Troubleshoot Digital Performer Crash

Disable Digital Performer’s crash reporter

Digital Performer 9 has its own crash reporter, which intercepts macOS crash reporter and send the report to MOTU automatically. MOTU is constantly monitoring sent report to improve their products.  However, this function prevents from user to view the crash report.

If you are able to reproduce the crash, I encourage you to temporary disable MOTU’s crash reporter so you can troubleshoot by yourself.

1. Go to Applications Folder ➡︎ Utilities Folder, then open Terminal.app
2. Copy/paste following line (all in 1 line)
   arch -x86_64 "/Applications/Digital Performer.app/Contents/MacOS/Digital Performer" --disable_crash_reporter &
3. Hit [Enter]

Digital Performer starts up with its crash reporter disabled. If you quit Digital Performer and start it again with double-clicking the application as normal you do, the MOTU crash reporter will be activated again.

Make it crash.  If you do not know how to crash Digital Performer, you sill need to start it with above method with Terminal.app until you see the crash. When crashed, if macOS presents the crash notification, click “See details” then jumps to Step 3 below.

Open Console.app (Skip to Step 3 if Crash Notification shows the crash report)

1. Use Spotlight to start the Console.app by first click on the Spotlight icon (or type ⌘ + Space)
   
2. Type “Console” into Spotlight.  When highlighted, hit [Enter] to start Console.app
   
3. Locate “User Diagnostic Report” and find Digital Performer item. Make sure the date and time matches your crash incident. (note that older Mac OS X Console.app might not have “User Diagnostic Report” item. Try to find under Log Files ➡︎ ~/Library/Logs/  ➡︎ CrashRepoter) Look for “Crashed Thread” and make a note of the number listed.  In this example, it is “0” as shown.
   
4. Scroll down to locate the noted thread where it gives you a clue what crashed.
   

This information is only useful to determine if something outside of Digital Performer, e.g., a 3rd party plugin crashed Digital Performer, then you can remove it to stop the crash. If the log shows no noticeable 3rd party name then you need to consult with MOTU. The 3rd party plugins are located in System level directory, which you will not have a direct access.

To access AU plugin folder

1. Go to Finder
2. Type ⌘ + Shift + G
3. Paste this line
   /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components
4. Hit [Enter]