Autosave problem, losing settings

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi. My fairly new Octatrack has started to act a bit weird lately, so I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced something similar:

Project setup:

  • Flex machines on 7 tracks, 8 is Master, some samples loaded
  • Trigs put on one pattern, A1.
  • Part saved (no cross indicating changes).
  • Track length set to “individual tracks”
  • Everything working fine.

Then sometimes, when I power it up, the machine is at the following state:

  • All machines reset to Static, exept track 8 still at Master. All machine settings reset.
  • Samples still loaded to slot list.
  • Track length setting reset to all same length, not individual
  • Parts show no unsaved settings (no crosses), reload doesn’t bring anything back.
  • Reloading project says that no unsaved state/nothing to load etc.
  • When I press play, it runs a few steps (1-4) then jumps back to trig one and stays there stuck. If I press Stop -> Play, same behaviour. All page button leds are off.
  • Except for machine playback, all buttons and menus seem to be working fine, except that most settings are reset.

Some notes:

  • I haven’t saved/synced before shutting down (and unplugging from the wall)
  • On machine status the internal battery shows “ok” and clock is on time.
  • It doesn’t always do this. Quite often autosave works as it should.
  • Switchin projects back and forth seems to help to “stuck playback” problem, but doesn’t bring any project data back.
  • CF card is the one that came with the machine a few months ago
  • It has done this on several separate projects, not just one.
  • OS update is the latest one.

Any ideas why it wouldn’t automatically sync to card? Possibly corrupted set or bad CF card? Time for service ticket?

Edit: Also worth mentioning, that the messed-up playback is not always present. Sometimes it just resets the machine settings.

Flex/Neighbor Tracks Reverted to Static Automatically
#2

Never seen this so far on mine.

My 2 cents :

  • Have you saved this very first project ?
  • Have you upgraded the OT between the first time you worked on it and now ?
#3

When my previous project started acting this way, I created this new one from scratch: project menu -> Change -> Create empty project (or something like that). I think I have never saved it, since I’ve been just learning the machine, and if it has lost its settings, I’ve just set up a new session. At first I thoght that maybe I had accidentally reset the part before shutting down, but now I’m sure that’s not the case.

I upgraded the firmware first when I bought it, not after that. The CF card is as it came from the factory. I just created my own set and started recording my own samples.

I know that it would be smart to save projects manually before shutting down, but since the autosave is supposed to be a working feature, I haven’t done that so far. (And haven’t lost any important projects, since I’m still just learning the machine and fooling around).

#4

you are turning the machine off by using the on/off button right? Not turning it off by turning off a power strip or something like that? I seem to remember reading that the auto save is triggered from the power button…

#5

Yes. First power button, then after ~5-10s the power chord. I don’t like keeping my expensive Elektron boxes plugged in all the time, especially during summer and thunderstorms. (Which may be a bit silly, but just in case).

So… would it actually be possible that there has to be certain amount of time between power off and unplug, so that the machine can autosave it’s state? Can anyone confirm this? Of course I can test that myself as well.

Since my original post, I already bought a new Sandisk 16 Gb 1000x memory card and created a new set and project from scratch. So far during these few days and a couple of start-ups it has been working ok.

#6

well, hopefully the new card fixes it.