[poopsmithe]

I used mixxx to DJ my brother's wedding. I think it was 2013 or 2014. The moment I got the signal to switch to a specific track for the bride's first dance with her Father, mixxx locked up my laptop. Guests were staring at me, one offered a hushed, "they're waiting!" Completely unresponsive, I had to hard reboot my locked up computer and boot back into Ubuntu. Then I opened VLC where I played the tracks for the rest of the evening. Probably not mixxx's fault, but I will never forget that moment.

[hlzhs]

Mixxx dev here. I'm sorry you had a bad experience. We are spending a lot of effort on making Mixxx rock stable.

Considering that this was more than a decade ago, I'm pretty sure that this bug has been fixed by now.

[sambf]

I do have a similar story with the 2.4.1 or 2.4.2 version unfortunately. Didn't take the time to debug it or fill an issue yet but when the library (between 100 and 200G) is on a USB stick it regularly hangs for 10-15s when browsing. It always came back to normal but made me sweat every time.

[mixmastamyk]

Yep, that can happen when computers are involved, and why one needs to practice with a new setup beforehand. Goes for performances or rocket launches.

During my DJ sessions (and while dabbling in digital audio files from a computer), I usually brought an old Sony Discman loaded with my best tracks on a burnt CD. Kept ready at moments notice in case disaster struck. Sadly crashes weren't uncommon at all in the bad old late 90s when consumer OSs were unstable crap.

I guess a smart phone could do that duty today, but you'll still need to have an adapter plugged into the mixer beforehand/ready to go to minimize disruption.

[encom]

>I guess a smart phone could do that duty today

Not since they bravely killed off the headphone plug.

[magicalhippo]

Went to a concert recently where the supporting band was a two piece which relied on a MacBook for live sequencing the drums as well as some MIDI inputs for various effects and such.

Two and a half songs in the MacBook died and wouldn't come up after reboot, and that was that.

Felt bad for them, but using a laptop as critical infrastructure is usually a bad idea.

[chromatin]

That stinks. I know professional DJs often have a backup music player for this very reason. Even hardware can fault.