Adobe Stops Recording Mid-Session

Report · Oct 06, 2020

Heads up - I am re-posting something as the Adobe Professional that was replying was insisting that the issue could not be Adobe related, dismissed the issue entirely, was very condescending about the whole ordeal and stopped replying. Here it is again:

Hi guys,

I run a Dell XPS 8940 Tower with an Intel i9 processor, NVIDIA 2060 RTX Super w/ 8g processing power, 64g of memory, Windows 10 Pro 64bit through a Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL with a 96k sample rate. As I am recording my podcasts (as I produce several), the recording will seize up and stop. The playhead will continue but the track recording stops. Here's what that looks like broken down:

-The monitors go completely quiet

-The recording freezes completely

-A strange sound comes through the monitor (a beep, almost sounds like interference from a cell phone) for a split second.

-The playhead and timer continue on but the recording stops entirely with the monitors active again.

In terms of audition, I record in multitrack mode, and I'm usually recording myself and 2 other hosts through my Presonus Audiobox 1818 VSL. What I usually do is I open the audio hardware, change the drive to ASIO and then find the Presonus for the output and input. Then I arm each track onto a Mono track Line 1, 2 and 3.

I put my computer in airplane mode last time to see if it would make any difference, and it didn't... it still stopped recording a few times during a one hour conversation.

It has been so incredibly frustrating as it really interupts the flow of the conversation and it's embarrassing with my guests. I was wondering if you could recommend some things to try to resolve this issue?

I have completely disabled windows sounds, end all non-critical tasks in my task manager and pause all virus recording apps on my computer. I have the most recent (and only) driver that Presonus has to offer. I was running the sample rate at 48k though the interface is 96k. I don't think that would be the issue but after running a couple tests, it seemed to help to match. There's not really any way to say whether or not that's the solution as the recording interruptions happen randomly. Last time it did, it happend at 5 minutes, 35 minutes and an hour and 5 minutes deep. It has happened 4 times in one recording, it's happened once during a recording. There doesn't seem to be any comprehensive pattern.

In terms of where I'm recording to... I've tried all sorts of methods... I've had the Disk Cache on various external drives and on the local drive while recording to either the local drive or to an external hard drive... I've tried every arrangement and various combinations and it still randomly stops.

I've followed every optimization guide I can find and I don't quite know what to do. I really don't want to give up Audition despite finding that may be the only option. This has happened on this brand new tower as well as my 2 year old XPS 9570 under all of the same circumstances. My laptop couldn't handle the 96k sample rate so I never had the chance to fully excercise that setting as I do with this tower.

Any suggestions would be great as I know my machine and the interface are very capable to do basic multitrack recording... I just need to understand why it keeps stopping! Does anyone have any experience with recording interruptions when the sample rate in Audition is set differently than what the potential output is from the interface? Could this really be the issue?

I really appreciate the help!

Thanks everyone!

Report · Oct 07, 2020

Hi Randy

Check if the block size under the universal control of hte Presonus driver has the same value as the I/O Buffer Size in Auditions Audio Hardware Preferences (for examble 512 or 256).

Report · Oct 12, 2020

Okay so the sample rate was set to 44.1k and the block size to 64 in the Universal Control. I left the block size alone and moved the sample rate up to 48k.

Report · Oct 12, 2020

I set Adobe to match both the interface and the Universal Control driver software at 96k and the recording is still stopping.

Report · Oct 07, 2020

I also think that both interface and Audition should have the same sample rate.

Report · Oct 07, 2020

The Audition session should be the same sample rate as that of the audio interface otherwise Audition will have to resample on the fly which will waste a lot of processing power.
I would also suggest setting the sample rate of the Presonus to something much lower than 96k (if that is an option) as all you are really doing is wasting hard disk space (as well as possibly resampling on the fly) for no real benefit.

Report · Oct 12, 2020

I changed the Adobe sample rate and block size to match both the interface and Universal Control settings and the recording is still stopping. Recording 3 mics.

Report · Oct 13, 2020

Have you tried setting the the block size under the universal control of the Presonus driver and the I/O Buffer Size in Auditions Audio Hardware Preferences to higher value? try 256.

also I agree with what SuiteSpot suggests.

(I would also suggest setting the sample rate of the Presonus to something much lower than 96k (if that is an option) as all you are really doing is wasting hard disk space (as well as possibly resampling on the fly) for no real benefit.).

48Kh is more than enough for podcasts especially when you are recording with more than one mics.

Report · Oct 13, 2020

I have yes but Universal Control was automatically changing the sample rate to 44.1 from 48. I think I may have found the problem. Running tests literally all day today to see if I figured out the issue. I neglected to change the sample rates in the Windows sound control panel. I went into every Audiobox setting (SPDIF, ADAT and all normal line-ins) and set all of the recording sample rate settings to 24bit/48k. Once I did that, Universal Control stopped automatically reverting to 44.1. We'll see if that fixes it.

I also ran a couple tests on a Zoom H6 and after I was able to get all of the settings to stick to 48k, it seemed to run very smoothly, though the block size defaults and only has the ability to be 512 which has a significant amount of latency so it's very much not ideal. It did, however, help narrow down the issues and settings a bit more.

Hopefully this issue can finally be put to rest.

Report · Oct 14, 2020

After 4 successful 1hr tests recording 3 mics simultaneously in the exact same environment I would normally, it happened again. I'm at the complete end of my rope with this. I'm going to switch out the interface to see if it's related to my presonus but this is looking grim.

Any effort on Adobe's part to fix the software would be much appreciated...

Report · Jan 11, 2023

This happened to me just now. I'm on a maxed-out Mac Pro with 96 GB memory, an SSD and recording through a MOTU Firewire Audio Express at 48kHz. In the midst of recording a live voi eover session, Audition just stopped recording (unknown to me because I was in the booth and didn't see the screen. I had to get back on the line with the client and use different software to re-do the entire session. The settings in Audition matched the setup of my MOTU. This incident alone, I'm seriously considering never using Audition for a live VO session again. Sheesh, Audacity works better and more reliable than Audition!

Report · Jan 11, 2023

Audition is extremely powerful as a DAW but I won't record via USB ever
again. Waaaaaaay too many variables.