32bit) concert with roundabout 50 patches…parallel to that i have maschine (64bit) standalone…

 

Just curious dude...

 

With a machine with 16gb of ram....

 

1). Why are you running Mainstage in 32bit? The app is limited to 4gb of that ram. Mainstage v2.x I found to be RAM intensive. More memory the better it seems to run. Why limit it at all?

 

2). Why not upgrade to 10.9? I found Mavericks to be MUCH more stable and better optimized than Mountain Lion ever was. If you have a second maybe external hdd, install 10.9 on that partition. Migrate over you needed apps, though I would do a clean install of all my apps, and run your MS and Logic sessions from there. That way nothing is touched and you can gauge your machine and 10.9 without disturbing your already working setup. Best of both worlds!

 

Hope that helps,

 

Wayne

…the reason for running mainstage in 32bit is my ultimate top notch looper plugin mobius…ha…but really…mobius is awesome but still in 32 bit…i'm just waiting for the 64bit version or for a 32lives sale…ha…same with mavericks…there were some problems with mobius and mavericks and i don't know if it's working stable enough now…i may have to research that...