AmpliTube 5 Stuck on startup

[wollamooloo0]

My experience, not a reply on behalf of IK, just a 'worked for me' thing.

I found that there were files required by AT5 that macOS had put on the cloud. Layman explanation would be that AT5's request for those files isn't enough to make macOS download them automatically, so it freezes, waiting for them to be available locally.

I manually forced a download of all the files in the application and user folder, then it fires up immediately.

This solved the problem for me. Thank you very much!!

[davidlythgoe]

[coxyt5150]

Keen to try this solution, can someone provide the steps? I can't see where I confirm if the application package contents are in the cloud or local? And if local where to force them to download?

My experience, not a reply on behalf of IK, just a 'worked for me' thing.

I found that there were files required by AT5 that macOS had put on the cloud. Layman explanation would be that AT5's request for those files isn't enough to make macOS download them automatically, so it freezes, waiting for them to be available locally.

I manually forced a download of all the files in the application and user folder, then it fires up immediately.

This solved the problem for me. Thank you very much!!

[davidlythgoe]

Hi,

When you have a lot of files on your machine the operating system automatically moves some folders from being 'on your machine & on iCloud' to being 'on iCloud only'. When it does that it puts a cloud icon next to those folders.

So you don't need to move that folder, you just need it not to have a cloud icon next to it, because AT5 doesn't like that - I assume because it can't get its files quickly enough if it has to wait for the cloud.

The important folder should be in the "Documents" folder.

I am running macos Sonoma 14.6.1 (23G93), so I hope the following is relevant for other versions.

A few ways to get to the Documents folder then, in each case first open Finder, then do one of these 3 options:

1.
Command + Shift + O

2.
From the Finder top menu -> select "Go" then "Documents"

3.
Finder from the Finder top menu -> then select "Settings" then "Sidebar" from the top menu items there and tick "Documents", about halfway down under iCloud. Also, you need to make sure Sidebar is visible, so Finder->View->Show Sidebar.

Hopefully that gets you to the Documents folder. Within that you should see the folder "IK Multimedia". I would then right-click (or two-finger press on trackpad) and select "Download Now". The greyed-out cloud icon with a down arrow should then turn into a pie chart icon and you need to wait a bit until that goes from empty to filled. If you are not seeing "Download now" in the dropdown then it's already downloaded.

If you have a lot of IK Multimedia products, then you could just do the steps above but just on the Amplitube 5 folder to save time or establish it works.

That's most likely the issue I think, the application package is less likely to be put on iCloud by the OS. But if the above doesn't work, then in addition to the steps above:

1.
Open the Applications folder by opening Finder then: Shift + Command + A

2.
On AmpliTube 5.app, Right-click (or two-finger press on trackpad) "Show package contents". If there is a cloud icon against the package folder (I bet there won't be though) then "Download Now" on that too.

Hopefully that gets it working for you. Shout otherwise. But just to emphasise, I'm just a user, not an IK or Apple bod

Lythy

[Peter_IK]

Note that the most recent update to AmpliTube 5 specifically addressed long startup times.

[coxyt5150]

^^^^
@davidlythgoe
That worked perfectly! Thanks for taking the time to share these steps, much appreciated.

[DarkStar]

When you have a lot of files on your machine the operating system automatically moves some folders from being 'on your machine & on iCloud' to being 'on iCloud only'. When it does that it puts a cloud icon next to those folders.

To me, that seems a rather silly feature.
-- What triggers the move?
-- How does the OS "know" which folders are safe to move?
-- Can you mark a folder (and its sub-folders ...) are "note to be moved"?

[davidlythgoe]

Hi,

Looked into this quite a lot for AT5 and other reasons.

To emphasise this is an Apple thing not an IK thing.

And it reeeeally doesn't know whether it's safe.

But, it doesn't 'move' it, it just changes it from being 'local & cloud', to 'cloud only'. It stays in the same place - virtually anyway.

I guess the feature [bug] is aimed at situations where if you have limited hard-drive space and temporarily need 40GB for a Final Cut project that you're going to delete tomorrow, it offloads a bunch of other larger files (probably less frequently used larger files) in favour of the one you are working on. I'm not defending the idea, only it's good sometimes to know that there is a reason for the thing that drives you to distraction.

I wish you could mark a folder as not to be moved but you can't within macos. I understand that you can get other software to do that but can never be bothered. CloudMounter, SyncMate, ChronoSync.

You can always turn off file sync, but that is a bit all or nothing and is going to remove what is a really helpful backup of all your user stuff if the hard-drive goes phhhzzzt one day.

I have always taken it as a sign that I am banging up against my hard-drive capacity and I should perhaps consider moving at least series 1 to 8 of Battlestar Galactica from my library.

Anyway, as PeterIK said, hopefully the latest AT5 version addresses this, but it won't fix the Apple macos behaviour.

Best
Lythy

[DarkStar]

Thank you for the reply.

One last one - does OSX let you know that it has removed the local copy?

[davidlythgoe]

Only by updating the icon next to the file/folder.

I think:

Cloud icon only: File is only in iCloud, not stored locally.

Cloud with an arrow: File is in iCloud, but available for you to manually download to local storage.

No Cloud: yay, maybe you bought enough storage 3 years ago before you knew that 1TB wouldn't always be enough.

Normally it's doing this all the time in the background