Fun With(out) Clicks

[PatriotsBiker]

I've been battling the clicks and pops thing that many others have had for quite some time. It got very bad after that late April Windows update. My symptoms were:
#1: Occasional spikes or rapid ascent of the System Usage meter's CPU meter. It was,at first, not much of an issue until I had a heavily loaded Session. Anything that was hovering around 60% had a chance to spike and give me an error at any time, and generally did. My work around was to run a separate session for the "Mastering" chain. (I could also stem out some tracks, alter my linear approach ro busses, etc, etc)

#2: After the April Windows update, the spikes would and could happen at any time, even with empty sessions. If running any audio, spiking to 100% often left a glitch that would be recorded. It took quite a bit to error out, though.

The workarounds were many, and it took an unpredictable amount of them to get me rolling. They included
A: Running CCleaner several times.
B: Rebooting
C: Enabling internet connectivity.
D: Disabling the WDM view of the interface.
E: Deleting/Uninstalling Device ghosts in Device Manager.
F: Moving all plugs out of the plugins folder, starting PT, closing, putting plugs back in folder and re-starting PT. (with or without rebooting - worked and didn't work both ways.)
G: Installing or Uninstalling a plug-in, running PT, closing PT, re-installing plug.
H: Restarting PT once in a while if no playback. Doing the simpler re-setting of sample size either did not work or left me with a jittery system that inevitably failed.
I: Last desperation of reinstalling Apollo interface.
J: If a new nVidia update was available, install. Usually got me going for the day.

Regardless of which thing(s) worked that day, once up and running without any spikes and jitters, I was golden until the next day. I could even reboot. I could even go so far as to thinking I was done, power off and power off at my power conditioner and then re-starting everything any number of hours later and be golden. That is, of course, unless those hours were overnight hours. The next morning was antoher 5-30 minutes of fun getting a stable system going.

The list of things I tried/reverted or otherwise looked at would be quite impressive if I had made such a list.

So 2018.7 came along and little to nothing changed except that the CPU meter was more jittery. As if the spikes were annoying enough, right? So, long story short, I stumbled on to something. I took everything that was on a USB hub and put into the ports on the back of the PC, as if they were to be as rigid as the interface requirement of using only ports. This ended up being only two items, but they were the system keyboard and mouse. Both of them were on the USB hubs on my monitor. That being like everything else fixed it for the day. I left it like that, though, and the other two things I did combined with this to give me a reliable way to get up and running.

So next up was the plugins. I had previously tried removing all sorts of plugins from the folder by brand. Nothing ever did the trick. For whatever reason, I tried something that never ever worked before despite numerous attempts. Guitardom's Trasher. Of course the next day was toast again, so I brought up Trasher again. This time, though, I got the bright idea to only fo the plugin database deletion. And it works. I have to do it every day, though. The only time it didn't work? Yup. When the mouse and keyboard were plugged into the usb hubs instead of ports. I actually restart PT twice. The first time, when it rescans all of the plugins, the RAM usage meter is one something like 24% without fail. I have no idea why, or even if it is a good or bad thing. I only know that it is different from normal. Restarting PT again brings it back down to normal. (4-6%, IIRC)

The third thing ended up being one of the items changed with Windows April release. We Windows scum no longer have the capability to turn off updates and security updates and all, and IIRC, the turning off of security is only partially possible. Well, we technically CAN turn much of it off, but it does not last very long. It will be on the next day. (hmmmmmm - overnight things biting me again. How strange is that?) And so, almost every Monday, my system gets extra clicky. I may not get a visible spike, but the sytem is jittery and the polling of USB devices is more common. Sure enough, every Monday is update day for me. Maybe for all of us. Sunday night, sometimes, as I may steal an odd hour or two some Sunday nights to play with my toys. The simplest, quickest thing to do is to activate my internet connection and go through the updates. 5-10 minutes later and I'm done for the week.

So in the end, my daily routine is to:
#1: Start up PT and see if I'm spiking.
#2: If spiking, close PT, run the Trasher Plugin Database deletion button and restart PT twice.
#3: Once a week, I do my Windows updates.

I have to go to step #2 for a few days in a row sometimes, and sometimes not for 5-6 days.

My interface has not bombed since, but it has not worked a time or two. Restarting PT again takes care of it. BUT, that's only if I don't go through the second step above. If I do, It's always good by the time I get there.

Oh, and usage is not only not spiking, but has calmed down a great deal. The "normal" jumping 15-30% is greatly reduced to maybe 5-10% variation. And it's less overall, too. I don't even bother taking it out of 128 samples at the end of a Session unless I am running one of Waves' new Chambers instances (48k, fwiw).

That's pretty much it. It's not ideal, but I'll take it. It does not take long at all on a daily basis. It will take less time when I start automatically going to step #2 instead of checking. Once that is done, it is better-calmer than ever before, and it was pretty good before the April Windows update.

[The Weed]

When using Trasher - although I'm sure you know this - run it, empty the recycle Bin and reboot the computer.

If you are using W10 Pro, use the Group Policy Editor to completely turn off Windows Defender. You probably know that too.

And I've been experiencing clicks too that happen every once in a while, very random, when I'm recording. Updating the NVidia graphic driver and running Trasher seems to solve it - until the next time.

Also, after any Windows Update, I do the Trasher dance and check my Sound settings to be sure my interface hasn't been made the default and I check my Power settings for USB and the USB Power Management settings in Device Manager to be sure none have had their "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power" turned on.

[PatriotsBiker]

Hmmmm. I'm not on Pro. It didn't matter so much back in January like it does now. Good point.

I forgot all about emptying the Trash Bin. Thanks for the reminder.

[DonaldM]

Sorry you've had all these issues, Bruce. I've gone through cycles like this as well with every since upgrading to Win-10 from 7. What I wish Microsoft would do is realize we do not live in a "one-size-fits-all" world any longer when it comes to our computers. What's good for regular home use may be problematic for some other kind of regular use, such as audio production. It'd be nice to have pre-optimized versions of the OS from M-soft for various popular uses: gaming, business, personal, audio production, video production, etc. But I won't be holding my breath....it is only a dream!

[The Weed]

For the adventurous: https://www.computerworld.com/articl...explained.html

[PatriotsBiker]

Originally Posted by The Weed

Also, after any Windows Update, I do the Trasher dance and check my Sound settings to be sure my interface hasn't been made the default and I check my Power settings for USB and the USB Power Management settings in Device Manager to be sure none have had their "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power" turned on.

As if on cue, this morning's left me with 7 devices under power management control. Probably 3rd time it's happened this year.

[eduardog]

I'm on my second Windows 10 reinstall to run optimizations from zero and figure out what's causing those annoying clicks and cpu spikes that don't let me record even a single track with no plugins at 256, just bought a new laptop Asus ROG GL503VM, 16 RAM, i7, with a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, I thought I would be able to do more than with my previous Samsung whatever i5 + MAudio interface from 2007 and it's been a week of reading and trying stuff out...
Got optimization advice from ASUS, nothing, tried the athlon64 post script, it helped, but still random spikes to 46%...
I'll try this now, thank you for sharing.

[The Weed]

See this thread for more optimizations.

[eduardog]

I think I found it.
There could be other variables, but I did some troubleshooting with LatencyMon, turns out it's a Network Adapter called Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller, which I had tried to update before but the Realtek website has a weird download system and I couldn't.
Disabled it and there are no more clicks, though I still have to set priority to High and disable cores 0 and 1 through affinity, so the CPU meter goes drastically down. I'll see how far I can go before having to return here looking for answers.

[leftalive]

Originally Posted by The Weed

For the adventurous: https://www.computerworld.com/articl...explained.html

Does anyone around here actually run LTSB? I'd be curious to hear about the experience of procuring a copy and general day to day usage.

Seems as though it'd be pretty tough to even get a key for it, with the volume licensing thing and all.