I’m running Ardour 8.12 on a Mac Mini with an Apple M4 Pro chip. I have a project with 22 tracks. If I run with "Use Mac OS to determine GUI redraw areas’ checked, the project timeline moves in spurts and any moves (i.e. changing fader levels, adjusting the levels on plugins) are choppy. If I uncheck the box, things run more smoothly except that after 30s to 1 min, the.entire projects turns completely white and I can’t see anything to make adjustments. I’ve tried several different color schemes (including the default dark), I have not created any custom schemes, I’ve uninstalled and re-installed Ardour, rebooted the computer, and opened the project while disabling all plugins. In all of these cases, the project turns white and is basically unusable. I run with the computer set to High Power Energy Mode. Any suggestions as to how to fix this? I like Ardour, and would like to resolve this issue.
I’ve experienced this before with some plugins. But I think it had to do with my older Mac OS X I was using.
What OS are you using?
I’m using Sequoia 15.6.1.
Okay, well in that case I suggest filing a bug report here:
http://tracker.ardour.org/
Also, unless you can fill in the bug report in less than ~5min I suggest typing your text in a separate text file, and when you’re ready just copy and paste it into the report. (This is because the submission page expires automatically after 5min or so, and will delete your text if you’re not careful… -_-)
Also, you are welcome to ask the online chat, as maybe someone there will have an answer for you!
https://web.libera.chat//#ardour
I’m sorry about your problem, and I hope it it resolvable soon.
If it is a genuine bug, then you might get a fix sooner than later if you submit a report and/or talk to the chat. But in that case, to continue your work, you would have to get the latest v9 pre-release with that particular bug fixed (-or wait for the official release of v9).
But, who knows? Maybe there’s actually a super simple fix to your issue in the Ardour Preferences, or on macOS somewhere… I would keep poking around a bit.
-J 
That sounds like an issue due to disabling “Use Mac OS to determine GUI redraw areas”.
What display(s) do you use?
Well yes, that’s what they said, but the problem with that setting turned ON is choppiness:
Yes we know about that issue, which is why we added that option to keep track of what needs to be redrawn by ourselves.
However that fails on some systems and macOS requests a full redraw every time, which is why things get slow.
Ardour is not the only application affected by this. This issue happens more commonly when an external display/monitor is present; but we’re yet to determine the exact circumstances.
I have a Dell U2717D. It worked fantastically when I was on Linux.
The developers may want to talk to the Mixbus developers. I use Mixbus with no problems whatsoever.
We are the developers of both Ardour and Mixbus.
It is interesting, since Mixbus 11 code-base is identical, and also uses the same build host and SDK as Ardour 8.12
I know this to be true, way down in my gut, given how the flow of changes works: the Harrison devs have often been able to contribute to Ardour, but the arrow flows in THAT direction (as it should).
That set aside, I bet a dollar to a gross^2 of donuts that the majority of posters on the Harrison Mixbus forum would never believe it for a moment. For at least a big chunk of the more vocal folks there, Ardour is the albatross dragging down the Mixbus happy place they are Just Sure ™ has been right around the corner for years.
Lame doesn’t even begin to cover the case.
Just to be clear, I am NOT putting down Ardour. I obviously have both on my computer. To me, both Ardour and Mixbus have their strengths. I would like to know a fix for the issue that I am having. I know, and have known, that Mixbus is based on Ardour, which is why I made the suggestion, thinking that the developers that put out the Mixbus DAW were different from the Ardour developers and were adding to the Ardour code.