My brand new OT freezes after boot

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hey. Today I turned on my OT and had a bad surprise.

The machine boots, but when loading the last project, it freezes with the memory card access LED always on. Looks like my CF card is down, because I can’t access it either from my computer’s CF reader (again, mem access LED is staying on). But I find it weird because I’ve just started using it…

Are the OCTACARD 32G known for their poor quality? Should I just get in touch with Elektron to get a new one?

For the record, I was using it with two static machines streaming longer files, one of which was skipping around the file with a random LFO, but at a rather low rate - is that too much to ask from a static machine? Could it be the reason my CF card died?

#2

Had the same.

A new card solved the issue. I didn’t got into contact with elektron, a long wait and another lemon card? Nah. Just bought a 32gb one, and done.

Please take this with a grain of salt - perhaps it’s not the card and another issue.

Good luck!

#3

Quite a few people have had issues with these cards so I’d say it’s almost certainly just another faulty card

1 Like
#4

thanks for your insight. I tried with the CF card from my SP404, and it worked flawlessly. The card is clearly the culprit here, but if it happens again, maybe something is wrong with my OT.

#5

Got a response from elektron support in less than 2 hours, they send a new one tomorrow … I’ll give it a shot, while backing the fuck up obviously :slight_smile:

Are there any preferred CF card brands for OT ?

1 Like
#6

Previously on Elektronauts:

6 Likes
#7

Hey. I received my new CF card, I loaded some samples on it by putting the OT in USB disk mode.

But I still had it freeze once. After loading my samples, I unmounted the OT from the computer, but left it plugged in. Then a few minutes later the OT stopped being responsive, with the card status LED blinking like crazy. Restarted the OT, unplugged it from USB, and now everything seems fine. The card status LED is on, but I guess it is normal because it’s not blinking …

#8

I seem to remember a load of problems when I left a usb cable attached (when not in disk mode). It was pretty common with other users - just unplug the usb when not in use and you should be good to go

3 Likes
#9

Yep same with MIDI cable sometimes (which is more annoying).

#10

OK, that’s good to know - kind of. I must admit I’m a bit disapointed to discover such rough edges in a ten years old machine. :confused: I guess the functionalities of the machine make up for it or it wouldn’t be that popular.

#11

You’re on MacOS?
OT freezes 100% of the time I let the USB cable plugged to my MBP but as an unmounted device. It might take time, but always will.

1 Like
#12

Nope, running linux here. Oh well, at least that’s a reproducible failure mode, easier to avoid than something popping up randomly. Maybe that’s how my first CF card was destroyed, because I kept the OT plugged and unmounted.

#13

Were you plugged in USB when playing live?

#14

Yes. I was alternating between loading samples and messing with them, so the OT stayed plugged into the computer while I was messing around.

#15

You were transferring samples live? You know you can load and stream from the CF card, right?

#16

no, sorry, maybe my message wasn’t clear. What I did was:

  1. switch to USB disk mode (OT is not playing anything)
  2. mount the USB peripheral and copy some samples to it
  3. unmount the USB peripheral, thus exiting the USB disk mode, but not unplugging the USB cable
  4. work on the OT (ie. load samples from the CF card into flex and static pools, do some stuff)
#17

Ah ok i get it now :wink:

So just prepare your samples on CF card before going to the show and enjoy the show without a USB cable plugged!

#18

Only happened once and it was because of the tranferring of a corrupt file and i switched it off with the cable still attached. I rebooted and all was good. Never happened again.