To put it more specifically : X-Wayland in latest Fedora is somewhat buggy and crashes Ardour.
You should file a Fedora bug report.
1 Like
It has been unstable for me as well on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I am using Xorg video. Plugins that previously worked now cause random crashes. I have also been using Pipewire / Jack. I am beginning to suspect Pipewire. When I used only ALSA on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ardour was very very stable with version 8.6.
Ardour never freeze to me… I’ve had the occasional crash due to bugs, but each version fixes them as development progresses.
But my side is running stable.
Wayland still sucks.
I’m having some crashes also with version 8.12, these did not happen with a previous version I used (was it 8.9 ?). I’m on Manjaro KDE which still uses Xorg and does not use pipewire I think. I only use ACE - plugins and Jack 1. I guess I must debug this someday. I’m also using nVidia proprietary driver. The crashes occur most likely when I’ve been recording and editing a long time ( 1 - 2 hours ). Luckily I’m saving my progress as snapshots regularly so no lost work here.
It’s been very stable for me since version 6, before that I would get the occasional crash. - but was that Ardour or was it my system at the time, we’ll never know but I’m guessing it wasn’t Ardour.
1 Like
My system is Windows and I would have no chance of using the FIREFACE UC USB unless I use an apple box which I don’t want. Digital audio is a new field for me that I’m learning. Ardour and Mixbus are supporting me with stability so that my learning curve is not flattened by crashes and other inadequacies. Many thanks to the developers for this.
I know I shouldn’t swear to it, but my system is stable.
1 Like
I use Ardour a lot (on Fedora with X11) and just accept the odd crash as a fact of life, it has always been like that but is such an incredibly useful DAW otherwise, that it wouldn’t stop me from using it (and crash recovery works very well).
And frankly, DAWs and audio stuff is so complex, most users rely on a bunch of third party plugins that are beyond the control of the DAW maintainers, it is a wonder any of this stuff works at all. It is not only Ardour, most DAWs I have used, have these issues.
The error I get is almost always the same: Gdk-ERROR. The program received an X-Window System Error. The error was BadWindow (invalid Window parameter).
It almost always happens when closing a plugin GUI window. Now, I don’t know if that’s an Ardour bug or these plugins have some kind of issue. But it happens with various plugins, some more than others.
I usually run Ardour with the --sync argument, which seems to reduce these crashes a lot.
To be fair : since you’ve changed both your OS and your audio system; how do you know that it’s actually Ardour that’s unstable?
Especially since it apparently are plugins, and not Ardour itself, that are crashing.
Ubuntu 24.04 seems to be using PipeWire 1.0.4, which is more than a year old.
If you can’t go back to using pure ALSA you should try to install the latest PW (1.4.2) and see if things are improving.
Ardour developer Paul Davis has said that he thinks PW 1.2 is the oldest version you should use, for it to be working somewhat optimally.
I have ubuntu mate with the mate desktop. And i almost always use Alsa. Sometimes i use pulseaudio. In my opinion is Alsa the most stable audio backend. I use linux native plugins and ardour runs very well and stable.
3 Likes
Reaper and Bitwig are stable in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS . They have very few issues compared to Ardour. They can run for hours without issues. Ardour and Mixbus32C V10 crash about every hour, in some way shape or form especially during MIDI Editing and plugin editing. Sometimes strange audio glitches. Other problems are one offs and never reoccur in the same session at a later date. Similar problems occur in Win10 Version of Ardour and Mixbus. Cubase, Bitwig and Reaper will work for hours in Win10 without issue.
Yes, my Pipewire is showing version 1.0.5. Old.
Thank you for pointing that out. I don’t want to manually install PW > 1.2. I don’t want to break my system.
That’s a strong argument for running Reaper or Bitwig. They are both excellent DAWs.
Much more productive than complaining about Ardour.
BTW, I can cause issues in Reaper most of the times I use it within 5-10 mins. Bitwig seems better but my experience with it is limited.
I have never been able to run Ardour with pipewire reliably with any version of pipewire so far.
I suspect the issue is related that Ardour directly exposes the complete track/bus routing while the other DAWs you mention only expose inputs and outputs. And it is likely also very workflow dependent.
I can run Ardour reliably without xruns for days with Ardour’s ALSA backend, and my first try with Bitwig demo caused it to crash… so YMMV. I found my DAW 
6 Likes
For me, Ardour does have the best UI and workflow compared to any DAW that I use. I am complaining because I would hope many of these small issues could be fixed, as they also exist in Mixbus. You and X42 do address issues when there is solid evidence. Thank you for that! I do not have time and expertise to generate bug reports that are useful to fixing issues.
Thank you for this open source DAW. It is the best open source available.
1 Like
Thank you for mentioning that. I am definitely going back to ALSA.
IIRC Bitwig crashed on me the first run as well I was disappointed.
I have stuck to Reaper V 6.83. It worked well, and I did not want to upgrade for fear that it would not work as well, and the new features in V7 were not worth it for me. Just curious, what causes the crash in Reaper for you ?
I don’t recall precisely the cause(s) of the crash. But I am used to the Ardour workflow and when I use it with Reaper … problems.
I would also like to point out that Ardour’s way of doing things is superior to the other DAWs. When using Cubase, I feel like I am looking for an afterthought stacked on 25+ years of development when trying to find where they stuffed a feature. Bitwig it seemed necessarily clunky and difficult to do certain small tasks. Reaper is OK, but it just does not flow good for me.
Having the REC / EDIT / MIX / CUE buttons is fantastic! I would like a MIDI button myself, that shows just the MIDI tracks with the piano roll at the bottom when the track is selected. Maybe in the future ?
Most things, if not all, can be done from a left-click menu select on a region. The channel strips are well laid out in Ardour. Usually no need to scroll and hunt like in other DAW’s.
There are plenty positives to Ardour. I first tried Ardour in about 2003. I think it only did audio with possibly LADSPA plugins. I thought " Hmm… this looks interesting…I will have to keep an eye on this project". I was trying to use ProTools free at the time, but didn’t use it much because of hard drive space. It has become an awesome open source project.
1 Like
Does that mean you uninstall pipewire, or is there a way to use Alsa while pipewire is installed? (I am about to upgrade my PC, and the new installation comes with pipewire.)
When the Ardour ALSA backend is started the software sends a request to pipewire to allow taking exclusive access of the chosen interface, and pipewire releases the current access for Ardour to take over.
4 Likes