oivindi

Just installed version 6.0.4 of Max, but to my disappointment I find that a serious file open bug reported many, many weeks ago has not been finished.

I am surprised this doesn't bother a lot of people, because this bug means you can't open sample/sound files that does NOT contain a suffix, which is the norm rather than the exception on OS X. Using "replace" into a buffer, for example, means you can only open sound files that have a suffix/extension.

It seems to only affect Max 6 installed on Lion, but ... are you guys not using Lion? Or just not using sound files ;) Have you found a workaround? Or are you all using suffixes (.wav, .aiff etc.)?

I am now trying to decide whether to rename thousands of sample files, adding a suffix, to make them readable by Max, or wait one or two more months (or longer) for the next round of bugfixes.

This is working fine on Max 5, btw, even on Lion, so don't know what's going on.

arent-more-people-annoyed-by-this

Just got official word from Cycling, and extensionless files are no longer supported in Max.

Isn't it easy enough to select all and 'show extensions'?

I would've thought that Max doesn't care as hiding the extensions is only a GUI thing, with the files obviously still having extensions.

Nope, not that simple. These files simply don't have extensions, and won't show anything except the file name when I turn on "show all file extensions" in the Finder.

>It seems to only affect Max 6 installed on Lion, but ... are you guys not using Lion?

Nah uh. Not on your life, my friend. I don't know, it was something about being in a school environment and have 50 students all have *different problems* appear as soon as Lion hit. So many students opting to downgrade to SnowLeopard, sooo much trouble.

>It seems to only affect Max 6 installed on Lion, but ... are you guys not using Lion? 

Nah uh. Not on your life, my friend. I don't know, it was something about being in a school environment and have 50 students all have *different problems* appear as soon as Lion hit. So many students opting to downgrade to SnowLeopard, sooo much  trouble.


More annoyed by the lousy timing and functionally useless Rewire support. /rant

Right, I didn't know you could have files with straight up no extensions (other than hidden ones). I assume that when you double click the file it opens with an appropriate program?

On Lion here and loving it. Took a bit to get used to some things, but I'm into it overall.

crx091081gb, we would love to hear about any issues you are experiencing in these (or any other) departments. Please refer to the bug reporting form for what we would need from you:

You can also email support at cycling 74 dot com with the info if you would prefer.

crx091081gb, we would love to hear about any issues you are experiencing in these (or any other) departments.  Please refer to the bug reporting form for what we would need from you:

Re: ReWire support -- I think I'm going to give up and try to make it all work with soundflower. I can't submit a bug report because it just seems random. Last weekend I was doing a live show (a pancake breakfast, oh yeah!) and when I started up my system, max/msp no longer even showed up as a ReWire option. It was working just prior -- no reboot, no nothing. It just stopped working. When I get a free moment I'll see if I can get it work again, but if I recall it was also a process seemingly ditctated by some kind of chaotic attractor. After going through the delete/copy/link/delete/link/copy dance with the MSPReWireDevice.bundle several times it mysteriously started working.

I realize this isn't a Cycling issue so much as a Propellerheads issue, and I'm really hoping that maybe soundflower is a better solution. I really need to interconnect various processes to make the Sounds I Love.

Re: ReWire support -- I think I'm going to give up and try to make it all work with soundflower.  I can't submit a bug report because it just seems random.  Last weekend I was doing a live show (a pancake breakfast, oh yeah!) and when I started up my system, max/msp no longer even showed up as a ReWire option.  It was working just prior -- no reboot, no nothing.  It just stopped working.  When I get a free moment I'll see if I can get it work again, but if I recall it was also a process seemingly ditctated by some kind of chaotic attractor.  After going through the delete/copy/link/delete/link/copy dance with the MSPReWireDevice.bundle several times it mysteriously started working.

I realize this isn't a Cycling issue so much as a Propellerheads issue, and I'm really hoping that maybe soundflower is a better solution.  I really need to interconnect various processes to make the Sounds I Love.

of course i totally dislike the idea that max stops supporting it, because it is a matter of upwards incompatibility.

but saying that using no extensions for .aif files on OS X would be the norm goes too far IMO.

i would say that about 99% of all OSX programs which can write aif use extensions (or at least suggest such an extension as default in their save dialog), and even in OS 7 - OS 9 it was kind of standard.

if someone did not use extensions on mac 10 or 20 years ago (and yes i do have a handful such files on my disks too) he was working in a way that made his audio files and/or projects incompatible with windows already then.

beeing so ignorant for non OS 7 systems back in the days will now be punished in OS 10.6, thats called justice.

i would say that about 99% of all OSX programs which can write aif use extensions (or at least suggest  such an extension as default in their save dialog), and even in OS 7 - OS 9 it was kind of standard.

if someone did not use extensions on mac 10 or 20 years ago (and yes i do have a handful such files on my disks too) he was working in a way that made his audio files and/or projects incompatible with windows already then. 

"Justice"? That's a big word for a file compatibility issue.

Anyways, lots of audio apps have no problems with these files, even on Lion. Live and Peak read them just fine, and even something as peculiar as Metasynth have no problems. Logic 9 also reads them perfectly. In fact, I have a huge list of audio apps that can read them just fine, but, alas, it is now Max 6 that forces me to rename them.

Windows compatibility? I have used a Mac for 23 years, never transferred my projects to a Windows machine ever. So ignorant? Not really, no - I just haven't had the need for it.

I am curious why support for extensionless files was dropped. While OS X on the Aqua level does use extensiosn to figure out what what app to open a file with when the appropriate metadata is not there, Unix systems at the core don't care about file extensions. Sure, extensions make doing stuff like 

 easier, but not something the system as a core relies on. I imagine 

 are now using the extension to determine what kind of file you are opening (am I right?), but what was wrong with previous methods in Max5 and earlier (I'm assuming those objects will looked at the extension, but if there wasn't one, looked at header information to figure it out?).

I am curious why support for extensionless files was dropped. While OS X on the Aqua level does use extensiosn to figure out what what app to open a file with when the appropriate metadata is not there, Unix systems at the core don't care about file extensions. Sure, extensions make doing stuff like mv *.aif mystuff/. easier, but not something the system as a core relies on. I imagine sfplay~ and buffer~ are now using the extension to determine what kind of file you are opening (am I right?), but what was wrong with previous methods in Max5 and earlier (I'm assuming those objects will looked at the extension, but if there wasn't one, looked at header information to figure it out?).


Maybe cycling is ahead of the competition, as it is apple's own decision to ditch creator codes in terms of type recognition altogether (

 From certain perspectives 7 was more advanced then lion is. On the other hand it opens options, as an extension might come that reads .cycling74soundfilethatisactuallydefinedasaiff or something like that.

Maybe cycling is ahead of the competition, as it is apple's own decision to ditch creator codes in terms of type recognition altogether (http://tidbits.com/article/10537). From certain perspectives 7 was more advanced then lion is. On the other hand it opens options, as an extension might come that reads .cycling74soundfilethatisactuallydefinedasaiff or something like that.


am i wrong or does this also mean that you aren't able to interpret a radom file as audiofile anymore?

Oh maybe. Thanks for bringing this up, somehow I missed this piece of info in the past (although I suppose I had noticed, and mostly liked this behavior when I switched to Snow Leopard full time last summer).

Change change the file extension of your random file to a support audio file extension and that should work I imagine.

Maybe cycling is ahead of the competition, as it is apple's own decision to ditch creator codes in terms of type recognition altogether (http://tidbits.com/article/10537).

Change change the file extension of your random file to a support audio file extension and that should work I imagine.


ok but as oivindi also mentioned that could mean to rename quite a lot files... isn't it possible to read them as raw files?

There's a little Mac app called NameChanger that I've found really useful for batch changing file names. Look on macupdate.com.

See also A Better Finder Rename; will work in demo mode for free ad nauseam as long as you don't mind working with up to 10 files at a time.

I was also miffed to lose .sd2 support, but hey, that's progress.

I was going to upgrade to Lion this weekend, now maybe not - the joys of being a late adopter!

See also A Better Finder Rename; will work in demo mode for free ad nauseam as long as you don't mind working with up to 10 files at a time.
 I was also miffed to lose .sd2 support, but hey, that's progress.
 I was going to upgrade to Lion this weekend, now maybe not - the joys of being a late adopter!
Cheers
Roger


Aren't more people annoyed by this?