Pro Tools problems :(

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

I've been running PT 7.4 for about 4 months now on the same computer, and it seems like it's running shittier and shittier, even though my sessions have been much more compact and organized each time. Now it's so bad that even after I printed my Kick/Snare tracks so that I could deactivate the drumagog inserts, submixed a lot of other tracks, and consolidated all of my edits, I can't even make it through a bounce to disk without my computer freezing and forcing me to do a hard shutdown. Is there some kind of maintenance within Pro Tools that I should be doing?

 

[greyskull]

Whats your system?

 

[ahjteam]

that sounds more like hardware problems, or is it just me?

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Pretty sure it's this one (can't remember the model #, the specs are the same though)

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...es&cc=es&lang=es&printable=no&product=3751188

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

that sounds more like hardware problems, or is it just me?

Possibly, but the CPU usage goes from about 2% up to 90-100% right when I open up the session file, not even doing any playback or tracking. And it runs fine when Pro Tools isn't open

 

[ahjteam]

Possibly, but the CPU usage goes from about 2% up to 90-100% right when I open up the session file, not even doing any playback or tracking. And it runs fine when Pro Tools isn't open

I guess you have too many plugins then that your cpu can't handle or is this caused by just some one certain plugin that crashes PT? Do a new session with just some audio files, insert some plugins of them, save as new project and print the tracks one by one into new tracks and remove the track with the plugins that don't cause the crashing. if none of them alone cause the crashing, the reason is that you are just using too many plugins

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

I guess you have too many plugins then that your cpu can't handle or is this caused by just some one certain plugin that crashes PT? Do a new session with just some audio files, insert some plugins of them, save as new project and print the tracks one by one into new tracks and remove the track with the plugins that don't cause the crashing. if none of them alone cause the crashing, the reason is that you are just using too many plugins

That's what I was hoping to avoid I've been slowly printing all the tracks so that they don't have plugins, but it will usually freeze halfway through the song. It'll have to do for now though. I was hoping there would be a solution having to do with the Digidesign Databases folder, I was going to try trashing the whole folder but I don't know what side effects would come from that (if any)

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Here's what I'm working with in this session, minus two reverb busses off to the right. Doesn't seem excessive to me, and the previous two songs from this band had a lot more. The only other thing that I can think of that might be causing it is that I've been saving the final mix of each song as a template for the mix on the next song, so saving all the mix settings but deleting the regions and automation. Is there something else that needs to be removed when doing this to prevent the computer from getting bogged down? ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[LydonB]

Not sure if this would help but have you tried increasing your HW buffer size? When mixing it is alright to have the setting higher than when tracking.

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Not sure if this would help but have you tried increasing your HW buffer size? When mixing it is alright to have the setting higher than when tracking.

It's at default (512), I tried changing it both ways but I would get error messages either way

 

[LydonB]

What do you have your CPU usage limit set to?

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

I've been switching between 85 and 90, haven't tried going lower yet though

 

[kaomao]

uhm sounds like a problem with dverb.
Yes dverb sometimes increase the load on the cpu, try unloading it and then loading it again and see if it fixes the problem.
Happend to me many times, it was that bastard

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

uhm sounds like a problem with dverb.
Yes dverb sometimes increase the load on the cpu, try unloading it and then loading it again and see if it fixes the problem.
Happend to me many times, it was that bastard

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow when I go back there

 

[greyskull]

set playback engine to 1024
cpu limitto 95, and ignore errors

 

[006]

These are the same kinds of errors I got with my old 002R and MBox (the setting buffer sizes and getting error telling me the opposite of the last one). My machine was not underpowered in the least bit either...

Woohoo for Digi. I almost traded someone my Saffire for a 002R the other night, but one of the firewire ports was not functional so I passed...reading this thread gives me just one more reason to avoid it.

I really hope you get everything straightened out, I know I had a lot of headaches when I ran Digi interfaces and PTLE 6.4 to 7.0 myself.

~006

 

[AudioGeekZine]

That's really not that many tracks or plugins.

Get the Tech Support Utility from Digidesign
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=54&itemid=25974

Delete preferences and databases.
Defrag your drives with Auslogics

Are you running this session off the system drive?
All the plugins there should be compatible with 7.4. If you've got cracked stuff or other 3rd party plugins in the plugins folder, move them temporarily to the desktop and try reopening the session.

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

That's really not that many tracks or plugins.

Get the Tech Support Utility from Digidesign
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=54&itemid=25974

Delete preferences and databases.
Defrag your drives with Auslogics

Are you running this session off the system drive?
All the plugins there should be compatible with 7.4. If you've got cracked stuff or other 3rd party plugins in the plugins folder, move them temporarily to the desktop and try reopening the session.

Will do.

I deleted my prefs and databases, and defragmented my drive the standard way... does Auslogics just make it not take 36 hours?

I am running the session off the system drive, although I tried off of my external backup drive and it behaved exactly the same. Every plugin I have came either with PT 7.4 or the Ignition Pack that came with it, minus Drumagog, I'll try moving them to the desktop though. No cracked stuff, although back in the day when I used all pirated software I never had any problems so I may need to switch back :danceboy:

 

[albertors]

You definitely got a lot of useful advices here, I wanna give my thumbs up to the posts above mine.

Now, if I had to try and add something new: did you check if any IRQ sharing is happening on your computer? I think I might just start with this question, then depending on your answer I will go further into detail. I don't want to super-spam the thread if you know what I am talking about already.

Anyway, worth a try..lemme know

 

[RiF]

I am having the same problem (totally frozen computer when using Pro Tools). I switched to PT8LE/MBox from Sonar two weeks ago and never had a frozen computer ever before. Now I need to cold-reboot at least once a day.
I am using Vista Ultimate on a HP Pavilion Notebook with an MBox2 Mini. Unfortunately it is not reproducable very good, because it just happens after some hours of working with PT. Coz I am having trouble with various plugins since day one of DAW-recording, it might be one or another plugin that causes the problem.
@chree: Sorry that this is no help but I just wanted to report that you're not alone...