Mac System Crash

[jasonphelps]

I've been using various forms of DVD and DCP-O-MATIC for a while now and have loved the program. I'm in a small operation within a university (and would consider myself "medium" level of understanding with this type of process).

I recently upgraded (I use that word loosely) my Mac, which has the below specs. I can add others if what's below isn't helpful. Since the upgrade, every time I try to create a DCP using any form of the -O-MATIC line, my entire Mac crashes and reboots between 50-75% of the way through the encoding process. This Mac was formatted before it was handed to me (making it a clean slate) and everything else on it (so far) appears to be operating normally.

Specs as follows:
OS: Sierra, Version 10.12.6
27-inch, late 2012
Processor: 3.4 GHz, Intel Core i7
Memory: 32GB, 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB

I have also tried this on the most recent version of DCP-O-MATIC 2 that is available on the site, but the issue persists. It happens consistently every time. I've tried it using paths that go straight to the desktop as well as through a lightning-attached G-Drive, both with similar results. Out of the many times I have tried, it has only succeeded once. I cannot explain what was different that one time, as it was using a file and path that currently still causes a crash and I haven't made any changes since that one success.

Again, it is not the program that crashes. It is my entire computer. It is sudden - no errors appear before the shutdown. Upon automatic restart, I get the typical "Your computer restarted because of a problem" messages, and it recognizes that DCP-O-MATIC was running at the crash and allows me to re-open it (although it doesn't retrieve the project I was working on).

Sorry for the long post - just trying to give as much information as possible. Let me know if there is something specific I'm missing that would be helpful.

If anyone has any insight as to why these crashes happen, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you,
Jason

[Carsten]

Can you use any other heavy lifting software on that machine without crashing it?

I use DCP-o-matic for a very long time and (literally) actually ran each and every test and release version on various Macs (and windows machines). Yes, there have been some few buggy versions, but I never had it crash the way you describe. My first guess thus would be there is something wrong with your OS X installation or hardware. Maybe defective memory module?

- Carsten

[carl]

As Carsten suggests, I would check for hardware problems first. Perhaps it is overheating? Maybe you could test your RAM with something like MemTest86.

[jasonphelps]

Thanks both of you! Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was my machine. I'm taking your suggestion and running that memory test program you linked. Hopefully that will give me insight.

If I run that (plus do a test with a different heavy-loading program) and it all comes back okay, I'll reply again for troubleshooting help with more information. If not, then you can assume my Mac is just got some gunkiness going on and I'll deal with it.

This program is amazing, though! Thank you for keeping it alive!