The Mini is a 2018, i7, 16GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, Mojave 10.14.6, Logic 10.4.7. I’m using an Allen & Heath mixer with USB 2 interface and an external USB 3 7200 rpm HD for audio.
The issue is that playback of almost any Logic project is interrupted by a massive CPU spike on core 1 causing a system overload in Logic. This affects any project, even simple ones with no more than eight tracks of audio and NO plugins and NO software instruments. These CPU spikes occur quite frequently, I’d guess at least every 10 - 15 minutes but sometimes more often.
Things I have tried to remedy this in various combinations (to no avail) are:
- Selecting an empty audio track during playback (although my understanding is this is only relevant for projects with software instruments, and my problem occurs regardless of whether I am using any software instruments);
- Experimenting with every conceivable audio preferences setting in Logic;
- Ensuring that all other applications are closed when using Logic and ensuring there are no user startup items;
- Ensuring that the Mac is disconnected from the network and wifi is off when using Logic;
- Various different combinations of USB sockets, Thunderbolt adapters etc for my audio interface, HD and peripherals (EMagic MIDI interface, keyboard and mouse);
- Playing back my projects through the internal Mac Mini audio with the Allen & Heath interface disconnected (having read about the issues with the T2 chip and USB 2 audio interfaces);
- Disabling automatic updating of date & time and location (online advices suggests this appeared to resolve audio issues for some Macs with the T2 chip)
- Creating a new user account on my SSD and playing back my Logic projects from this account (was wondering whether anything that had come across from my old Mac when I imported my user account from time machine backup could have been causing problems);
- Copy a small Logic project with a couple of audio tracks and no plugins to the SSD drive and playing back from there (to eliminate any issues caused by the external HD, although the HD activity monitor in Logic looks fine);
- Looking for problematic processes or issues in Activity Monitor and the Console logs (although I’m not really sure what I’m looking for, I haven’t seen anything burning CPU when these system overloads occur).
The only thing I can think of now is to try a clean reinstall of the OS, just in case something weird has come across when I imported my user account and applications from my old Mac, although as noted above I have already tried creating a fresh user account.
Obviously that’s a bit of a hassle and I would really appreciate any ideas or advice about this before I try that.
Thank you very much for anything you can offer.
