NOTION Music Forum

I'm evaluating Notion 3 (3.2.9960) and I've discovered a strange behavior, it looks like a bug to me. When I input a note with the mouse, sometimes the note is inserted one step higher than it should be, i.e. if I position the cursor on a G4 and click the button to insert the note, Notion inserts an A4 instead. At first I thought I was careless, maybe I just moved the mouse while clicking or something like that, but now I've been very careful and it's still doing that, apparently randomly. Am I doing something wrong?

Wolfy,

I am experiencing the same problem on my iMac and have been in contact with the excellent folks at Notion Tech Support to find a solution, so far with no luck. In the meantime, let's compare notes:

I am on a Mac, recently updated (not clean install) to OS X Lion 10.7.2.
I have used Notion successfully for a couple of years now. This problem is recent, and it doesn't seem to be Notion's fault. I worked with the same version (3.2.9960) for months before I upgraded the system software and only now see the problem.
Other problems have occurred as well, perhaps coincidences: Fonts that belonged in the Macintosh HD/Library/Fonts folder had suddenly "moved themselves" up one file level, to Macintosh HD/Library.
Using different mice doesn't help.
Booting from an external drive with a clean Lion installation doesn't fix the problem either...

How do your particulars compare?

Best,
Thorrild

Thorrild,

I'm sorry you experience the same weird problem but I'm glad I'm not the only one!

I use Lion 10.7.2 myself on a MacBook Pro. I have no other major issues but I agree than Lion is far from being perfect yet: there are still a few minor and cosmetic issues every now and then. I've been evaluating Notion for just a week, so I can't speak for the past, but I have a Mac Pro with Snow Leopard, I can try Notion there and see if I experience the same problem.

Good luck!

Thanks, Wolfy.

Please drop a note here after you try Notion on your Snow Leopard machine.

Best,
Thorrild

Hi Guys,

Brian here from NOTION. We have identified this issue as being a bug in NOTION. It seems to only exist on Lion and does not occur on Snow Leopard. Thanks for your patience while we further investigate.

Best,

Brian,

Did I tell you how wonderful you are? Now I can enjoy my weekend without wondering if I should have myself institutionalized [well, not because of this, anyway] ...

Thanks!
Thorrild

I ordered a 2TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive (7,200 RPM), and it should arrive early next week, at which time I will clone the current primary Snow Leopard boot drive and then install Lion to do a bit of testing, but in the interim there are a few experiments that might be productive:

(1) Determine whether the bug occurs in (a) page view and continuous view or (b) one but not both . . .

(2) Determine whether the bug occurs at different zoom levels . . .

My best guess is that an API function was replaced in the latest version of Lion, but instead of being backward compatible, it does the numerical screen coordinates for mouse clicks differently, but it also could be an API function involved with floating point or integer arithmetic . . .

It probably is something simple, and the more isolated the bug is, the easier it should be to fix . . .

For a while, Apple had only one platform (Mac OS X), but now they have two platforms (Mac OS X and iOS), and the two platforms are related intimately since there is a lot of commonality, and when both platforms are evolving in different ways this increases the probability that a change necessary for hardware reasons in one platform can affect the way API functions work in the other platform, where in this instance the fastest evolving platform probably is iOS . . .

As I recall, Lion is starting to get some of the Multi-Touch stuff from iOS, and this bug certainly fits the category of GUI activities that involve mice and fingers . . .

Lots of FUN!

The new 2TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive (7,200 RPM) internal hard drive arrived, and it took about five minutes to install, where the time was devoted to unscrewing the four screws that held the original Macintosh HD that came with the 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro and then attaching the internal hard drive holder to the new hard drive, and once the hard drives were swapped I cloned the Snow Leopard drive and then installed Mac OS X 10.7.2 (Lion) on the cloned drive, which I named "Lion HD" . . .

I had to change the path for the various IK Multimedia virtual instrument libraries and the Kontakt 5 libraries, as well as verifying the user name and key code for Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU), which took about 15 minutes, and now everything appears to be working nicely . . .

I did a few NOTION 3 tests for the "notes appear one step higher" bug, and it occurs in a few scenarios but not all the time . . .

As best as I can determine, it is not dependent on page view or continuous view, but instead is dependent on the zoom level, where it occurs at higher zoom levels ("zoom-in") . . .

For reference, I use a 20" Apple Cinema display at 1680 by 1050 resolution, and at the zoom level I use most of the time the "notes appear one step higher" bug does not occur, but when I "zoom-in" a time or two, the bug occurs, although somewhat inconsistently since it depends on where the mouse pointer is positioned at the time of the click . . .

There is a "snap-to" type of thing happening, and it appears that the range for the "snap-to" algorithm is imprecise or a bit fuzzy . . .

I do not consider this to be a "show stopper", since the workaround is to move the note to the correct location, which I do most of the time anyway. Another workaround is to use a zoom level where the bug does not occur or at least occurs infrequently . . .

Nevertheless, the "notes appear one step higher" bug definitely occurs in Mac OS X 10.7.2 (Lion), so it needs to be fixed . . .

Lots of FUN!