G4 crash and burn with PT 5 AV Option

[Mark Keefer]

PT has always been such a stable application for me, but since I upgraded to PT 5 AV Option one month ago from my AudioVision, it crashes hard 1-2 times a day. It always happens on silly things too, like saving during playback, or looping a selection, etc.

Extension problems? Enough memory allocated to DAE and PT? I'm running G4 500 w/512 ram, appian dual monitor card, Magma 13 slot, autonomous Avid drives. Delegated 50 mg to DAE, and 50 mg to PT.

Also get a glitch half of the time when I want to begin playback--it pops as if I have made a small audio selection-which is not the case, then I try again, and it'll play.

What's wierd is that this system worked better the first two weeks than it has the last two. That makes me think something has been accidentally jacked with. I dunno... any ideas???

[Paul Greyson]

Depending on the size of the sessions you're working with, 50M may not be enough for PT.

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Paul Greyson
Digidesign Engineering

[DigiTechSupt]

There are several things that could be causing problems including the amount of RAM you have allocated to DAE and Pro Tools.

- RAM allocation. I would suggest bumping the RAM for both DAE and Pro Tools to 80 MB each.

- Disk cache setting in the memory control panel. If this setting has not been changed it could be very large based on the amount of RAM you have installed in your system. Verify that it is set to 512k.

- DAE buffer setting. should be at 2 (or higher).

- The order of the cards in the expansion chassis as well as the card order in the G4.

- What plugins you are running.

- Drive/SCSI issues. You mentioned Avid drives, what have they been initialized with and how long ago. Mac OS 9 introduced some problems for some older versions of some initialization utilities. Verify correct termination and cabling.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist

[Mark Keefer]

Thanks Jon and Paul, I did increase my allocations, and it has seemed to help.
I also changed my disk cache size to 512k. I'm using the mix plus plug-in pack you sent me for registering, and those seem to be very stable.

The drives are holding up well, but probably do need to be reinitialized eventually with the right utility. Can you tell me the right one?

Also I'm still having the playback glitch-thing where you curser down, the curser is blinking, and it plays just a pop then stops. I then hit play again and it plays just fine...this is intermittent--figures.

Last question... http://www.digidesign.com/ubb/images/icons/smile.gif
Does the system automatically revoice tracks with a command? I read something about it in a PR piece, but can't find anything about it in the manuals.

Thanks again! Mark

[DigiTechSupt]

The voice re-assigning thing is documented on page 23 of the ProTools 5.0.1 Addendum.

While pressing Command=Option (Macintoch), click on the voice selector for any track and choose the starting voice number.

More details on this in the addendum.

Jon

[Mark Keefer]

Thanks again, again.

Can you tell me the right initializing utility for my hard drives? Just the latest Avid version?

Also I'm still having the playback glitch-thing. If you curser down, the curser will blink like normal, then it plays just a pop then stops. I then hit play again and it plays just fine...this is intermittent.

I appreciate your time.

Mark

[DigiTechSupt]

Use the ATTO Express Pro Tools utility for initializing your drives. It can be downloaded, at no cost, from the ATTO website and it is also on the Pro Tools 5.0.1 CD rom if you have gotten that yet, If not , and you're registered, you should get it any time.

As far as the glitch playback thing, it could be this and it happens to me from time to time...

When you drop the cursor at any given location, it is possible to make a very tiny selection. When you hit play, Pro Tools will play the selection and then stop. Depending on what preferences you have setup for playback , hitting play again could repeat the same thing or continue playback from the spot that playback last stopped.

The way to tell if this is what is happening is to take a look at the start, end and length fields at the top of the edit window.

Next time you drop the cursor, you should see all zero's in the length field. if you see any numbers at all, it means that you have inadvertently made a selection.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist

[Mark Keefer]

Now that you say that, I bet at those times I had the 'insert after playback' hot key selected, and then that's why it plays the second try.

Duh.

Well then, I guess my G4 is more sensitive than my last computer for making selections--even tiny ones.

Thanks for everything.

Mark