6.5 - Why is saving still so slow?

I’ve realised that every time I do a save, it gives me about a minute to check this thread and see if anyone’s responded. In fact, I’ll happily take suggestions for anything useful I can do in the 50 seconds while my Mac is locked up. :slight_smile:

PS just tried it and found I can pick up my guitar and practise SRV’s solo from “House Is A Rockin’” three times over in the time it takes my N6.5 project to save. So it’s not going to waste.

Watching Bud Spencer over here during the saving times.

But what to do when my Bud Spencer DVD Box is all done?

Please Steinberg, fix this ASAP… It really hurts… and it is even dangerous because I am already thinking about disabling Auto-Safe - which is not a good idea because I am used to it and barely hit ctrl-s

Huh. So… I created a new project, based on the one I was having slow-save-time issues with. I saved it as a template, then deleted all the audio from the pool, brought in new audio (different show but same mix layout), dropped it in the project, added video, did lots of edits etc.

Saves in this new project are near-instantaneous and have stayed that way no matter how much more complicated it got. Saves take one or two seconds max, rather than taking nearly a minute to save as the old project did. It has almost as many tracks, just as many plugins and groups and effects.

So, what can I say. Weird.

Over the next few weeks I’ll try to investigate when the opportunity arises.

The only difference I can think of right now is that the new project was built from scratch in N6.5 (albeit based on a template created from the problem project) whereas the old project started out as a Cubase 6 file opened and edited in N6.5.

Uh! Mh… öh… well…

Indeed the project I am currently working on is made in N6… but too big and too much “mixed” to transfer in a fresh project…

I have the feeling that it has to do with vari-audio-editing.

Yesterday I was tracking vox in another project (another band) - everything was done/rec in N6 but the last two rec sessions (vox) I did in N6.5. Saving was still fast, truckloads if tracks, edits etc… All songs in one project, all the recorded stuff is not consolidated for mixing yet… Saving was fast…

Then I started to time-warp a couple of backings in the sample editor - immediately saving time increased A LOT.

I realized something strange here as well: In 6.0 I can timeworp (sample editor) or time stretch (project window) in realtime - in N6.5 Nuendo stops first to “calculate” something, I have a process bar… like the one I have when I use vari audio…

Had a sudden thought… I tried saving my problem project (which was still taking exactly 50 secs to do a save) out to a whole new project using Create Backup Project. That also copied across all the audio that was in use.

Open the new backup project and it does saves in 10 seconds. It still beachballs, but doesn’t beachball for anything like as long.

That might be a temporary solution for some of you?

Still doesn’t explain why the other project I made saves in only 1s or so. But getting closer.

Mh, interesting! Will spend some time on this as well… Currently I am somewhat under a deadline - for now I am handling it in a way Rotund recommended in my other topic. I had a data-loss caused by “not manually saving” and lost almost a day.

I know this sounds stupid but when autosave saves every 10 minutes (and I set bac files to 15 or so) I have nice incremental saves - I usually only save manually when doing something “critical” and I want to “save as” before.

In the current project I have a strange issue (never had it before) - the “save, not save, abort” (do not know about the english version of the dialog, I have German windows / Nuendo) dialog jumps in ALWAYS when I want to close the project - even when I just saved a second before… So I hit ctrl-s and had the hourglass for 50 sec - but as it seems autosave had jumped in just in the second I hit ctrl-s - so my ctrl-s was blocked instead of that autosave was active… So - I closed the project, clicked “do not save” and Nuendo deleted all bac files from that day… what a pain!

This was user error - but it was forced by the slow saving time (usually I hit ctrl-s again when I am not sure but I avoid it these days to hit ctrl-s twice) - in combination with the issue regarding that “save, do not save…” dialog.

Well - for now I disabled autosave - and it has some real advantages:

Auto-save does not block my DAW in a critical moment (after hitting stop to hear something again)
Instead of that I am NOT interrupted in my flow anymore
I can hit ctrl-s when I am actually listening to something, because playback is not interrupted during those 50 sec

Update:

Started a new project yesterday… Something simple… 70ies Metal, recorded more or less live… so - very very basic editing only, not much tracks - currently just a handfull of plugins… Started in N6.5 (using a 6.0 template though)

Manual saving is done in a fragment of a second.

Autosave CAN took 20 sec… I know this is strange but sometimes it is fast as the manual save - sometimes it “freezes” for 20 or even more seconds - I was frightened in the first moment because I thought of a Nuendo Crash/Freeze.

I have NO offline processing, NO timewarp/vari-audio in it.

We’ve hit long save times here as well. We have two different machines (both are mac, though) and are using 6.5 on each. One project has 256 files but each file is almost 3 hours 26 minutes long. There is also a video file attached of 1 hour 13 minutes. One plugin running. No foolin’ this thing takes almost ten minutes to save.

Is Nuendo re-writing the audio image files every time it saves? I ask because I got rid of the peak file folder and let it make them again and that’s taking that kind of time.

I also have another project that has 24.4 thousand files in use of varying different lengths spread out over around 2 and a half hours. This also take 5-10 minutes to save.

Help!

Thanks!

Darren “Time On My Hands” Ingram

Update on our project. We’ve been doing a bit of editing and the project now takes about 15 minutes to save. This is the project that started with 256 files each 3 hours 26 minutes long. The whole project contains 403 gigs of data.

The machine this is on a mac pro with 8 cores, 2.26mhz, 32 gigs of ram, internal spinner drives, Mavericks, N6.5.

Help!

Darren “15 Minutes Later” Ingram

Hello Darren

I can’t help it to say that such a project with this number of files and the mentioned length
is bound to produce long safeing times and all sorts of other problems.
Why don’t you split it in reels and put them together in the end?
The extra work should be compensated with the shorter safeing times…

I mean, there is a certain natural limit to what a DAW can handle, these days, before it gives in.
In fact, I find it amazing that it only needs 15 minutes… and obviously produces no errors during safeing.
For me that project would be much to dangerous and to cumbersome to work with, as it is now.
M2c, …

Cheers, Big K

Have you disabled hit point detection and deleted all hit points on all events in the project?
Hit points and automation and process history data are regular save time issues in N6.5.

Excellent idea! Will try.

Thanks!

Darren “Slave To The Save” Ingram

Ok, gave the hotpoint data thing a shot but I still have issues with massive save times. I’ve been watching my mac’s Activity Monitor and when saving, the Nuendo process reports as Not Responding.

I’ve also watched the data IO while it’s saving and it barely registers any data movement at all, if any. I just now watched the data monitor sit at 0k data movement both in and out for around 30 seconds while saving until a quick burst of around 700k was written, then back to 0k for 30 seconds or so until another quick burst of around 700k, then back to 0k.

Also, the CPU is sitting at 91% idle. this is an 8 core 2.26ghz machine with 32 gigs of ram.

It just doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot happening while I’m saving. But it still takes around 30 minutes to save. Even if I hit save immediately after a previous save, it still takes this long. And again, I’m not seeing massive cpu usage or disk usage.

Hmmmm…


Darren “Watching Paint Dry” Ingram

Darren i have some theories.
Basically I agree, there are major issues or flaws in how Cubendo handles the saves.

Generally the main issues with save times seems to be large amounts of any or several of the following:
Automation
Process history data
Amount of files in the project
Vari audio data

In my case it’s mostly process history data and automation data that causes slow saves.

You can test this by for example:
Freezing all edits ( don’t do it on the original project as it is not undo able reliably).
Delete all automation in project.
Flatten all vari audio events.
Reduce the number of files in the pool.

None of these are really solutions, just possible routes to show where you’re personal save time issues lie.

Some possible help on the way:
If it is caused by automation you can reduce the amount of automation in various ways.
You may be able to freeze some edits or flatten some or most vari audio data.
You may be able to split the project in multiple parts to keep the number of files lower.
Any or all oft he above without to severely affecting your workflow.

But yes the issue is bad and has to be resolved by Steinberg for real.
Especially as for most users it will be a combination of all these things causing the slow save times.

Does the same issue exist in Cubase? I didn’t see anything about it in the forum for Cubase 7.

I find that the long save/auto-save is the biggest downer with Nuendo. On larger projects, having to wait for Nuendo to “catch up” is a creativity killer. As one client has said during wait times “Nuendo is thinking”. Turning off auto-save is not an option, even though Nuendo is pretty stable.

Dean

SOLVED!!! (At least for me…)

OK, I was wrong earlier. My problem WAS having hitpoint data.

We thought we had cleaned out this data but I don’t guess we did.

One quick addendum: I thought that I had cleaned all my hitpoint data and I was still getting high save times. So I made sure automatic hitpoint detection was turned off in my prefs, I exported my entire project using Export Selected Tracks. I imported that XML file into a clean project and my save times were down to 8 seconds.

On my big project:
Save time WITH hitpoint data: 3.5 HOURS!!!
Save time WITHOUT hitpoint data: 8 SECONDS!!!

Whoo hooooo!!!

Darren “Back In Business” Ingram

I never had a problem with this autosave beachball thing in the years since Nuendo 3.

I recently disastrously updated to Yosemite and had to go back to Mavericks via the Time Machine backup, it is only since this, I have the slow save problem and also I have parallel drum compression busses which are now phasey.

If this gives anybody any ideas - please post them up as soon as poss. I’m so gutted I’m right in the middle of tonnes of work and this is really slowing me down!

Hi there,

same problem with extended saving times here.
It takes Nuendo 4 minutes to save a 90 min. project with 10 tracks.
No plug In’s running, no automation just plain audiofiles, cuts and fades.

I have tried the above mentioned tricks with hitpoints etc. but they do not work for me.

The saving times increased along with increasing use of effects and plug-in’s.
However, nothing changed from rendering the effects into the audiofiles via archiving…

Does Nuendo “remember” the use of plug-in’s and effects somewhere?

Cheers,
David

Dear all,

my problem is solved now.
Darren got back to me with an exact advice on how to remove the hitpoints:

  • go to your preferences and under Editing/Audio make sure the “Remove Regions/Hitpoints on all Offline Processes” is checked. Also, in that same area, make sure “Enable Automatic Hitpoint Detection” is unchecked.

This is what I did before, but the thing that made it work out was:

  • select all audio and use the “remove hit points” command.

I checked this thread again and saw it was already pointed out earlier by Erik G, but I must have skipped that.
For those who still have the same problem try the other advice of Darren:

  • select all tracks and then choose Export - Selected Tracks. We simply referenced the files, we didn’t copy all of them.
  • Make a brand new project then select Import - Track Archive.

Hope this helps!
Thanks a lot Darren and Erik!!

Cheers,
Davrus