I know it would be a difficult thing to ask but as an experiment what if all FM3 users we stick to just using are own presets or factory ones for a period of a week. and see , if we eliminate all the 3rd party presets and conversions , if people were willing to do that
would the freezing stop or be noticeably less ?
It's interesting that you mention this. I've had about 2 freezes since I received my fm3. I've had it for about 2 month now. If I recall correctly, I remember my fm3 freezing around the same time I was going full stupid trying out a bunch of different presets from fm3 to X3.
You both raise very good points and ones that I've thought about for a very long time (using presets, converted presets/blocks from 3rd parties/utilities, etc. causing problems) across the various Fractal platforms. I've long suspected that corrupted presets are the cause of many problems, even if they don't outright crash the unit every time they are accessed, etc.
Whenever I've heard of these random problems and that they only affect some users and not others I've always wondered how they were creating presets or where they may have gotten them from, etc.
I've had my FM3/FM6 since August of this year and have not had any issues whatsoever with it.
I've used it during lengthy editing and playing sessions both with and without being connected to Axe-Edit.
Since I've owned Fractal gear (starting with the Ultra in 2009) I've only ever used either edited factory presets (Fractory Presets lol) or
exclusively ones I've created completely from scratch.
When there are major updates to any blocks, particularly the AMP block, I've
always reset/re-initialized the block to ensure there was no 'cruft' left behind that could cause issues and start with a clean slate.
30 years of being in IT have conditioned me to start things from scratch with initialized, clean states and a very controlled workflow as I've seen way, way too many issues when people try and take shortcuts or use data/methods, etc. from other parties that might contain something wacky or carry over something from a different platform to another one that, for whatever reason, is incompatible. You simply cannot fully vet the process taken to create blocks/data, etc. from other parties and if/when problems arise you are now left wondering if anything out of your control is responsible.
So, I think the suggestions to strictly use only factory presets and/or ones created completely from fresh, initialized blocks as a test/gauge to see if the unit stabilizes is a good one. Don't even load any presets aside from known good ones where the process used to created them is 'from scratch' or Fractory ones.
Not a knock on preset creators or conversion utilities at all...when troubleshooting stuff like this, especially random, intermittent issues, you really need to start to control the variables.