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How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 9:22 pm
by jpettit
Until such day as Studio One give us the option for a safe/debug opening of a song, use this procedure to fix a broken song.
Something in the “.song file” was incorrectly written to the computer. This can happen due to the environment of your computer changing while working on the song, or a misbehaving plugin.

Steps:
A) FIRST IF YOU ARE STUCK WITH AUTO OPEN, OPENING THE BAD SONG?
If not go to the STEPS TO DEBUG SONG.
If you are stuck in a mode where you have turned on "open last song/project" you will have to edit the Studio One.settings first.

B) Go to your Settings Folder: via the Studio One Help Menu/Open Settings folder

On Windows Path = C:\Users\(Username)\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus\Studio One 2
For Mac the Path = ~/Library/Application Support/PreSonus Software/Studio One 2


The File = Studio One.settings (open with text editor like Notepad and edit this section)
Code: Select all
Section path="Configuration
      <Attributes>
         <PersistentAttributes x:id="values">
            <Attribute id="Application.DocumentHandler.startupAction" value="1"

set "Application.DocumentHandler.startupAction";

Change value="1" value=1 to to value="0";
C) This will turn off auto load the last song so you can open Studio One without a song. Save the change and open Studio One.

STEPS TO DEBUG SONG

1) First make a copy of your song so you have it as a safety.
Use the File Manager to go to your song directory and find Your_stuck_song.song and add _debug to it, so that you can disect it.
2) Open Studio One
3) Go to Options/Advanced/Services
To start take an educated guess of what might be hanging up your song. (Did you start using a VST3? Did you start a video? Did you start using Melodyne? Did you just try out a new VST2 plugin?)
Disable the service that might be related to why your song no longer opens.
Image
4) Close Studio One and Re-oen Studio One with the service off
5) Try to open your bad song.

Did it open?
If yes the issue is with the service you just turned off.
If no then you guess wrong. Repeat the process and turn the service that you turned off back on and disable another service off.
Repeat until you have isolated the services that is having the issue.


6) YOU NOW KNOW THE SERVICE BUT NOT THE PLUGIN
Use the flowchart below to turn off/disable or remove plugins etc that are associated with that service.
EXAMPLE:
If you turned off VST3 then turn off half of your VST3 plugins to isolate the bad plugin. Repeat as needed.
If you turned off VST2 then turn off half of your VST2 plugins to isolate the bad plugin. Repeat as needed.
If you turned off ARA, then remove Melodyne from tracks. Repeat as needed.

Follow the procedure below and you will fix your problem.
Image
It has saved me a few songs in the past so I hope it helps.

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 8:48 pm
by brentstrathdee
I have a couple of recent songs that open and then quickly crash S1 (screen goes a milky white then I get a crash message..).

On rare occasion it doesn't crash and I can work on the song :) but mostly it crashes :(

Is this method one I should try?

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 8:57 pm
by jpettit
Yes
Try to disable VST plugins first.
Go for both VST2 and 3

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 10:02 pm
by brentstrathdee
Ok so iv got as far as where it crosses over to the 2nd flow chart - I've identified that the prob is in the vst 2.4 bunch (which is most of them in this song!)

I don't understand the next instruction on how to now check the plug-ins themselves one by one?

I have the song playing (minus all the 2.4 plugs) but now what?

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 10:45 pm
by brentstrathdee
It looks like its worked so THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THE TIP/TRICK!

The only thing thats weird is I basically skipped the whole 'check each plug-in' because I didnt know how to do it but I did:
* turn off the service (2.4 plugins)
* renamed the song
* turned plugins back on

it's reopened successfully a few times in a row so fingers crossed! ;)

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:34 pm
by jpettit
So you got S1 to to rewrite one of the 2.0 plugin saved settings by tuning them all on again.

In the future when you have a service like VST 2 plugins narrowed down then just go and and disable 1/2 of the red plugins save and retry turning the service back on. Repeat as needed.
This way you narrow down to a specific plug in eventually.

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 12:35 am
by brentstrathdee
I couldnt see how to turn off each plugin while the song was open - in fact I dont know how to disable a plugin at all (only how to remove it from the list)

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 10:44 am
by RochesterDude
Thanks, wow, this just happened to me with one of my Slate plugs after I upgraded the plug. Nothing was working, tried a system restore (PC version) but that didn't work, then read your post yesterday. A total time savor. This is going into my solutions folder for future reference.
Can I by you a doughnut?
Thanks again

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:08 pm
by brentstrathdee
Just had another song do this to me yesterday so I'll repeat the process for that one too ;) what actually causes the problem :?:

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 6:41 am
by incognito
Also after you get it to load after turning off the correct services ,If your song doesn't have too many tracks you can save each channels FXchain as a preset.
Then remove all effects re save the song under new name. Turn services back on load the new song and start loading channel FXchains this is probably best way to go if you have problems in your VST department ... as an error will come if there is a problem ...

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 9:35 pm
by mikemanthei
For the truly geeky among you, you might also get some mileage out of the fact that the .song file is actually a zip file. It is all stored as XML files and organized in folders. After making changes here, the entire folder structure can then be re-zipped back as a new .song file. I've made a few very simple changes to verify, and it works well.

For the non-technical, make sure you have a backup. I can only imagine the kind of corruption you could commit if you're not skilled at editing XML. Lots of things can be edited from here, although if it's a valid song file, it's WAY easier to make the edits in the UI.

So maybe someone could come up with a repair tool that expands the .song file and repairs obvious XML errors. But actually just being able to open the song file and see what's going on in there might be help enough.

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 1:52 am
by bullethead
Hello, what software did you use to open a .song file and re-zip it afterwards? I know you can use SOne3's browser and "show contents" of the file, but it would be cool to find an external program that would allow editing and re-zipping....

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 8:05 pm
by Nirrad85
So I know which plug-in is causing my freezing to happen...When I uninstall the plug in, song opens no problem! However, I need this plug in for this song :x

I'm using Maschine 2.4 on a Maschine Studio midi controller. Every time I open this one song, or open a new song and then try to load Maschine 2.4 it freezes my system! Everything worked until I updated to this 2.4 version last night. I have opened Ableton and it loads Maschine just fine...the stand-alone software Maschine 2.4 works fine, but not S1 v3. I have since tried uninstalling and reinstalling the old version. It still freezes my computer.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 1:27 am
by mikemanthei
bullethead wroteHello, what software did you use to open a .song file and re-zip it afterwards? I know you can use SOne3's browser and "show contents" of the file, but it would be cool to find an external program that would allow editing and re-zipping....


I have no idea what you'd use in Mac land. A PC has native support for .zip files... at least for the past 16 years or so...

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2016 4:25 pm
by Sturphy
This was very very useful today. Thank you!

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 11:25 am
by garyshepherd
Very helpful indeed!

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:24 pm
by DrummaMan
This thread should be saved for all to see!!
Thank you for this.

Cakewalk's Sonar/Sonar Platinum allowed you to open in "Safe" mode, which upon a project opening, would ask you one-by-one if you wanted to run a plugin.

The wise folk at Presonus/Studio One know this feature would be a great one to add.

It's just a matter of time...

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 8:14 am
by jameswampler
VST 2.4 Was the issue. Thank You!

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:46 am
by mivey
Dropping this dime in the bucket also since I didn't see it mentioned.

If you're on a Mac, disable the Audio Unit Plugin Support option that isn't shown on Windows based systems. A "Lot" of unidentified crashes and issues I initially had migrating to Studio One were immediate addressed by disabling the AU component. ;)

Re: How to debug a Studio One song that will not open.

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2020 10:27 am
by jeffbanks
Is there an answer to why certain plugin formats resets settings weird after failures (crashes).Ive noticed that removing the VST3 plugins from my Library that caused the crash would set knob and rotaries to minimum and maximum values when loaded onto another machine. There's slightly more to this but wanted to know if anyone has an explanation.