Maschine Plus isn't very good at doing nothing - which is a problem.

S Righteous
S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper
edited March 2023 in Maschine

When I'm working on music and using Maschine for hours it seems stable. But then I go for lunch, and do other things leaving it on the whole time because I'm going to come back and finish things later - maybe later that evening. But when I get back to work, it's crashed. It has crashed from sitting there doing nothing.

At a gig, you do soundcheck and you leave your gear on for many hours before you use it. I'm worried that Maschine+ just isn't up to the task of sitting there doing nothing without crashing.

When I make backups, I will copy my entire M+ folder over to my computer, this takes a long time. So I go get a snack, tea, whatever - and sometimes when I come back, the copy worked - it did what it was supposed to do, but then crashed, total brick, nothing will revive it but powering down and losing whatever you were working on if you didn't save.

WTF NI?

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Comments

  • djadidai
    djadidai Member Posts: 389 Pro

    let a simple pattern play while ure gone.

  • darkwaves
    darkwaves Member Posts: 336 Guru
    edited February 2023

    It's an odd use case, but I wfh and often just have silly ideas running throughout the day. Sitting in a boring meeting while making bangers. lol. I hit stop because I need to focus on work. Later I look over and see M+ on a new project. ?!?

    Honestly, this is the only time I see "crashes" now (unless I'm just doing something with absurd effects). In my case, it's normally hours of not touching it.

    Not a big deal for me, but I do want to add the data point - I see the same behavior. I'm not sure if anything changed with the last update. There have been times when I've had projects up for days (though I haven't done it in a while).

  • Cretin Dilettante
    Cretin Dilettante Member Posts: 120 Advisor

    I am but a laymen, but could this be a "memory leak" thing? That's usually something implicated in a software application breaking itself when left running for a specified amount of time.

  • S Righteous
    S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper

    This is actually a great idea. I'm also glad to hear I'm not the only one who is experiencing this issue, so thanks for all the feedback.

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 1,301 Expert
    edited February 2023

    Which normally happens when the application is doing something but not when idling. Seems that the M+ isn’t doing nothing when idle and/or garbage collection isn’t triggered.

  • S Righteous
    S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper

    If you leave Machine plus to do nothing, it eventually doubles down on doing absolutely nothing, and cannot be made to do something. It's a passive aggressive device!

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 2,811 mod
    edited February 2023

    This sometimes happens to me as well but not always.

    I am not 100% sure as this is very difficult to test due to the amount of time it takes to happen but I think it requires a specific Scenario, maybe a particular instrument, built-in fx or an Audio-Plug... Prob the latter if I had to guess.

    I suggest you save your project before leaving and just load an empty one, until this is fixed, especially for the live performance scenario.


    At a gig, you do soundcheck and you leave your gear on for many hours before you use it. I'm worried that Maschine+ just isn't up to the task of sitting there doing nothing without crashing.

    That's a possibility but In my experience pretty rare unless you're the only performer of the night or the first performer, otherwise, your setup has to leave the stage to make room for other bands and there's no choice but to turn everything off. Personally, I usually always turn it off regardless as having it on just gives me anxiety, a fresh boot gives me some extra peace of mind too.

    In more professional environments we always do a line-check about 10-15mins before the performance just to make sure everything is working as it should and the front/stage engineers are receiving audio properly... This is when I personally turn my M+ on and load the first project, press a Pad, get an "OK" from the stage manager, and leave the stage.

    Of course all the above doesn't excuse a 1200$+ device crashing for doing nothing tho... 😬

    Memory leaks tend to slowly build up and just slow a device, if that's the cause it should also happen when actively using it, I'm not an expert either so I might be saying something stupid.

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 1,301 Expert
  • S Righteous
    S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper

    I don't think this has been a factor. If I'm using a very low CPU project the same thing seems to happen. In general I never go over 80%, as I want lots of room for spikes when performing. My projects will often idle at 55 - 60% but spike up to 80% when tweaking FX and stuff.

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 1,301 Expert
    edited February 2023

    Well, if the CPU is constantly running at 55% - 60% the machine is not idle at all! It's obviously constantly working pretty hard (to accomplishing nothing). What FX do you use? Raum or Phasis, by any chance? What synth engines do you use? Are there Audio modules with loops?

  • darkwaves
    darkwaves Member Posts: 336 Guru

    I think this is the issue D-One was hinting at. It will be difficult to troubleshoot simply because it happens at random. I've had it occur when I just had a simple drum pattern programmed. Other times, I've had M+ on for literally a week with a project that "idled" at > 60%

    It might be something other than "crashed when not playing"; but that's the only obvious commonality.

    It's always done this. I bought mine a couple of weeks after launch. It would reboot when I just had a project doing nothing but sending midi out to my microfreak. lol. It got a lot better over time; but I started seeing the issue again after the update that gave us the autosave/recovery function. I remember that specifically because I disabled the function in hopes it would get better. It didn't.

    In my case, it's not something that occurs 100% of the time, but it's often enough that I'm not shocked when I come back to an empty project. All that said; I can't remember the last time it crashed while I was actually using it (with exception of when I'm doing silly automation with 30 reverbs)

  • ozon
    ozon Member Posts: 1,301 Expert

    @darkwaves wrote

    It would reboot when I just had a project doing nothing but sending midi out to my microfreak.

    Was the microfreak connected via USB?

    My Behringer Model-D would crash my M+ although it wasn’t capable of sending any MIDI messages, which was quite the mystery.

    @S Righteous any external gear connected to your M+ via USB when that happens?

  • darkwaves
    darkwaves Member Posts: 336 Guru
    edited February 2023

    Yep; connected over usb; but that was with the original firmware. It'd hang if I sneezed. I'd move maschine off of my keyboard stand and have it completely standalone on my desk. Nothing plugged in but headphones - it had the same behavior.

    But I just haven't used it in that setup in quite some time.

    I'll run a test. I'll move it over to my desk, load an empty project and change the color of group A. Nothing else. Lets see if I wake up to a project where group A is orange

    Edit: Still up after 7 hours; so that's good. I'll continue testing at least for a little while; I'm working on a track without M+ currently, so no big deal. I notice it constantly sends midi clock even when stopped. I wonder if the fx with LFOs are constantly running too. Will try the same thing with nothing but a few effects loaded

  • olafmol
    olafmol Member Posts: 133 Pro

    I work in software. Sounds definitely like a memory leak. It’s essentially a process that goes “wild” and keeps filling up your memory until there is no memory left and everything falls apart.

    Could be anything: a low level driver, a VST plugin, a NI Maschine module, the Maschine software itself etc.

    the best way to debug this is to found a memory / stack dump after the crash and share it with NI.

    try to load an empty project and leave the Maschine on overnight, if it crashes it’s probably a low level driver issue.

  • S Righteous
    S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper

    No, I only use USB when backing up my CD card. I do have midi in and out always connected though. I use the M+ with a Squarp Pyramid and some other stuff.

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