Reaper 7.1X hangs (spinning ball) on Sonoma, MiniMac M1

[Happy Pig Studios]

I have this really annoying problem: Reaper occasionally freezes/hangs with the colorball spinning. It usually happens when I'm dragging/editing items within a track, e.g., splitting, fading, gluing, etc. Often, but not always, the freeze is triggered by hitting "play". I've been checking the memory and CPU loads, nothing alarming. Setup (I'm away from my machine right now, going from memory):

MiniMac M1, latest Sonoma OS, 8G memory, basically dedicated to running Reaper
Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 2nd gen USB interface, latest firmware, 44.1 kHz sampling
Reaper 7.18, but it was occurring on at least two previous versions

Any advice/suggestions?

[EpicSounds]

can you make it happen without the focusrite interface connected, just as a test of that variable ??

[Happy Pig Studios]

That's a good idea, thanks! Will try tomorrow.

[Happy Pig Studios]

Ok I got the same error on Focusrite Solo 3rd gen. This time it happened when I was rendering a project to an MP3 file.

[Happy Pig Studios]

Update: found a solution. Downloaded Memory Diag app (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/memory-diag) and let it "recycle" memory (wtf that is, I'm no system architect). No errors since.

[norbury brook]

8 GB of memory isn't very much for running a DAW. Are you running into swap file useage that's slowing things down to the point of freezing?


M

[Happy Pig Studios]

Originally Posted by norbury brook

8 GB of memory isn't very much for running a DAW. Are you running into swap file useage that's slowing things down to the point of freezing?
M

The freeze onsets are sudden, I don't see any slowdown leading to them. Typically it happens when I manipulate items, like splitting, moving around, etc. The memory pressure gauge is usually green, although I do regret not getting a 16 GB mac. Minis are not upgradable, unfortunately, so I'm stuck here for now.
Memory Diag with its recycling did improve things, but I got the beach ball freeze again a couple of days ago while splitting and cleaning up a vocal track. There was almost a gig of free memory at that moment.
I sent the crash log to Reaper, haven't heard back yet.

[Happy Pig Studios]

I now strongly suspect this is caused by AU plugin(s) - don't know if it's a specific one, or just any. I have a project I started on a PC, so it only uses VST/VST3 plugins, and it has not gone beach-balling even once.

[EpicSounds]

actually, that kinda makes sense.

[Happy Pig Studios]

Originally Posted by EpicSounds

actually, that kinda makes sense.

Interesting... I started using AU plugins on MAC assuming a "native" standard would work better...

[EpicSounds]

Originally Posted by Happy Pig Studios

Interesting... I started using AU plugins on MAC assuming a "native" standard would work better...

unless the plugin was written as AU only, its most likely a port of the VST.

I found that many AU plugins appeared inside reaper as if they were apple silicon native versions, but were actually bridged Intel versions with really poor performance and I think that's what was happening to you. I kinda forgot about it because I've been avoiding AU for past 4 years.

[Happy Pig Studios]

Thank you, appreciate the explanation. Will be avoiding AUs from now on.