TROUBLESHBOOTING
The most commonly encountered problems when getting started with the Sound Loom
- (1) Sound Loom fails to start
On the MAC, if you are using the uncompiled version,
you must have TK/Tcl running on your computer
If you do not, when you double-click on the file soundloom.tcl
it will fail to start the Sound Loom.
You should install the Launcher, so
that the MAC knows to call TK/Tcl when you double click on soundloom.tcl.
TK/Tcl can be downloaded from the web
You must download a good version of TK/Tcl
Do not use version 8.4.9. Version 8.3 works fine, as do some earlier versions of 8.4
OR
CDP programs or Soundloom are in a Directory with spaces in its name
e.g. "My Documents". Best to place the CDP working directory in the base directory of your drive.
- (2) cdparse error message (at startup)
You must preset the environment variables:
If you do not, you will get an error message about the program cdparse
- (4) Cannot locate the wish program:
(If you are running Loom version 12.0.0 or later, you do not need to install TK/Tcl).
wish is the name of the Tk/Tcl program which runs the Sound Loom
(prior to version 12.0.0)
and you should have received a version of this with your original CDP package. (You may also have
updated it from one of the sources on the web).
wish should be in the bin subdirectory of your Tcl directory.
If you placed the Tcl folder in your Program Files folder on your main hard drive,
(and if that hard drive is "c") the location of wish will be
c:/Program Files/tcl/bin/wish
This may be different if
- You put the Tcl folder somewhere else on your computer.
- Your main hard drive has a different letter identifier (e.g. "d")
- (5) Other startup problems.
You may be missing one or more of the Sound Loom's related programs.
These are cdparse, cdparams, cdparams_other,diskspace, gobo, maxsamp2, progmach, listdate, histconv, timetap, tkusage
and tkusage_other.
Versions of the Loom before 9.9.5 also require logdate.
You will also need the latest releases of columns and vectors to access all the facilities on the Sound Loom Table Editor.
- Cannot get files from directory.
You must use the correct CDP conventions for directory and file names.
- You must not use 'relative address' conventions
(like starting a line with a slash, on the PC)
- You must not use incorrect conventions for accessing other hard drives, or peripherals
(e.g. on the PC the correct convention is "d:/" for drive d).
If you do either of these things, you will either generate an error message,
or the file you want will fail to appear.
It is also best to avoid spaces in names, i.e.
- Files whose names contain spaces.
- Files in directories where any part of the directory name contains spaces.
The Loom can now handle these in most cases, but there are occasional exceptions with certain Loom functions.
If you encounter a problem when trying to load files from a directory,
check that no part of the directory path contains spaces
e.g. somedir/some otherdir/topdir/myfile.wav has a space in "some otherdir".
If this is a problem for already existing directories, copy the files you want to use
into a new directory, without spaces in the name.
If this is a problem for existing files, rename (or copy to a file with a new name),
using underscores ('_') or hyphens ('-') instead of the spaces.
- Bulk Process and Batchfiling errors.
When you bulk process sounds (or process them in batch files)
the Loom has to assume that you have checked the syntax well
for every process you use. But this may not be the case.
e.g. if you decide to cut several sounds to 2 seconds in length, but some of the sounds are
shorter than 2 seconds, the cutting process will fail with those sounds.
For each process that fails the Bulk processor (or the batch file processor) will throw up a TK/Tcl error message
(it tells you it can't find a "channel").
You should click the "OK" boxes on the error message dialogue boxes (for every failed process)
and carry on working normally.
Any failed processes will, of course, produce no ouput.
With batchfiles, if subsequent batchfile processes depend on the existence of that ouput, they too will fail.
- "CDPARSE" errors after the system has been working fine on the MAC.
If you use software to ‘clean up’ your MAC (e.g. Drive Genius) and you subsequently get the following type of message
- “Wrong number of props (0)
Returned by CDPARSE from file …..
you have probably inadvertently deleted the environment file. (environment.plist or .bash_profile depending
on which you chose to set up originally).
Reinstall this again to restore your system. (See Setting the environment variables).
- Table Editor window fails to open up on the MAC.
Some users have reported this problem when using the uncompiled version with Active-Tcl 8.5.2
If you encounter this problem, replace Tcl with version 8.4.7 or 8.5.5
- Sound View window appears black, or completely full.
- Processes where output times refer to the output file:
Some CDP processes produce output that is longer than the input sound (e.g. texture) but where the
time-changing parameters refer to times in the output sound.
In these cases you're presented with a block of signal unrelated to the input sound, but of the correct
length for the output so you can draw your parameters over it.
- Using the uncompiled version of the Loom on the MAC:
The 'Snack' package in TK/Tcl (which draws the Sound View graphics in the Loom), after version 8.4.9
is not quite up to date with developments in OS X.
Sound View compiled with versions of TK/Tcl later than 8.4.9 produces a solid black rectangle,
when it attempts to display a soundfile.
It is advisable to use the compiled version of the Loom on the MAC.
- OTHER PROBLEMS.
If you are sure that your problem is not listed on this page,
you can report a possible bug to the CDP (but please check all the items on this page first !).