I had a parse error yesterday, after the arrangement refused to mute a thru track.
Saved the project to new, but the new project also seems corrupted.
I read that you have to do a empty reset if this is the case, but what is the correct order in this proces?
What is corrupted ? A bank ?
I don’t think so. PARSE ERROR is on the card.
I got this message with the old project and the new project that I saved to new. (not at home, nicked a picture from the internet)
When I press NO the project seems to have been loaded and works fine. But when I save it to a new project the message comes up again when reloading.
Check if there is a faulty bank (IIRC after Bank button press you can see a blinking red bank on OT MKI, which is not the selected bank).
You can try to save and reload the bank, or delete it if it doesn’t work.
@Hooger sorry I wrote something wrong with YES. So check above, I edited.
If you delete a bank, there is a message error, but a new bank is created after loading
I have bought a new card and stopped using the elektron supplied card. Since replacing I haven’t had this issue.
I had a parse error last week for the first time in about 4 years. Last time it happened the project that gave me the error had a lot of missing sequence data and changed settings when I opened it, but this time I couldn’t find any issues, saved a new versions, backed up my whole card and reformatted just to be safe.
This is with a nice SanDisk card.
Purchased a brand new Octatrack 2 months ago, and I got a parse error after reopening my first saved project. It’s happened a total of seven times in the last two months, opening various projects.
I’m using the included Octatrack branded SanDisk that came in the box. I contacted Elektron support and a new CF card is on its way to me.
Older posts about this issue claimed that it was the poor quality of the Octatrack card, and replacing it with a SanDisk card resolved the issue.
My concern is that the included card is SanDisk, so what says this won’t keep happening? Is this truly a CF card issue? Back in the day I used many CF cards for digital photography and never once had an issue.
Thanks @sezare56, gonna try some things when I am home tonight!
Never turn off the Octatrack while the LED is blinking. It indicates data is being written to the Compact Flash card and disrupting this process may corrupt data. Only when the LED emits a dimmed green and steady light the Octatrack might be switched off.
Never remove the card while data is being read or written to the it. Doing so might corrupt f iles and data. Only when the LED emits a dimmed green and steady light the card might be removed.
SYNC TO CARD is a recommended operation before ejecting the Compact Flash card as it will sync the cache to the card. Removing the card without first card syncing the project might result in data losses. If a project has been saved using the project SAVE command, information about the saved state will be written to the card as well.
Maybe you didn’t notice some little writting errors in the pictures you took.
I had errors.
A writting problem for sure. I can’t tell what are protocols to write without errors on a CF CARD, and how it depends on its quality.
All I can say is that there were quite a few faulty cards with OT MKIIs…
I had between 2 and 4 errors like this after 7 years with OT MKI, using 16GB Kingston card, which ended full, and 1 errors with my new 64GB Sandisk Extreme.
Once I had everything fucked up, but I’m pretty sure I turned off OT while loading or writting. The card was full (16GB Kingston).
Anyway, backup !
Sadly I only had one small project left to backup, everything else was lost. I finally unplugged it and put it on a shelf, as much as I enjoy using it, it’s discouraging to keep losing work.
Keeping fingers crossed that a new card resolves things 
I love using the damn thing!
I’m also considering buying a new cf-card (I use the one I got with the OTMKII)
Sure, making back ups is key, but I had this parse error after tweaking and building for hours, so better safe than sorry. 
Also safer with Save as New (save just after).
Have you created an Elektron support ticket? They responded to my issue quickly, and immediately shipped out a replacement card. I can purchase a card myself for around $30, but this being a known issue it’s completely reasonable to accept a replacement.
Good point! But what is the chance that I will get another OT-card that’s not of the best quality?
True, that’s also a concern for me. I feel it’s part of the troubleshooting process to give another card a try though, before moving on to the possibility that it’s a hardware issue.
Can be a backup card !
Keeping the worst or the best card for backup ? 
I think I solved the problem: I got the parse error while editing an arrangement. I removed the arrangement files from the old and the save to new-project and both are working fine now. For what it’s worth…
I never had a CF card fail in my life before, but in the last 6 weeks I’ve had problems with 5 of them and two USB thumb drives, and three of the CF cards were brand new. At this point I’m half-seriously blaming the solar cycle.
Yeah, CF cards wouldn’t actually be affected by magnetic storms but its the best I’ve got.