Work arounds for yesterdays 2.11 update

[shaunyw]

Hi immediately after installing the update on two perfectly working installations on desktop and laptop in standalone and VST for Windows 10 64bit  I noticed the following faults:

Fault 1) Unrecoverable system crash when changing patches.

I have found that reinstalling the software after the update fixes this. Hidden away at the bottom corner of the Arturia software centre there is a little triangle clicking this gives you the option to reinstall, which solves this problem. This only occurred on my laptop installation.

Fault 2) Corrupted delay FX presets.

When attempting to select a Delay FX preset a message comes up saying that the presets are corrupted and it is not possible to select a preset. They are not as this still happens after an install/reinstall. I cant find anyway of solving this any help appreciated. Occurs on both installations and only after the update.

Fault 3) Dodgy animations.

The feedback animations are now clunky, glitched (LFO 3 has two active points for instance see attached photo) and at a much lower frame rate than before. Whilst its possible to still use the synth its distracting particularly as it was so fluid and glitch free before. As in the patch notes it says that they've redesigned the animation code this might be a harder one to solve. Does anybody know if  there is a way of going back to the old working version with the brilliant smooth, glitch free and fluid animations?

Thanks

[LBH]

I can confirm 2 and 3.
Have you checked if the CPU consumption is lower because of the animation changes?

It's allways possible to download older versions on the download pages, if you think it's needed. Just click the green "Show archives" button.

[davew]

I can also confirm issue #2.

Re: #3, I think I see what you're talking about at higher modulation speeds on my system (a several-year-old i7-3770 that I'm hoping to keep running for a few more years). However, the modulation speeds at which I'm noticing this are beyond those at which increased precision would be useful to me anyway. So I'm willing to accept a bit of a tradeoff there in return for other performance gains. But that's just me; I know that individual preferences will vary around this.

Alongside increased speed of preset loading, I'm appreciating a quicker GUI opening time in my DAW. (Very excited about both of these improvements!) There seems to be a slightly lower CPU load, but I haven't yet tinkered enough to confirm that for sure.

[schallwelle]

yes, I can confirm 2, too.

[shaunyw]

Thanks for the feedback everybody I am glad it is not just me and I certainly agree that its great to see Arturia updating their software. A few updates:

Fault 1 the unrecoverable error) The system error has returned after a few hours use. Pigments 2.11 becomes completely unresponsive and requires an uninstall followed by a reinstall to become functional again for a second time. This still only happens on my laptop and 2.11 so must be some weird conflict between version 2.11 and maybe the hardware on my laptop (Intel Core i5 6200u) as it hasn't yet crashed on my desktop and 2.0 was fine . It could be something to do with the presets I've got as I have a few of the Arturia packs installed. Notably all the presets (and my favourites) were wiped out when I reinstalled and had to be individually downloaded again but this is just a guess. Fingers crossed this wont happen a third time.

Fault 2 Delay FX presets) I think its safe to say looking at the feedback the install package contains corrupted preset  files so we will just have to wait on Arturia to fix the damage.

Fault 3 Glitched animations) With further investigation with 2, 2.1 and forum feedback it looks like there are two faults with the new animation code. First my guess is that the animation code does not properly take into account the refresh rate of the monitor which is why it looks different for different people/installations, it looks much worse on my desktop than on my laptop. For instance on 2.1 If you turn up the frequency on an LFO quite high the tracking dot stops displaying as five flashing points becomes stationary and then moves backward, a bit  like the strobing effect that you get on old 24fps movies when car wheels look like they are going backwards.  Secondly and a more serious fault there is just a glitch in the code and the tracking dot follows a completely different path than the selected LFO, this really impacts on patch design. This error is random so you wont always see it at first but I can successfully replicate it by switching through around 20 or so presets on both installations. So once again we will just have to wait on Arturia to fix this. I've included an attachment showing an example of the  glitched path, it appears to affect square waves more often.









   

[davew]

Sorry to hear about the issues you're experiencing, and thanks for the additional info. The first one sounds especially frustrating. I hope tech support is able to give you some clarity soon.

Another thought on a specific element of #3 that may or may not be helpful:

I've also observed that the LFO dot doesn't always follow the same path as the line line, but only when the LFO is set to a combination of square plus some percentage of sample and hold. I assumed this was by design, as a way to show both the square wave that denotes the hold duration for each value (line) and the actual sampled value (dot) corresponding to each segment of the square wave. But I could be wrong about this; perhaps they'll provide some clarity. If you've seen it occurring outside of that as well, then that does sound like an issue.

[marie_arturia]

Hi,

About your issue #1, we could not reproduce on our side, if the problem persist please contact the support (if you can manage to have a crashlog that would be great)
About your issue #2, the delay presets will be fixed in the next update, sorry for the inconvenience.
About your issue #3, the animation optimizations we made for 7.2 lighten up the CPU consumption but need more GPU instead, so it depends on your GPU more than before. Also in Pigments the refresh rate is limited to 32fps, that's why you can see that sort of aliasing.
Finally, about the last part, as davew said we display the real value of the LFO when it has a SnH amount not null : that's why the point can be out of the LFO course. It's a feature, not a bug, even though i agree it's not easily understandable.

[shaunyw]

Hi thanks for the info Marie,

I have finally found a workaround for the regular crashing problem. The crash happens when you restart pigments having removed an audio output (which in my case was headphones). The simple workaround is to switch to the windows driver then back to your ASIO driver and it all works again. As I only noticed this happening after the update I suspect that its pigments rather than the driver causing the issue.  I have no idea if this is specific to my hardware/drivers (HP Conexant audio) or if its a wider problem. If its helpful I made a video of the conditions that lead up to the crash and the solution, let me know if you need it.