DSP problems with PD

Hello,

I’m running PD with pisound headless controlled via VNC.
I have a patch basically just made out of a cpitchshift object that used to sound fine, when now it sounds like a ring modulator rather than a pitch shift.

It happens in conjunction with the fact that now after patchbox start up if I press the pisound button once PD wont open, and if it does, it doesn’t enable the dsp or load main.pd from the usb drive.

PD set at 48k using JACK and tried all buffer sizes. Very strange as it used to sound fine! The same patch does sound ok on the mac, perhaps the zexy installer for linux doesn’t have the right version of the Z object?

is there a puredata config file that has more options that the ones in the drop menu? I thought I’d look if anything looks sus.

Edit: as per patchbox settings, PD’s minimoog patch should open at start up, but that doesn’t happen anymore. Tested the speed of the microSD and it’s ok.

Cheers!

It sounds like some configuration got broken on the system.

Could you try enabling the minimoog patch, and check the log of its start:

sudo journalctl -u patchbox-init

hit ‘end’ on the keyboard to go to the very latest log lines, hit ‘q’ to exit. Could you check if there’s any errors? The same errors could impact starting the patch using the button.

I just tried reselecting minimoog at startup and then rebooted to see what happens.

this is the log:

Dec 28 17:02:41 patchbox systemd[1]: Starting Patchbox Init…
Dec 28 17:02:45 patchbox patchbox[596]: Manager: puredata.module activated
Dec 28 17:02:45 patchbox patchbox[596]: Manager: puredata.module launch mode is
Dec 28 17:02:45 patchbox patchbox[596]: Manager: puredata.module launch argument
Dec 28 17:02:45 patchbox patchbox[596]: Manager: puredata.module launched
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox systemd[1]: Started Patchbox Init.
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox patchbox[596]: No display found, specifying -nogui
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox patchbox[596]: /usr/local/puredata-patches/MiniMoog/min
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox sudo[792]: root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=root ;
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox sudo[792]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for u
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox sudo[792]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for u
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox patchbox[596]: 2020-12-28.17:02:46: Killing all Pure Da
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox patchbox[596]: 2020-12-28.17:02:46: Launching Pure Data
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox patchbox[596]: 2020-12-28.17:02:46: Pure Data started!
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox sudo[815]: root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=root ;
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox sudo[815]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for u
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox sudo[815]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for u
Dec 28 17:02:46 patchbox patchbox[596]: opened alsa client 132 in:1 out:1

a bit further down I find:

Dec 28 17:02:54 patchbox patchbox[596]: invalid sender address pisound-ctl
Dec 28 17:02:54 patchbox patchbox[596]: invalid destination address pisound-ctl
Dec 28 17:04:40 patchbox patchbox[596]: watchdog: signaling pd…

I was thinking that PD starts as nogui as there’s no monitor detected. Maybe there’s a way to force PD to have a gui?
Anyway if I press the button once PD opens with DSP on but no Zexy externals and without loading main.pd from USB.

Is there another log file concerning the button operations?

Cheers!

Hmm, I don’t see any critical error here… This is for the button logs:

sudo journalctl -u pisound-btn

The PD autostart module starts PD before the system GUI is up.

That’s the button log.

Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: Using display :0.0
Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: 2020-12-29.12:40:24: Searching for main.pd in USB storage!
Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: 2020-12-29.12:40:24: Found patch: /media/patch/USB/._main.pd
Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: 2020-12-29.12:40:24: All sanity checks succeeded.

Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: 2020-12-29.12:40:24: Killing all Pure Data instances!
Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: 2020-12-29.12:40:24: Launching Pure Data.
Dec 29 12:40:24 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: 2020-12-29.12:40:24: Pure Data started!

Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart: the zexy external 2.2.6svn
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart: (c) 1999-2012 IOhannes m zmölnig
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart: forum::für::umläute
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart: iem @ kug
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart: compiled: Jul 3 2015
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart: send me a ‘help’ message
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: :heart::heart::heart:
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: matchbox: OSC-pattern matching code (c) Matt Wright, CNMAT
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: error: : no such object
Dec 29 12:40:25 patchbox pisound-btn[454]: [26B blob data]

I’ll try to investigate further, I’ve put the minimoog on the USB main.pd and now it opens at start up, still not at pressing of the button. Whenever PD decided to open by button pressing it wouldn’t load the zexy externals so that’s another mistery to solve!

You may have to place a [declare -path] object in your patch to make it find it, or make sure the Path settings are correct. When started via the button, PD runs as root user, I think we’ve already made it to use the same settings as patch user, but you should double-check if the settings are the same and as expected.

You may enable ‘Verbose’ logging level, so it prints how it searches for externals.

The command line to start PD via the button can be edited in /usr/local/pisound/scripts/common/start_puredata.sh