CoreAudio: Disk is too slow

Have just switched over to MAC Pro Intel, a few years old. When press play in Garageband 3 get message "CoreAudio: Disk is too slow. (Prepare) (-10001)" This applies all previous Garageband 3 files and any newly created ones. I cannot play any of them. Can you tell me what this means and how I can fix? Thanks.

I looked at the Activity Monitor and didn't see anything using up resources. I saw disk writes peak out, but nothing to suggest why. I recorded track after track in the same project and finally after the 4th track, it started recording as long as I wanted without a problem. I'm going to chalk it up to disk fragmentation in that particular area.

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CoreAudio: Disk is too slow (Prepare) error message?

Hi,
In a Logic project I'm currenly working on, each time I open the file and press play for the first time, Logic hangs for 15 seconds or so and gives me this error message:
CoreAudio: Disk is too slow. (Prepare)
(-10001)
If I then stop, rewind and play again everything works fine. It only happens after this specific project is first opened and played.
Any ideas what this could be about? Disk is definitely not too slow. I get the same error if I start at a one track passage or bypass all effects and then play.
The file in question contains imported AIFF files, imported MP3 files as well 100 or so MIDI tracks.
Logic version is 7.2.1.
Thanks,
Maarten

It's in the energy saver preferences, uncheck spin down drive when idle thing.
HOWEVER, I posted this in another post, there is a bug where external firewire drives are still getting spun down with this checked off. I reported the bug to apple, they asked for more info, they said thanks, and last I checked the bug was still open, which tells me it wasn't reported before, and they're actually working on it.
So don't be surprised if unchecking the box doesn't fix it for your external drives.
The trick I use to get around it is simply double click the file on the external drive to open the song. That spins the drive up pretty good because you have to open a finder window which has to list all the folders etc...
hope this helps.

CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010)

I keep getting this error when I'm playing a song that has 16 tracks and effects on each track, but each track is frozen (!): CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010). I'm running a G4 and have 2G RAM. Is this common? What can I do to prevent this? Thanks for any advice you can give!
-David

In addition to Rohan's suggestions you have more options depending on how you work and what phases of the project you are in.
Something overlooked very often is polyphony enabled for the EXS24-some patches are set to 64 drop the polyphony to either the minimum you will need or less (if less you will notice older notes cutting out-but you can set it to the necessary number upon bounce or export). Some mono patches from sound designers are set to 32 or 64-even if you enable unison this is often worthless.
Up your buffer size-I usually have my PBook at 512-I usually do offline editing, location recording and sound design with the book anyways.
Export the track.
Set virtual memory in EXS prefs to 'on' and with the largest RAM allocation-slow disk, lots of activity.
If you use certain exs patches often but only parts of them trimming the excess off the instrument can improve performance. If you have a piano program with good samples you can initially create a lite version with 2 velocity layers and then when it is time to get things sounding good revert the instrument to the original 5 layer-obviously this makes a huge difference depending on what you are using the piano for, leave it if it is critical.
Save the Channel strip and export as audio file while keeping the sequence in your session. Like Freezing but you can manually trim the file start position and set the bit depth. Freeze files render from the start until the last audible sample and then truncate the tails, meaning even if you can't hear it it is still pulling "silence" from disk as long as there is sound after it. Exporting as 24 or 16 bit will effectively reduce your file size by 25 (24bit) or 50 (16bit) percent. If you know you don't have to edit a performance for weeks to come exporting it will solve alot of problems for CPU.
Someone should back me up on this one but at the moment I want to say EXSamples load into memory regardless of freeze settings-reducing your resources.
Disable the filter (if live or playback-N/A with Freeze)-it is often not critical for some patches. The more synthetic sounds or sounds with fewer/shorter samples rely on them.
Disable Unison.
Most sample libraries were not recorded at 88/96k-there is no benefit in running them in sessions in these Sampling rates as far as the EXS sound quality goes.
That should keep you busy for a while, just some tuning to up your system performance.

Error message: "Disk is too slow or System Overload."

When I try to record from the line-in on my MacBook Pro (2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD), I get after some time (that can range from a few seconds to a few minutes) the error message: "CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overeload. (-10010)".
This is weird because I get that error even when recording into an empty project. I have no such error on my old PowerBook G4 (867MHz, 512MB RAM) with the same version of Logic Express (most recent). Both computers are fully up-to-date.
I also get that error on my MacBook Pro very often when I'm working on a project and it's getting pretty annoying, it sorts of halts the process each time...
I also have Mail, iCal and Adium running at the same time as Logic Express, none of which use much CPU so the problem can't realistically be from them...
Any help to resolve this issue or at least shed some light on the potential cause would be greatly appreciated!

Simply having idle applications in the background is probably fine, but I certainly believe that something like Mail checking for new messages in the middle of recording in Logic could cause problems.
I would also check Activity Monitor to see if you have any background processes running that you aren't aware of. My wife's iBook slowed to a crawl once, and I discovered that a printer driver she installed to use a printer at work was using about 80 percent of the CPU.
-Eric

Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10009)

Hello all,
I'm running a G4 PowerBook, with 1.67 GHz, and 1.5 GB DDR SDRAM. My Logic set-up is Logic Pro 7 and a Motu 828mkII.
My present Logic project contains 7 tracks, with EXS24 through 6 tracks and Sculpture through the last. The instruments were triggered through a midi keyboard.
While trying to score a short film, I keep running into the following error:
CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10009). The error happens while recording and during playback only. There are times when I do not recieve the error message, but playback is terribly jerky and I'm unable to clearly see exactly where I am on the timeline.
I have searched for similar errors on this site and cannot seem to find an answer. I imagine the solution is changing the way I have my I/O setting in the CPU usage. Am I on base?
I'd appreciate any help,
Kris

Hey Cyril and 25G's,
Well I went out and bought a OWC Mercury Elite Pro Firewire 800 with Oxford 912. I transferred the EXS Factory Sample files to the OWC drive. Then I deleted the EXS Factory Sample files on the OS hard disk. Then I created the alias for the Samples and placed the alias back in the Logic file under Application Support on the OS hard disk.
The alias' seem to be working because the Logic project works. The only problem is that it is still terribly jerky.
The CPU is maxing out while the I/O meter is not responding at all. Could this be the clue to my problem?
(Also, Cyril, call me stupid, but I cannot find the Virtual Memory portion in the EXS Preferences.)
Thank you for all your help. (I am a bit slow myself when it comes to Logic and the proper steps to de-bugging a problem. So, very detailed explanations are appreciated)

"Disk is too slow/system overload"??? Help!

Hey
I'm running Logic Express on a G4 with OS X 10.4.10. My processor is 450 MHz, and my memory is 896 MB SDRAM. When playing back around 6-7 tracks, i get a message saying:
"CoreAudio - Disk is too slow or System Overload (-10010)"
or
"CoreAudio - System Overload. The audio engine was not able to process all required data in time."
I'm assuming that this has something to do with my processor being too slow, however, according to the logic express requirements, i have much more than required. Or this could be a problem with RAM maybe, considering i only have 896 opposed to the 1000 needed.
Sorry if this is a noob question, i'm new to macs in general. I'm just looking for answers because this is keeping me from doing what i love. Any answers appreciated!
Thanks!!
EDIT: I'm using a presonus firepod for an interface, if that helps.
Message was edited by: wasco

I'm not sure where you read the system requirements for LE8, but looking at my box I see that you need a "1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor (and) 1GB of RAM." Keep in mind that these are minimum requirements.
Unfortunately, the processor is your main problem . . . LE8 requires a processor almost three times as fast as your 450 MHz. Also, as you pointed out, you don't even have the minimum 1GB of RAM. You do have the proper OS, but I don't know if you have the minimum required 6GB of available disc space.
Other than upgrading your processor or buying a new computer, the only other suggestion would be to make sure you record to an external drive but I'm not sure how helpful that would be in your particular case.
I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

CoreAudio. Disk is too slow or system overload

Hi. I am writing you to ask something that might be simple. I am working with Logic 7 pro and with a Powerbook 15 inch, processor 1.25 and ram of 1.25. When I am reproducing some files I got the message:
Error
CoreAudio. Disk is too slow or system overload.
I will appreciate any help
My mail is
[email protected]
Thanx a lot.

Hmm, I agree with David, get an external firewire drive. I think that the internal disk on your powerbook is 5400 rpm, which can be quite slow. It certainly is not the RAM if you are only running a few tracks. It will probably be the audio data that cannot be read quickly enough by the hard drive. The solution that they might have been about to give you could have been resolution and word length of the audio files you are recording, Are you recording at 44.1khz and 24 Bit? If you are recording higher, try bringing it down if you want CD quality to 24 bits and 44.1khz. Obviously when mastering it it will be dithered, but I, and pretty much everyone else here, would advise recording at 24 bits rather than 16. As for external drives, go for something like 7200 rpm (I think that's what mine are), although you will find faster and much better! I hope this helps, keep asking questions as there are many people here who are very (and much, much more than me hehe) capable of helping you out, and we're all here to learn. Good luck and all the best, Fred

No Audio Playback due to Error Message "Disk is too slow. (Prepare) (-10001)"

Out of the blue, no audio playback. Was working just fine earlier today.
I repeatedly get the error message:
Disk is too slow. (Prepare)
(-10001)
NOTE: I have more than enough disc space. That is NOT the issue.
I also just got a second error message:
Part of the Project was not played
This project has too many real instrument tracks to be played in real-time. To optimize performance, see the 'Optimizing GarageBand performance' page in GarageBand Help.
NOTE: Odd as I have only 2 tracks in the GarageBand file.
Any others experience this? Suggestions?

Have a look into the Preferences folder (YourUserFolder/Libraries/Preferences/) and trash all Logic preferences.
You'll have to setup the program again.
cheers
rob

Why am I getting this error message, "Disk is too slow. (Prepare) (-10001)"

Hello all! I've been using GarageBand for a while now and I've accumulated quite a few files. Along with all of my movies and iTunes library, my internal hard drive filled up rapidly and I didn't catch it. I received a warning message on my screen one day saying that my hard drive was nearly full and I only had a few MB available. I'm using a 150 GB Solid State Hard Disk on my 2009 MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz Intel Cre 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM). I remembered reading a while back that it's better to use an external hard drive for pretty much everything when using Garageband, so I bought one. I now have a seagate 500 GB, 5400 rpm external (USB 2.0) and I moved ALL of my movies and music over to it. I freed up around 60 GB of space on my internal hard drive in doing so.
So now that I've given you a little background, let me explain the issue I'm having. Before I noticed that my hard drive was full, I started receiving this error message:
Disk is too slow. (Prepare)
(-10001)
Upon receiving this message, I was unable to do pretty much anything in GarageBand. I couldn't listen to tracks, export to iTunes, or do anything! All I'm using GarageBand for is editing. My band and I do all our recording (and mixing) offsite at a separate studio and i just deliver a 2 track stereo signal (L/R) to my MacBook. From there, I just cut the individual tracks from a block of 30-45 minutes of recording because we just record our entire studio session and mix everything there. I pretty much never have more than two tracks and a few effects going at the same time.
After I realized that my disk was nearly full, I consulted my brother-in-law. He's head of the IT Deartpment at a major hospital here in West L.A. and he told me that I may have created a problem with the cache by filling up my internal hard drive and that I may still have issues with performance even after I free up space. He then told me that I may need to reboot my MacBook a few time to "free up the cache" (or something close to that, sorry guys I'm not that tech-savvy). It seems he may have been right, as I'm still experiencing the same issue. I rebooted around 10 times overall to no avail. I'm still using my internal hard drive to store the files that I'm working on (temporarily) because USB 2.0 is way too slow for my liking, when using GarageBand.
I've read quite a few articles on this offering solutions such as:
1. Do a complete Uninstall and Reinstall of GarageBand
2. Clone my hard drive to my external, format it, and reinstall everything back on it
3. Get a hard drive that supports Firewire 800 (The HDD I bought is USB 2.0, but it has two USB cables to increase speed, but I only have 1 port and I tried a powered USB Hub, but this HDD won't work with it for some reason).
4. Use different editing software.
5. Take it to Apple!
Will any of these things fix my problem? Are some better than others? Before I do anything, I wanted to ask this question on the furum to see if anybody had an easier (or cheaper!) solution. Any suggestions, tips, or advice would be much appreciated, as my band is starting to get on my case about finishing our CD! Thanks...

Have a look into the Preferences folder (YourUserFolder/Libraries/Preferences/) and trash all Logic preferences.
You'll have to setup the program again.
cheers
rob

How do I fix the problem 'disk is too slow' and what does it mean anyway?

I'm transferring casete tapes to the Mac via the input line. I've transferrred nearly 100 with no prouble, but sudddenly today two things have gone wrong (see separate question for the other one). This one is that suddenly the error message 'Disk is too slow' comes up. also the track (the top one, not the bottom edit section one) is bright red instead ofthe usual dark purple.
What's gone wrong and how do I fixit?

Sorry about the lack of terms: lazy of me I admit. Having read up Garageband Help, I think I've got the answers. Yes, by the top part I mean the track in the timeline. The bottom part is the same track showing up in what is headed the 'Audio Region' The bright red is the colour the track is in the timeline during recording, and it stays like that until after stopping recording I click somewhere in the timeline section (not necessarily on the track itself) at which time it just goes the normal kind of dull greyish colour an unselected region does.
Thanks for telling me how to see the HD info. Its 250GB, of which I've used about 23GB. The first computer I worked on as a programmer back in 1962 had a 400KB drum (the first disks didn't arrive until 1963) as its random access backing store - and yes, that is a K. The machine also came with 12KB of RAM and 4 tape decks, was the size of a hotel kitchen, and cost about $200,000. You young people don't know how lucky you are

Logic Pro X - Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010)

Hi there, I'm a professional music user and recently switched from Pro-Tools to Logic due to PT11's lack of third party plug-in support at the moment. I was looking forward to leaving behind the error messages of Pro-Tools for the supposed plain sailing of Logic. However, after installing Logic X and starting a new session with one track of audio and 4 tracks of software instruments, I'm receiving the following error message when attemping to record a part on one of the software instruments. 'Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010)'
I have an 8 core Mac Pro with the latest version of Mountain Lion, 16GB of Ram and a 250GB SSD boot drive (which Logic is installed on). My sessions are ran from a secondary 120GB SSD which has 110GB of free space on it and my sample libraries are streamed from another internal 250GB SSD and a 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. My interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 USB 2.0 and my I/O buffer is set to 512.
It is completely unacceptable to me that I should be experiencing error messages with this set up and a 64 bit DAW, particularly when the session in question only has one track of audio and one instance of East West's Play engine, spread across 4 software instrument tracks.
Has anyone else experienced similar problems or have any ideas as to what the solution could be? I'd really appreciate any advice.
Cheers,
David

Just as a quick followup....
After doing a little research online it seems the Scarlett is one of those USB2 devices that has issues with how Apple changed their implementation of USB when they released Macs with USB3 interfaces and put this updated implementation into Lion and later Mountain Lion... and that this is probably why some people have major issues like the OP is reporting and why other's do not. It depends on the hardware/OS X version combination as to if this issue rears it's ugly head.
Oddly enough some Win 8 users are also reporting similar issues with the Scarlett for much the same reason.
The March 2013 Scarlett OS X drivers are intended to 'alleviate' this issue but Focusrite have stated it is only to 'alleviate' in some instances and not completely fix the problem for everyone who has it,.,..
However, the good news is that Focusrite have released some beta drivers (v1.7b2 and later b3) which seem to work better for some people than the last official release...
Mac Only.
General stability/logging improvements:
- Improved audio stream syncing
- Fixed bug which results in occasional inaccurate timestamps
- Improves sample rate switching
- 18i20 stream formats now switch automatically
- Fixes Forte streaming at 176.4/192kHz
You can find them here..
http://beta.focusrite.com
Note: These beta drivers again seem to only alleviate the issues for some people and not all but it has got to be worth giving them a try I would think...

Repeated Error: Disk is too slow. (Record) (-10005)

Hello brilliant forum users,
I'm using a brand new mac mini with all of the software updated. It's got 2GB of RAM.
I am recording spoken word through a mixer, onto one track (male basic).
There are no other tracks.
I have no other applications open, and the computer has had a fresh boot.
I am getting this error repeatedly, intermittently, with no apparent cause:
Disk is too slow. (Record)
(-10005)
After googling and reading up, I have done the following:
Made sure FileVault is off (it was).
Turned off time machine (I had it on).
In the energy saver preference, deselected 'put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible'.
Still, the error occurred.
Then, I decided to record to my 500GB external (backup) drive, which is connected via usb (I do not have a firewire external drive). I thought, surely this will fix the problem. I made sure time machine was disabled.
Still, the error occurred.
It is totally random, happens at 2 minutes, 20 minutes, or not at all.
I have recording audio resolution set at 'good'.
I am recording via an audio-in (3.5mm I think?) aux cable from an OUT on the mixer.
It seems that I should call apple, but I am at a meditation center in Thailand, and the time difference makes it difficult, not to mention that the computer is in the meditation hall, which makes phone calls difficult.
So, I turn to the trusted experience of YOU!
Thank you very much!
Most appreciatively,
Lizzy

I have also been getting this one intermittently while playing back - sometimes while playing back only one track. Don't know if it's related.
Part of the project was not played
This project has too many real instrument tracks to be played in real-time.
To optimize performance, see the 'Optimizing GarageBand performance' page in GB Help.
hmmm.. that doesn't sound right - and may suggest a software issue.
Have you tried creating a new user account (go to System Preferences, Accounts, and add another account with the "+" sign) and using Garageband from a new account?
Or if that's not working, do a complete uninstall of Garageband...
• trash GB receipts (at the hard drive level)
• trash your Caches folder (at the user level)
• trash all GB preferences (at the user level)
• trash the GB application
... then reinstall Garageband from scratch?
Hope this is helpful!

Disk is too slow or System Overload Errors(-10010)

Hi, It may have been a mistake, but for the 1st time in a long time, I updated my system and software two days ago, after which i tried to runm Logic 9. During playback, I am not getting a random error message that "Disk is too slow or System orverload. This is a system that has operated error free for the past eighteen months, no problems, until now! What really puzzles me about this is the part about "motion Sensor" ! My system is a Mac Pro Desktop unit and not a laptop, and definitely not equipped with and motion sensor(s) at least not that I am aware of.
Can nyone shed some light on this for me?
Thanks in advance

Hi
rockfort wrote:
Did you repair permissions after the OS update?
** I don't know how**
To repair Permissions, in the Finder, use the Go:Utilities function, and run Disk Utility.
In Disk Utility, select the boot drive partition on the left and click on "Repair Disk Permissions".
rockfort wrote:
Free space on the OS and/or Project drive(s)?
** 1.78TB space free on the drive**
So, are you recording /playing back your projects from your System drive?
This is not generally recommended. Instead one should really use an second (Project) drive either Internal (no good for an iMac) or external Firewire/Thunderbolt drive (depends which iMac you have).
Further, the error message you have been getting is a general "Disk too slow" and/or "CPU overloaded" message.
It would be worth keeping an eye on the System Performance meter in Logic whilst playing the project (Double click on the CPU meter in the Transport or use :Options:Audio:System Performance) to see if it is CPU or Disk related
CCT

Disk is too slow or System Overload.

I was working on a project that had a little over hundred tracks, and got this error. I thought that it was understandable, as I had many tracks(even though I was only recording one), so I started a new project to record it, with only one track. But I still got this error when I was recording one track, with no other tracks in the project! How can I fix this?
Here's the complete message:
Disk is too slow or System Overload.
(-10008)
The sudden motion sensor may have parked the hard drive head, or the disk performance is not sufficient to read or write all audio tracks, or the system was not able to process all data in time.
I run this on a 27" iMac with 8GB ram and 7200rpm, which should be enough to play and record many tracks.

ArnsteinK wrote:
so I started a new project to record it, with only one track. But I still got this error when I was recording one track, with no other tracks in the project!
But you didn't shut down Logic or (sometimes best) restart your machine in between ? Often, data gets left in memory and it hasn't had any particular command to clear it otherwise - a lot of allocated memory can be still considered as 'used'.
Well, maybe, but that aside,
ArnsteinK wrote:
I run this on a 27" iMac with 8GB ram and 7200rpm, which should be enough to play and record many tracks.
- hopefully you're not doing that just using your internal computer's drive - if you have, you've been lucky so far.
If you're into Logic it is a well established fact that this message can appear for so many different reasons and its not possible for me to know what goes on with your machine - there are plenty of articles on this forum and LogicProHelp as well as the very concise and accurate (but not always as explanatory as I'd like it to be) stuff on this Apple website.
That's all I can offer at the moment until we have some more technical information, in which case there are others here that may have particular insights as well, so you're gonna have to take it from there because there is no one answer.

"Disk is too slow" ???

I've been running Garageband happily eversince I bought my iMac 18 months ago, using it to transfer old cassette tapes to the Mac. Then suddenly 2 days ago I got the error message 'Disk is too slow'. Nothing unusual about the tape, just pop group (M People), not 1000-piece orchestra. The 250GB disk has 224GB free space. Tried closing all other apps (I don't run many anyway) but still problem. I need to finish off this copying urgently and I'm slightly desperate. No-one in the Garageband discussions has come up with anything.
No other apps have any problems, but then all the others presumably can control their input speed.
What is the problem causing the message, and how can I fix it? Is it because the disk has become fragmented, and if so is there an equivalent of the PC defrag utility for Mac? If not, what? Please help!!

Even in the PC world, defragmenting is never going to cause a problem like this. Defragmenting gives negligible benefits, at best. In the Windows world, people would be much better off if they forgot words like "defragment" and "registry". They end up either just wasting time or messing around with things they shouldn't be messing around with.
That said, run Apple Hardware Test on your system. The extended tests. That will see if there's anything obviously wrong with your system. If not, take it to an Apple store or AASP in your area, and ask them to run a check of the HDD. I'd tell you exactly what program to have them run, but in my experience you just get blank stares, followed by a second or two of silence, then a quick, "Uh-huh". Meaning they didn't understand a thing you just said. So just tell the person to have the monkeys in the back run tests on the HDD. They should be able to have an answer in a half hour or so.

CoreAudio: Disk is too slow

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