-
1. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
SteveG(AudioMasters) May 13, 2009 3:08 AM (in response to PC_Pete)PC_Pete wrote:
I've discovered another legit bug in AA3.0, and I can't seem to find the reference from the old forum pointing to the bug reporting page. And there's no mention of that word in the search I just painfully tried to perform.
Could anyone help point me in the right direction please? Thanks!
As a side note, boy am I glad I haven't had to use these new discussion forums. What a horrible bit of marketing tinsel they've become! I didn't think Adobe could actually come up with a worse forum than the old one, but they've astonished me yet again. Only Adobe could completely ignore the amazing forum alternatives freely available anywhere else in the known universe and come up with... this... half-baked... whatever it is.
I am just so amazed at how long it took me to a) find the Adobe Audition forum from the redirector used for the last forum, b) find a way to search the current forum only for a simple search string, and c) figure out why the Adobe edit control doesn't properly support drag and drop operations. My goodness this has gone downhill. What an awful website.
You should have realised anyway that they could come up with a worse forum - that's what they did last time they tried to change it, and had to reinstate the previous version. What's more amazing is that they learned precisely nothing from that experience - and did it again, just as badly and possibly worse.
I have no idea what they did with the bug reporting page. The only thing I can suggest is that you post it here (which is always a good idea anyway), and I'll get it to the developers via the beta route.
If you want an idea of all of the other problems there are with this forum, then read the forum's most-read thread - on exactly this subject; "Imminent Forum Demise". And since they appear to be taking not one jot of notice, I suggest that using AudioMasters is a rather better bet.
-
2. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
PC_Pete May 15, 2009 7:47 PM (in response to SteveG(AudioMasters))G'day Steve, thanks for the kind offer.
I actually had to go and recreate the problem, since it's taken so long to get back in to the forum to respond. I'm not sure why the website banner ("Welcome PC_Pete") shows my name and a sign-out option, but still refused to let me post a response. I assume that's part of the new Adobe Feature Set (TM) (C) for the forum
The bug (well, more than one, but this was literally the killer) happened when I was "rubber stamping" a marquee selection( in spectral view, obviously!).
I selected a small area in the low end of the audio spectrum, let's say 700mS long, between 20 and 80 Hz. I selected this area so I could copy and paste it multiple times over the horrible "bumps" in the recording (lacquer on aluminium, with lateral shrinkage). This worked fine, using the same marquee area and moving it over the bump and using Mix Paste (replace).
Then I got all clever and decided to take the same marquee sample, and loop paste it across 4-5 of these bumps (at 78RPM, on a 4-minute recording, that's a LOT of move, Ctrl-Shift-V,Ok, move, Ctrl-Shift-V, etc).
When I did that (after defining the new marquee "Length" as the same multiple as the loop count width), when I then pasted, the "Applying" dialog came up, and the underlying audio display seemed to have changed OK, but the progress bar never moved past 99%. And there was no rise in CPU usage, it just stopped there.
Then I cancelled the dialog, and tried to undo the paste, but there were no undo/redo entries visible in the main menu. The other menu items were there in the edit menu, just not undo/redo. They weren't greyed out, they weren't displayed.
I decided to not risk this recording (I'd saved it just prior to trying out the "extended stamp" just in case), and AA wouldn't quit, using the main menu, alt-F4, etc. So I killed the process externally.
When I started AA again, it offered to recover the last recording, and I selected "No thank you". When I reopened the version saved a few seconds before the attempt, that sectionof the wave file corresponding to the area I'd tried to mix paste over had been deleted. Good thing I keep backups, huh.
Worse, now AA won't copy any selection in any view, it complains that the \\Temp\CoolClipboard.wav file is being used by another process (it isn't, it's just AA3 eating its own brain again), but that was fixed by shutting down AA and manually deleting the file.
There's much more to the mix paste problems - I created a little script and favourite shortcut so I could more easily mix paste/rubber stamp the same marquee selection area without using the dialog (by manually selecting, copying and only THEN running the script), and that works, except if I select a marquee area at the HIGH end of the audio range and try rubber stamping that. Then the same script runs, but the marquee disappears and doing a mix paste afterwards results in the marquee no longer being visible, so I have to manually select, Ctrl-Shift-V, OK. So there's a lot wrong there somewhere.
I would love to be able to duplicate this, but I can't risk it just yet, I have a whole bunch of old recordings that have to be ready Monday, so I'll try and get a simple set of steps to achieve the same thing then.
I hope this is useful as a starting point. As usual, I apologise for the digital diarrhoea.
-
3. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
SteveG(AudioMasters) May 16, 2009 7:14 AM (in response to PC_Pete)PC_Pete wrote:
I would love to be able to duplicate this, but I can't risk it just yet, I have a whole bunch of old recordings that have to be ready Monday, so I'll try and get a simple set of steps to achieve the same thing then.
I hope this is useful as a starting point. As usual, I apologise for the digital diarrhoea.
I'll let you into a little secret (although you seem almost to have sussed it out anyway), and that is that the developers almost won't consider a bug to even be one unless there are clear reproduce steps that are reliable!
To that end, it would be good if a couple of other people could find a way of reproducing this, because if more than one person can get the same fault to occur on different hardware, this ups the chances of it being taken seriously quite considerably.
-
4. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
PC_Pete May 16, 2009 5:06 PM (in response to SteveG(AudioMasters))Thanks again, Steve... I can describe one of the interface "misbehaviours" fairly simply. I''ve described it below, as completely as I can, in case anyone gets a flashback/AHA moment and something twigs... Again, I've been way too verbose, but since this annoying behaviour seems to be related to a fairly complex editing action, I want to be very specific and correct.
The problem described here is that the scripted mix-paste playback acts differently depending on where in the spectral frequency range you select and apply a mix paste using the marquee. At the bottom of the display, the script works repeatedly and allows the marquee region to be easily moved. At the middle or top of the display, the script performs the same function, but the marquee area disappears and you have to redraw it each time by hand - and since we're talking about sample-accurate editing, that goes out the window.
I first recorded a mix-paste script to run in spectral view, by :'
- Loading a legitimate, uncorrupted wav file (44.1kHz, 32-bit **** Not 44.1k!)
- switch to spectral mode (and the rest of this description ONLY applies to spectral view)
- Select a small marquee region from the "base" of the spectral frequency scale up to about 90 Hz. That range seems to give the most repeatable results.
- Copy the selected region to the clipboard (and make sure you're using the AA Clipboard1, since that's all I allow AA to use on this system!)
- While the selection is still highlighted, go to the scripts menu entry, and start a new script in the current collection (I'm a low-tech user, so I only have one collection!)
- Enter a name, and click record (I called my script "RubberStamp")
- Bring up your mix paste dialog by your favourite method (I use the "alt" function, so I have to ctrl-right-click on the waveform to get the mix paste dialog, which is also accessible for me as Ctrl-Shift-V. I only mention that here in case it triggers a flashback for someone).
- Select "replace" and leave all the other controls alone (i.e. source should be set to clipboard1, no crossfade, no loop paste, no invert)
- Click OK. The marquee region will look unchanged, after all, we're mix pasting and replacing the same region with no fades, etc.
- Go back to the script, stop recording and click save.
- Now create a new favourite, and use the newly-recorded script from the scripts tab in the Properties dialog. I named my script "RubberStamp", and the Favourite is "Rubber Stamp" (i.e. with a space in it so there should be no possibility of confusion)
- Leave "pause at dialogs" clear.
- Add a spare hotkey (the problem I'm describing here seems to ONLY occur when the mix paste is called from the favourites, as a click, or using a hotkey)
- Now, head back to the waveform and see what happens!
The way I intended to use this script action, is to select a region (any region) in the marquee, then do a copy to clipboard, then WITHOUT CHANGING the marquee, slide it along the bottom of the spectral display to a reasonably time-accurate position (+/- 3000 samples or so) and press the hotkey for the rubber stamp.
I may be missing something really obvious here, but in my defence, I can't seem to get AA to actually PASTE OVER a marquee region (which would be a perfectly acceptable result) with a previously selected COPY of a very similar (frequency range-wise) region. When I do (using cut/paste), AA MIXes that paste with the underlying audio, instead of REPLACING it. And yes, that happens with the crossfades turned OFF in the preferences dialog.
So if you've been following along, by selecting and copying a marquee region in the low-frequency range, then pressing your new rubberstamp hotkey, hey presto! you can copy a region and stamp it somewhere else! And the marquee area remains selected, so you can repeatedly move that selection wherever you need to, and apply the replace operation repeatedly without having to cut and define a region each and every time. Whoopee, right?
The way the PROBLEM works, is if you select a similar marquee region at the TOP of the spectral display, without changing anything else whatsoever, then move the marquee region along the waveform at the TOP of the display, when you press the SAME hotkey for the SAME script, the mix-paste still occurs, but the selected region's marquee disappears! Now any subsequent favourite hotkey press will result in nothing happening - obviously, because the marquee has disappeared, so AA doesn't know where you want to mix paste.
You CAN re-draw the marquee manually and THEN hit the stamp hotkey, but of course AA will now resize the marquee to the original size of the clipped marquee region - which may be not exactly the size you remembered, so you may have to hit undo, then select a couple of samples to the left or right, instead, if (like me) you'd really like to copy a particular sound spectrum from one area in the waveform to another.
So this behaviour isn't particularly deadly, just really annoying.
The other problem I mentioned (the crashing and weird menu behaviour) also occurred when I tried to loop paste a copied marquee region, but again, I haven't been able to replicate it (although I've seen a few of the strange quirks that preceeded that the last time I was working). I will post an update when (not if) I can duplicate it.
- Loading a legitimate, uncorrupted wav file (44.1kHz, 32-bit **** Not 44.1k!)
-
5. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
PC_Pete May 16, 2009 5:33 PM (in response to SteveG(AudioMasters))SteveG(AudioMasters) wrote:
I'll let you into a little secret (although you seem almost to have sussed it out anyway), and that is that the developers almost won't consider a bug to even be one unless there are clear reproduce steps that are reliable!
Point well made, Steve. Mea culpa. There is a difference between a bug and an id10t like me pressing the wrong buttons and whining on about a problem no-one cares about.
I realise I do come across all arrogant and blustery, and I apologise to everyone for that... But as an excuse (and it is only an excuse!) by the time I've put together enough information to help Adobe at least characterise a problem, and reproduce it, I've lost a day's work (or more) and/or I've just had a customer in my ear about a problem caused by one of those bug things, and/or I'm halfway through a particularly difficult recording repair and AA gets all locked up and bothered and crashes or freezes my OS.
On the point of the repeatable bug vs silly user issue, I realise I'm way past jaded and annoyed. I did report some significant and one very simply fixable bug to Adobe when they released AA1.5, and that same simple bug (and it is a bug, and it is repeatable, and it does badly affect material produced using Audition) still exists. But despite reporting and documenting it, and even suggesting ways they might be able to implement the bug as a feature, two major versions later, the bug is still there, while they've agreed in black and white that it IS a bug!
So I guess the silver lining in all this is that Adobe don't have to listen to me (or anyone else) ******** and complaining about bugs in their product.
And we can all see and appreciate the wonderful enlightened and responsive way Adobe have graciously listened to the, er, "inferred ephemeral positive" feedback they imagine (to themselves) they've heard about their forums and websites, and somehow managed to ignore the actual negative feedback about this...err... unusual attempt at a "community".
I don't really expect anything more from Adobe, but maybe publically shaming them by at least describing all the bugs and problems in their code and their support mechanism might work where legitimate feedback and genuine willingness to help haven't? Nah, I didn't think so either.
-
6. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
SuiteSpot May 16, 2009 9:21 PM (in response to PC_Pete)"I'll let you into a little secret (although you seem almost to have sussed it out anyway), and that is that the developers almost won't consider a bug to even be one unless there are clear reproduce steps that are reliable!"
Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I don't know how many hours I have lost chasing 'bugs', real or imaginable. It is so much easier to find and fix bugs if you can replicate the problem.
Lets face it there is no such thing as bug free code (even in pace makers - granted the effects of the bugs tend to manifest themselves a bit more obviously!)
You just have to check the forums of other daws.
Does that make it right - no.
But to be reasonable there are only so many resources available. Sure fixes cost money, bugs cost money, there is all the non tangibles that cost as well including being publicly shamed. But everything has to be put in perspective.
How much time & energy was wasted by adobe programmers trying to find a bug which only appeared in a pirate version!
You can bet if it was just up to the programmers they would fix every bug but its not up to them - its up to the men in suits and thats where bang for buck comes in.
Is your bug on the list to be fixed - probably but more than likely right down the bottom - why because you are probably one of the very few that use this function to this degree.
I understand your pain and frustration and I'm glad its not me with the problem!
On the upside - you've done a great job in giving them plenty of info to narrow it down should they decide to be doing some work in that area of the app in might get a look in and I hope for your sake they do.
I hope they fix it for you (as long as it doesn't delay AA4 )
-
7. Re: Where do I submit bug reports now?
PC_Pete May 17, 2009 9:51 PM (in response to SuiteSpot)Whoops, sorry, my mistake!
The bug I was referring to in my last post isn't what you'd call a corner case bug (like the marquee selection behaviour I described in the original post).
The bug I was referring to is the one where the only place in Audition 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0 you can enable and disable saving metadata is... in the File|Save As dialog.
And it toggles state and is persistent across application restarts even if you open the dialog, change the state, and THEN click "Cancel". That's about as basic and simple a bug as I can think of.
I found and described the workaround, so that's OK for me. Pity Adobe didn't fix it 2 releases ago when I raised it. But obviously, metadata is much less relevant to the customer base than user interface colouring, so at least they addressed that problem. Phew. (OK, OK, I'l quit it).
And another 160 seconds wasted because the forum didn't recognise me, with cookies enabled, and from the same browser instance I was previously logged in with - so again I was taken to the "Choose your product from any of these Fine Adobe Applications, none of which you have registered for, but the one application you do have registered is buried in the little dropdown combo box somewhere, depending on whether we call it Adobe Audition or Audition. But we're sure you'll find it eventually. Have a Nice Day (TM)(C)!" page. So that's nice and inconsistent. I do like surprises. I get one every time I try to log in! (sorry, sorry, I know it's not appropriate).


