weird issue with Arena controls suddely becoming frozen

[suzybee]

Hi gang,
I have a Dell Alienware R4 laptop.
I'm using the latest version of Arena.

For the past few weeks I've had a problem which started happening very rarely but now seems to be happening almost every time I use Resolume.

At some point during my session th majority of the controls on my Resolume interface become frozen. So I can't adjust any of the sliders, such as layer opacity or any of the effect parameters (including the bypassing an effect button), either with my midi controller or directly with my trackpad.
The only things i seem to be able to do when this happens is load up different clips and save my composition.

Usually when this happens i haven't been able to get out of the situation without shutting down my laptop and staring it up again, but then quite often my Resolume Arena takes a weirdly long time to start up again or gets stuch half way through, or doesn't open at all for some time.
The last 2 times it happened (yesterday and the day before), i was thankfully able to get it working again without restarting the computer. The first time I got it working again by loading a different composition. I was then able to load my original composition again and it worked.
Yesterday the functionality came back after I loaded a different deck and thankfully that was enough.

I have a gig coming up this weekend so I'm concerned that this will happen at the gig and I might not be able to get it working again.
Can you make any sense of what's going on here?
I've never had anything like this happen before.

Deepest gratitude for any help or advice!!!
Blessings, Suzybee

[Arvol]

What is your hard drive situation, and are all of your clips on the local hard drive? what codec are you using?
How much ram does your system have and what OS?

[suzybee]

Hi Arvol,
thanks for your reply
I have an internal SSD, all the clips I use are in the same folder on the C drive.
The files are quicktime (.mov) and have the dxv codec set up using Resolume Alley.
I'm using a Dell Alienware R4 with 32 GB RAM, and Windows 10 OS.
Thanks for your support,
Suzybee

[Zoltán]

Are you using any Blackmagic USB capture devices?
How about Midi controllers, do they work while you see the UI freeze?

[suzybee]

Hi Zoltán ,
Thanks,
I'm not using any capture devices in my set.
I'm using a Yaeltex MIDI controller, which is unable to communicate with Resolume while the problem is happening. Disconnecting and reconnecting the controller doesn't help but the problem appears to be with the Arena interface because the laptop trackpad doesn't function with the affected parameters when the issue is active.
I also disabled the Nvidia Game Overlay yesterday. Last night the issue came back again briefly but then went away fairly quickly, I'm not sure how it was resolved on that occasion or if there was any improvement because I removed the in-game overlay.
I'm practicing again today so I'll let you know if I have any new information to add.
Thanks for your help!
Suzybee

[Zoltán]

Can you move the mouse at all when this happens?
If not, something might be resetting the USB bus which would cause the mouse/trackpad, midi controller, and eventually the keyboard too going missing from the system for a few seconds.

Could be the midi controller, or bad cabling causing it.

[suzybee]

Hiya,
I'm just using the laptop trackpad rather than a USB mouse.
When the problem occurs I am able to move the pointer around using the trackpad as normal, I can successfully select clips with the trackpad and pointer and I can save the composition. I can move the layer opacity sliders up and down with the pointer but they don't have any effect on the layer opacity.
I can click the effect bypass buttons on the Resolume interface but they don't do anything. If i try to move the dashboard controls I'm able to move them with the pointer but they have no control over the assigned effect parameters. Neither can I control the effect paramaters directly, I'm unable to get the position to change at all with the pointer.

It happened twice today. The first time it came back after I changed the deck, and this evening I had to load different compositions twice before the functionality would come back.
It's really weird.

I've tried changing the USB cable from my MIDI controller but that makes no difference.
The problem persists if i unplug and re-plug my controlller.
Next time it happens I'll double check it's still happening while the controller is unplugged.
But the fact that the software is largely unresponsive even when I'm using the trackpad and works again if i re-load the composition makes me think it's not the controlller.
Also when I've tried to reboot the computer to solve the problem Resolume then takes a weirdly long time to open or doesn't open at all or gets stuck opening... Recently I haven't had to do that because reloading the composition seems to be the most reliable way out of the problem so far.

I have a gig this weekend so I'm really hoping to resolve this asap if possible.
I'll be practicing all day so hopefully I can test some things out when it happens again so I can get a clear idea of what's going on.
Can you suggest any things to try/test out next time the problem occurs?
I can't use it without the midi controller because I need to practice for my gig and I only have 1 working controller.

Thanks so much for your help, I'm really grateful!
Suzybee

[Zoltán]

Saving a composition can take some time.
Especially if you have a big composition with many clips, and integrated thumbnails.
Clip loading can also be longer with a bigger deck, and many clips.
But still you should get back control of the UI eventually.
How long are you waiting before force closing?
How many clips, layers and columns do you have in the deck where you see the freezes?

If you see the freeze with a specific video file, we'd love to check it out!

[suzybee]

Hiya,
Thanks for your support
It's useful to know it's normal for saving comps to take a long time.
I use 3 main decks which have a max of 30 columns each and they all have 3 rows.
I use lots of effects ontop of each other but the framerate barely drops from 30fps so I don't think the computer is overwhelmed.
I have 2 other decks with spare clips in, one has 60 columns and one has 115 columns. I could try deleting them in case it helps.

When I do recordings on the fly they are automatically added directly to my decks by Resolume. I've deleted the recorded clips just now in case that helps.
I noticed you can record for as long as you want within Resolume now, whereas the recording function used to stop after a few minutes. I used the Resolume recording fuunction to record my entire practice set yesterday (90mins) so I can use that if i can't get out of a freeze during my performance this weekend. Should I delete that from my deck as it must be a huge file? If i need to use it as my backup option, is it better to play it from some other video viewing software?

I've ordered a power supply for my controller (which is optional) in case having it powered by USB only is causing the problem. That should arrive today.

Will it matter to Resolume if I try plugging my controller into a different USB port?

I never had to force close Resolume during this problem. Certain things can still function like saving the composition and triggering clips and closing the program using my trackpad.

Last night I thought the problem had come back but I waited for a while and eventually the paramaters came back to life but in slow motion until they came back to normal behaviour. What might this be caused by? The frame rate didn''t seem to be affected, I will check that again though next time it happens.

I don't think it relates to a specific file but I will try to keep in mind what files and effects I'm using next time it happens.

Thanks so much for your help, it means a lot to feel supported when I have this gig coming up.
After the gig I can do more experiments without the controller etc. But in the meantime it would be useful to know what your reccommendation is with any long recordings of my practice sets i record within Resolume - should I remove them from my decks? Should I play them from different software if I can't get Resolume working while I'm in the middle of playing my set?

Thanks!!!
Suzybee

[suzybee]

Hi Zoltán,
Just an update on my problem...

Yesterday during an early practice it went off again, I couldn't get it back any way at all within the program (reloading the composition etc didn't work, or waiting for the functionality to recover), so I clossed Resolume. Then it wouldn't restart so I had to reboot the computer.

Then 2 things occurred which may have helped: The (optional) power supply for the midi controller arrived in the post so I was able to power it directly instead of via the USB, and also the new update for Resulume came up when I opened the program so I installed the update.
Thankfully since then in both my practice sets yesterday the problem did not return. Fingers crossed it won't come back now but i'll test it out today again.
If it has been resolved i don't yet know if it was due to the power supply or the Resolume update.

I'll let you know if there are any more developments.
Thanks for your help!
Suzybee