Logic Error: Not enough memory to create clipboard/undo

Guys,

Afraid this will be a long post. The aim will be twofold:

1. To provide information on the above error and what I have tried in order to correct it.

2. Obviously to see if anyone has anything new to contribute as from what I see I am far from alone!

Before I start I have searched this forum for the above message with AND between words to narrow down otherwise thousands of results in order to make sure I have read the most appropriate posts and threads. 9 posts were found some presenting a variety of possible solutions.

Some background. Apple Mac Quad core, 5 GB RAM, Leopard 10.5.8, 32 Bit only.

System disk is 230GB with 135GB free and audio disk 750GB with 150GB free.

Last year I upgraded from logic 7 to vrs 9. Running now 9.1.3. Due to finishing most projects I have since later last year only been working on new ideas. I'm using only Logic and the Access Virus T1 desktop, so far with no real issues. All projects created from a logic template incorporating the set-up to facilitate the virus in the proper way. Also lots of the ideas all in one directory have been spawned from working on one project and then saving it as something else and so on... therefore if something has went wrong with one then that may be the case for many or even all projects and files.

The file in question is running 3-4 audio tracks, 16 virus tracks although not all have parts on them and around 10 logic instruments ranging from ultrabeat to exs24 piano and drum patches, nothing too intensive.

So for the first time (perhaps, I’m pretty sure) since installing Logic 9 last year I tried to make a quick arrangement, of what was all 4 bar loops, i:e lengthening the track beyond the initial 4 bar loops. I tried to do this by copying and pasting all the regions. To my utter shock and horror I discovered the error message above when I tried to paste much further than 100 bars of the song around 3-4 minutes of the arrangement. Since this I have received also the messages

"Not enough memory couldn't copy these events" AND

"Couldn't create regions" AND THEN AGAIN

"Not enough memory couldn’t copy these events" THEN

"Out of memory couldn’t insert or delete data".

So far I'm afarid to say that trying to find logic as to what message(s) appears first, whether I have to force quit on Logic and so on is difficult to say.

WHAT I HAVE DONE.

1.Saved the project as something else on desktop Same issue persists. And also checked all of the suggested fixes such as going to the project information and reorganising the memory and talking my undo steps right down to 1.

2.Tried to copy and paste in other project files possibly created from the same project, certainly from the same template, some of which have less instruments but always the 16 virus tracks, normally around 8-10 of them having parts and not all playing at the same time due to polyphony burglary! This creates the same issue. Although I note that files from the Logic 9 – Apple Pro Training Series book, seemed to copy and paste OK when I checked them but only briefly. But investigating them will not solve this issue….

3. I then tried again with back up files from the time machine. Same issue occurred.

4. Tried to create a new project from a blank template then import. The particular file I was working in causes Logic to crash, I see the spinning rainbow and have to force quit, or the import dialogue pretends to be looking for a file and it seems to take forever, then when I click on the screen or the import dialogue box the spinning rainbow appears and I have to force quit as this point.

I also tried to import some of the other files into a a blank template. I thought that perhaps narrowing it down to all files which would not import might help to narrow this down or provide some insight as to the real problem sadly that was another red herring. Some of the files which I imported with no trouble also had the copy and paste issue. (So another thing I had never cause to try not working consistently in Logic, The Import function however that will be for another post!)

5. I then thought that perhaps due to the addressing of virtual memory and the discussion regarding 32 bit version only being able to use 4GB that as my wastebasket was really full I would empty that as from what I've read the virtual memory uses the disk space. I therefore emptied the wastebasket and ran disk permission on the system drive and repaired the permissions also then verified the disk, all OK. I ran verify on the audio disk too. Again no issues with the disks however when I tried to copy and paste again I received the same frustrating error.

During this whole process I took some screenshots using the monitor and although the real and vm readings continued to grow whilst using logic at no point did the vm reading got to 4GB maximum was around 3.5. I did however note that the reading for instrument regions and undo steps was incredibly higher than I would have expected the latter turning around a memory reading of 11562322, is this normal in a relatively small project with less than 3 minutes of audio and instruments??

I think I btr wind it up there for now before putting everyone off reading my latest technical novel LOL however as there seems to be no solution to this across multiple forums on the web and also, and I hope everyone agrees with me here, not being able to copy and paste 3 minutes of work to create 6 minutes is totally insane and unacceptable. I can’t believe for a minute that this exists in standard logic set-ups however with many users experiencing what some describe as memory hell there sure is no smoke without fire. I would therefore welcome a discussion on this and a quest to either find a solution or have apple take this issue seriously.

Thanks for reading and look forward to your thoughts, if only to keep me from going insane!!

sure here are the screenshots froms earlier. one of the project info and the other showing the monitor readings...

You have a LOT of MIDI regions. Also, seems like your Undo memory is taking a LOT of memory space for some reason.

What if you empty the undo history, or temporarily lower it?

thanks for looking at this. yeah totally but I dont know why I mean i maybe have around 15 tracks with regions nothing out of the ordinary. i have turned undo down to one, done reorganise memoery in the project info and removed all unused audio files from the bin.

one thing that did cross my mind, as i said i prob havent done much in the way of long arrangements since using v9 but i wonder ??? some of these regions have quite a few takes in each, is that why is sees so many? Is there no way to clear this project memory?

cheers

thanks for looking at this. yeah totally but I dont know why I mean i maybe have around 15 tracks with regions nothing out of the ordinary. i have turned undo down to one, done reorganise memoery in the project info and removed all unused audio files from the bin.

And after doing all that, you still get the error? Just as often as before? What does your Project Info window looks like after you've done all that?

You could flatten your MIDI take folders to get rid of unused MIDI sequences in them. When you do that it's a good idea to do a "Save As" to save another version of your project... for example:

If your project is called "ProjectName", you could now save it as "ProjectName_2". If in the future you need access to any of the older MIDI sequences in your MIDI take folders you can always go back to "ProjectName" to reimport the ones you want, but for now you can keep working on "ProjectName_2" which will be your streamlined project.

You can now flatten all MIDI take folders in ProjectName_2, you can merge some or all of your MIDI regions, you can freeze or bounce some tracks to audio, etc... to streamline your project even more.

Guys, found the solutions well in my case anyway. As David has said and as I had already noticed the region count in project info was way to high. being somwhat new to arrangeing in logic 9 I have been caught out, is how I would describe it. As soon as I flattened the take folders (as many of the midi regions had at least several takes) I was able to copy and paste throughout the song as desired. Something to watch although not sure if that would have been the cause for any of the earlier posts when some users were also having difficulty with this. Might be worth a try though...

I wonder if that had anything to do with the project not importing though which was the other issue I found. I will check and update in case anyone is interested.

Thanks for contributing to this David...

Now to the music!

As promised I wanted to update this thread with my findings on the import issue described along with main issue in this discussion. Afraid the hanging issue persists and I have to force quite on Logic, I thought that it might have been due to the memory issue however having resolved that I now wonder does the import function always work as expected for everyone?

Perhaps I'll start a new thread for that.... after all if its there it should work right!

Guys, found the solutions well in my case anyway. As David has said and as I had already noticed the region count in project info was way to high.

I'm getting this Out Of Memory error message when I try to adjust some simple volume automation.

I'm using Logic 9.1.5 on an 8 core mac with 32 gigs of ram. I'm using less than 8 gigs of memory in my project, running everything in 64 bit mode. Deleting some of the regions and track automation does seem to reduce this problem, but to be honest, there were not THAT many regions in my project. It has only 332 regions, but over 900,000 Midi Events (it's all the volume automation).

This issue has been bugging me for years - on various macs - on various versions of Logic. I have so much computing power now, and yet Logic is brought to it's knees by "too many" midi regions or volume automation changes??? It's almost inconceivable.

I've seen forum articles about this problem dating back to 2008 - and yet still Apple have not solved it. I've been using Logic since version 3, and I love it as much as one can love their sequencer, but this issue has almost got me to the point where I'm ready to abandon Logic. It just seems too ridiculous.

I've never found a forum post or article where anyone actually solved this problem, and I don't think that "deleting some extra midi regions" really qualifies as a fix.

Sorry to whine...just very disappointed that I'm still running into this problem considering how much money I spent on my latest mac!

As promised I wanted to update this thread with my findings on the import issue described along with main issue in this discussion. Afraid the hanging issue persists and I have to force quite on Logic, I thought that it might have been due to the memory issue however having resolved that I now wonder does the import function always work as expected for everyone?

 

Perhaps I'll start a new thread for that.... after all if its there it should work right!

No need to force quit . heres the fudge .:-

Iv had this today first time ,

Ok there is a way out of the Abort request and also to save your current project.

The Abort / Memory request happens!! doh! .

Ok , Go Finder ,

Open another Project using the Finder , “double click a different project icon in the finder”..

Forces close project request to pop up.

Click on requesters etc to close project , and try to press to close etc , the new project opens and the current gives choice to save on close.

Keep pressing Abort with Enter key , and place mouse to Close project , and then Save while hitting or holding Enter .

The project closes and saves , the new project opens .

Quit ,

Re-open your project .

It worked for now .

I hope this helps someone

tb-303.tk

same issues here on Logic 9.1.8

see attached screenshot.

- Is there a way to simplify volume automation - taking out redundant automation data?

- I deleted the undo history - but as you can see the undo history memory is still super high...

Is there a simple way to resave a logic file or would it be best to copy all events to a brand new Logic session?

Thanks for your advice.

P

MacPro 2008, 18GB RAM, OS 10.6.8

Is there a way to simplify volume automation - taking out redundant automation data?

Which redundant automation data?

I deleted the undo history - but as you can see the undo history memory is still super high

You need to lower the number of undo steps in Preferences > General > Editing.

Is there a simple way to resave a logic file or would it be best to copy all events to a brand new Logic session?

Yes, using the File browser's selective import features, but ... well if the only goal is to empty the undo history that shouldn't be necessary.

ok - great ! just did all that - also erased some track automation data... the Logic file size was 250MB (!)... it is now 69MB ... still HUUUGE...

when I do cmd-I in the Finder it lists a LOOOONG list of audio files... even though I erased the unused audio files... there aren't that many audio files used in the session...

Thanks for any help !!!

when I do cmd-I in the Finder it lists a LOOOONG list of audio files... even though I erased the unused audio files... there aren't that many audio files used in the session...

Check your audio bin for that project. You can choose Edit > Select Unused.

I did that, but what really fixed the issue was erasing ALL the automation... there were just too many automation edits... it was a song I have worked on for many months and all the edits added up and used memory.

So - whoever else has this kind of problem - try erasing the entire automation and redraw it from scratch... it fixed the 'out of memory' issue...

For me, deleting all the automation is pretty much unthinkable. It would be so much work on my longer compositions to do all the automation again.

One technique that can reduce (but perhaps not eliminate) this issue is to simply glue lots of regions together (those that share the same track) to reduce the total number of regions in the project.

Still, on an 8 core mac with 32 GB of ram, you would think that Logic could cope with an almost unlimited number of regions.

I did that, but what really fixed the issue was erasing ALL the automation... there were just too many automation edits... it was a song I have worked on for many months and all the edits added up and used memory.

 

So - whoever else has this kind of problem - try erasing the entire automation and redraw it from scratch... it fixed the 'out of memory' issue...

I think your problem was too many Undo steps in your preferences. By looking at your Project Info window the Undo Steps took the most amount of memory.

Lower them to 10 or 5 and you'll have virtually no out of memory messages.

I have upgraded to Logic X and this problems still brings my computer to a grinding halt on some projects.

I'm currently working on a 25 minute composition with just 10 tracks. When I copied and pasted the entire project to double it's length to 50 minutes, Logic can't cope any more. If I try to move a single region I get the spinning wheel for about 20-30 seconds before the region moves. Trying to move a single automation node causes the same result. The project is now basically unusable.

I couldn't find the menu link to "View Project Information" so I looked it up in Logic Pro X Help. Here's what's written:

To Open the Project Information window:

Use the Project Information key command.

Not too helpful if you don't know the "View Project Information" key command off the top of your head. Fortunately, I know how to find and edit Logic's key commands, but wait! There is no key command for View Project Information! To get around this blunder I created my own key command. Now that I can see my project information, I can tell you that I only have 255 midi regions and 55 audio regions, but Logic reports almost 13 million "events" (not exactly sure what qualifies as an event). Undo steps = 26. Over 24 GB of ram still available.

Clicking on "reorganize memory" does nothing.

What's weird about this is that I have created many other projects that have loads more regions and automation, but do not freeze up like this. A 5 minute orchestral arrangement with 50 tracks and a couple of thousand regions will work just fine. For some reason, it's only long duration projects that have a problem.

Anyhoo, I'm still stuck. If anyone has a flash of brilliance and figures out how to solve this problem I'm all ears.

Did you try lowering the Undo Steps to 10 or 5 like I suggested above?

I actually lowered the undo steps to 2. This has no effect at all.

This problem has followed me for years, across 3 versions of Logic on 2 different Macs. I'm starting to think that it will never be solved.

And as for the project I'm working on now, I really don't know what to do. It's a commercial production that's taken almost 3 weeks and now I can't make it function any more. Even just scrolling around the screen is choppy.

Not too helpful if you don't know the "View Project Information" key command off the top of your head. Fortunately, I know how to find and edit Logic's key commands, but wait! There is no key command for View Project Information! To get around this blunder I created my own key command. Now that I can see my project information, I can tell you that I only have 255 midi regions and 55 audio regions, but Logic reports almost 13 million "events" (not exactly sure what qualifies as an event). Undo steps = 26. Over 24 GB of ram still available.

Event is everything Midi related if it's in the same row as Midi info.

The baffling results of a recent test has revealed some inexplicable behaviour in Logic, and also a possible workaround solution...

Regarding the project I mentioned earlier, which had just 10 tracks and was 25 minutes long. The project information window lists a total of around 18,000 events. I then selected all the regions in the project and copy/pasted them to double the length of the project to 50 minutes. I click "yes" when asked to copy all the automation.

Now when I look at the project information window, it says that the project has over 13 million events! Now my computer is almost incapable of performing even the simplest tasks, the screen is semi-frozen and moving a single region takes around 30 seconds to compute and complete.

So I dumped the project and opened the earlier version (25 minutes long) and repeated the above copy/paste action identically. I check the project information window and the number of events jump from 13,000 to over 200,000. This doesn't really make sense, but at least the project is still functioning OK. 200,000 is obviously more manageable than 13 million.

Then I tried to move all the regions I just copied. Just a few bars to the left. Bang! All of a sudden Logic reports that I have over 800,000 events and my computer is slowing down to a grind.

I hit the undo button to put all the regions back where they were and start moving them all 1 track at a time. Eventually I find the culprit. Only 1 track in the arrangement is causing problems. It is an instrument channel hosting Omnisphere and a channel EQ plugin. For some reason, whenever I try to move this track's regions (of which there are about 30), Logic reports an incrediblly huge increase in events that negatively affects computer performance.

As a last resort, I merged all of the regions on the Omnisphere track and was then able to move that one single region around successfully.

Truly inexplicable. This must be a bug of some sort.

Hi Crispire

Have you tried opening a blank project ( not your template) and doing a track import ( one at a time) from the session you need?

keeping an eye on the project info event list.

i had this problem once a few years ago.. reorganised the PI, lowered the undo steps , etc. I ended up reconstructing the session as per above. One of the track imports blew the PI number off the chart. SO that one i went back to the dodgy session, deleted every track and plugin except the "broken" one., removed every audio region from the bin except the ones for that track. did a "save a copy as ", opened that session, ( which now just has the audio connected to that one track) - consolidated, BIP, then back to the new session and imported that BIP track.

thats what got me through. YMMV

If you need the automation then try copying it to a blank track and then importing that track. -- remembering to turn the automation off in the previous BIP.

L

Yes - I have tried that in the past and got it to work. If I learned anything today it's that a single track in your project might be the culprit. If you can identify it, then you can work around it without having to import all the tracks into a new project.

That said, no workaround solution can really explain why Logic is doing what it's doing. I'd love to know, but I suspect that this will remain a mystery.