Cyrille, I'll throw some long shots.

I experienced pd(-ext) freezing on Lucid with the ffado driver, only during rehearsal.

And also then jack refused to connect Pd.

It was because of Jack zombification.

Jack kicks out those clients who are too slow to respect the period indicated in jack's settings.

Here, when this happens with the ffado driver (svn from several months ago) Jack won't start again unless I disconnect and connect again the firewire device.

However, Pd should throw a message reading "jack zombified calling shutdown handler".

As you didn't mention such message, this should not be your case, but I mention it in any case.

Are you with jack or qjackctl?

Sorry if it sounds obvious, but can you connect manually Pd to your system playback from qjackctl? (if you have it installed)

I had some other issues with ffado/jack/pd when doing hardware routing on my firewire soundcard with 6 outputs at once.

But still don't know exactly why was it.

hello,

i need help to understand a major problem i had today.

i'm unsing a old computer for a project, running ubuntu linux 10.04, with a presonus FP10 fire wire soundcard with jack.
everything was running fine for weeks when we worked on this project.
i boot this computer 3 days ago, start pd and everything was working wey well for all rehearsal.
(i did not close pd since)

the problem i've experience is that pd freeze during the performance.

(fortunately, it was 10 000 Km away from where i'm living so i have no friend on the audience)
This is my 1st unexpected pd freeze (when i'm not on edit mode) since i begin using pd, 11 years ago.
i'm running pd vanilla with almost no externals
thanks to Murphy's law, it occur in performance, and not in rehearsal.

worst of all : i don't know what is the problem, and can't make things work again.

So, the 1st thing i could imagine is a hardware problem, since the software was tested for month.
(This patch work for weeks without closing pd, and this pd installation run for 8 month for an installation).

fact are :
- after rebooting the computer/soundcard etc, jack start and works
- audacity can connect to jack.
- pd crash on start-up if started with jack.
- i do not change anything about pd
- i did not physically touch the computer for the last 10 minutes before the freeze (everything is automatized)
- this computer is not connected to internet, i did not do any update since it was stable.
- the soundcard works OK on an other computer on osX.

i'll use another computer for tomorrow performance, and i'll have more time to understand the problem when i'll be back home, however i would really appreciate to understand as soon as possible what could cause a huge problem like what i experience today.

So, with that mail i share my shame with you, but i also really apreciate to have some pointer about what to test in order to understand the problem.
Why pd can't connect to jack anymore, since jack work and noting was change about pd?
and why this occure during a live performance...

thanks for your consideration,

cheers
Cyrille (sad)