A3 PFL no longer working?

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

Hi - I’ve been using 3.5.14 during the last week on my lap-top (Fedora 14 32-bit), which I use for editing recordings. I use a desktop machine (Fedora 19 64-bit, with CCRMA extensions) for making the original recordings; that’s still on 3.4. Yesterday, using the desktop machine, I opened a session that had been edited on the lap-top, and I saved a template from that. When I created a new session on the desktop using that template, I noticed that the PFL buttons on the tracks in the mixer window (I’m using the monitor bus) were unresponsive. However, in SIP mode, the Solo buttons did work as expected. Not having PFL was an inconvenience, but didn’t stop me from recording, so I pressed on and finished the recording without any other obvious issues. If it’s useful, the template defined 5 tracks and one additional bus. For this recording I used only 3 tracks, and nothing was routed to the additional bus.

Today I opened that session on the lap-top, and I’m seeing the same problem. Hovering over the PFL buttons turns them to a lighter shade of gray, but clicking them does nothing AFAICT. Same with AFL buttons in AFL mode. Switching to SIP mode seems to work fine. Just for fun I tried using 3.4 on the lap-top and got the same results.

I should say that I’m not at all sure that the template made from the session that had been modified using 3.5.14 had anything to do with this. But PFL had been working for me before that[*], and that’s the only thing I could think of that I’d done differently this time.

Thanks!

[*] : For the most part anyway. I’ve noticed that sometimes when switching from SIP to PFL mode, enabling the PFL on a channel doesn’t take effect (or maybe it’s still solo’ing) - the PFL indicator turns on, but the monitor still seems to be getting post-fader signal. Usually flipping through metering locations - in, pre, post, out, custom, and back to in - fixes it.

#2

seems to work fine here on an old test session and a new session.

#3

Thanks for trying, Paul. I’ll see if I can come up with a sequence of steps to reproduce it from scratch.

#4

Turns out switching between A3 releases had nothing to do with it – I can reproduce the behaviour with 3.5.14 alone. (And yeah I just noticed that 3.5.74 is out now. :wink:  Here’s one way to do it:

  1. Start ardour3 and create a new session. Enable the monitor section, open the mixer window, and put the monitor in PFL mode. (This was the default for me, perhaps because I'd set it that way in my previous session.)
  2. Add a track, and record or import some audio. (The audio may not be necessary even.)
  3. Save the session and exit. (Exiting may not be necessary either.)
  4. Start ardour3 again, open the same session, make no changes but save a template from it, then exit.
  5. Start ardour3 again, create a new session, using the template saved in the previous step.
  6. Add some audio to the track if you like. (It's definitely not necessary.)
  7. The monitor section should still be included in the monitor window, in PFL mode, but clicking the PFL button on the track has no discernible effect.

I found a simple work-around: Go to Session > Properties > Monitoring, turn the monitor section off and back on again. After saving the session, I diff’d the .ardour files, and I see many new lines added, starting with

    <Route id="21301" name="monitor" default-type="audio" flags="MonitorOut" active="yes" phase-invert="00"
denormal-protection="no" meter-point="MeterPostFader" meter-type="MeterPeak" order-keys="EditorSort=7:MixerSor
t=7" self-solo="no" soloed-by-upstream="0" soloed-by-downstream="0" solo-isolated="no" solo-safe="no">

During that experiment, I also found it was fairly easy to reproduce the issue with PFL not taking effect (perhaps giving AFL or solo audio; I didn’t have time to narrow it down) :

  1. Open a session containing some audio (eg, the one that was used above to make the template).
  2. Do something to make the track output audio obviously different than the input. (I set the fader to -15 dB.) I had the metering point set to "in", but I don't think it matters.
  3. In the monitor section, set SIP mode, and try solo'ing on the track - make sure it works. (It should.)
  4. Save the session and exit.
  5. Start ardour3, open the session again. It should come up in SIP mode (as expected), and that should still work fine.
  6. Change to PFL mode, and click PFL on the channel. I hear the same output as I did with Solo - hmmm.
  7. Change the metering point. On the first click, I get input audio back- yay! It keeps working (I think) as long as the session stays open.
#5

I had a similar issue with pfl still functioning as AFL, i created a bug report but the issue when away after i messed around changing between pfl afl and sip. ive not had a n issue since.

Im sure there is a bug somehwere, but its going to be tricky to track down so i closed the bug report since it did not surface again.

#6

Interesting… I’d certainly be willing to open a new bug report, now that I’ve found a way to reproduce it on a new session. (Well, two actually.) Just wanted to make sure these weren’t the usual case of me doing something silly. The way PFL is broken (for me) after starting a session, but working fine after changing metering points, gives it that good ol’ uninitialized variable kind of flavor. :slight_smile: