Isadora 2.2 on new MacBook Pro El Capitan keeps crashing

potatoe04

I'm using Isadora 2.2 on a brand new Mac Book Pro 13" running El Capitan. Isadora is repeatedly crashing as I'm building my patch, most noticeably when I'm importing media (it doesn't happen every single time), but it also happened when I was switching on Force Stage preview. Oftentimes, it crashed when I just started creating the very first scene of my patch so it's not like it's a heavy file. This is occurring multiple times a day as I'm working, and I haven't been able to pinpoint a definitive set of actions to recreate the crash; it just happens here and there.

I unchecked Core Audio options in preferences per a different bug report discussion as a long shot to see if it would help; no luck.

Please help...we go into tech this week. Zipped bug reports attached — also already filed a bug report directly to support.

Thanks in advance!

p.s. first time posting to the forum so I hope I'm doing it in the right spot.

bab0a5-archive.zip

Skulpture

It's fine posting it here... as long as you've submitted a formal bug report here:

http://troikatronix.com/support/isadora/

What format and codec of media are you using? It sounds (initially anyway) like its the media that is causing the problem. I will try my best to help you.

potatoe04

Overall, I'm using a mix of .mov (photo-jpeg, 50% quality), .mov (hap alpha, 50% quality), .png, .psd. I do specifically remember a crash when importing a .psd file. But it has also happened with some of the other formats too and even when I haven't filled my media bin with varying codecs/formats yet — like at the very beginning of my patch creation.

Yes, I've submitted a formal bug report as well. Thanks for the link and assistance @Skulpture

Skulpture

Ah; I would defiantly try re-coding the .mov PJEPG (codec) to something else. The Photo JPEG is now considered a legacy format.

_"For HD resolution the Apple Pro Res codec (APR 422 or 4444) has performed best in our tests on both Mac OS and Windows, especially when running off an SSD hard drive. When running Windows, we recommend using AVI or WMV formats, because these movies will use native Windows routines for playback, as opposed to .mov files which require Apple’s QuickTime. NOTE: All mp4 codec files on Windows will be read by the QuickTime engine, which is less efficient than the DirectShow playback engine and can be unstable on Windows. For both platforms, we also recommend the HAP codec. (For more information about HAP, see this page: http://vdmx.vidvox.net/blog/hap) HAP is an open source format that provides excellent performance on Mac OS, and tremendous performance on Windows. H264 is also a good choice, but has some important limitations (see below.) If you use H264, be careful to compress it using software that allows you to control the Isadora Manual 81 settings to achieve a reasonable target bandwidth. Some users assume that using the highest quality is the best choice, but this often offers only a slight improvement in image quality while introducing noticeable performance issues because of the high bandwidth."_

_ _

Pages 80-83 = http://troikatronix.com/files/isadora-manual.pdf

Skulpture

.PSD files should be ok. They are supported but I must admit I have add the odd crash that I have suspected was a PSD. I try not to use them now; but generally just easier to export to PNG.

JJHP3

Hi All

I'm surprised that our old fave PhotoJPEG is now a possible source of the poster's problems. The manual is not so adamant: "At this point Photo JPEG should probably be considered a “legacy” format, but it still offers meaningful speed improvements when playing video from your hard drive using the CPU (seen as vid-cpu streams)." What is the evidence behind "should probably"? PhotoJPEG works fine on my 2012 MBP with the latest Isadora.

mark

Dear @potatoe04,

Hi there, Mark here. I'm sorry I didn't respond to this earlier. I just browsed your crash reports, and the most of the crashes are different... there doesn't seem to be any pattern. However, at least one of the crashes (which appeared twice, and may be involved in others) is solved in the v2.5 open beta. This bug had to do with any file open or save dialog. I would suggest that you try moving to the 2.5 beta (v2.4.5b04 at the moment) which you can download here: http://troikatronix.com/isa25beta

Please try that and let us know how you do. If you continue to see crashes of this nature, it is very important that you file a bug report as @Skulpture suggested. I can't check the forum as often as I'd like, but if you submit a bug report that way, those reports will get seen by me if the rest of the team can't offer you a solution.

Best Wishes,

Mark