Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Hi all,

I’ve been running Pro Tools 10 on a Mac Pro trash can for a year and a bit now, with no major issues, until recently. All of a sudden I’m getting 6101 and 9128 errors all over the place. I haven’t done any software updates or installed any new plugins, so I’m confused as to what might have changed. Here’s a basic timeline:

03/21:
-Pro Tools quit unexpectedly, before I headed home for the night. Not super unusual, in my experience.

03/22:
-Started noticing glitches/clicks/pops during playback
-Sessions that played fine yesterday no longer playing properly
-Sessions eventually won’t play at all

-CPU usage fluctuating between 70-98% on all sessions.

03/23:
-Opened a session from yesterday. 20 tracks, average of 2 plugins on each track. Playback is ok, but gets glitchy as soon as I scroll up or down within the session.

-Messed around with hardware buffer size, and within about 5 minutes, session would not play back at all. CPU usage now reading 0, but session still won’t play, regardless of buffer size. Deactivated all plugins, same result.
-Reopened Pro Tools and got this error:
“Pro Tools ran out of memory while scanning the plugins folder. Please relaunch to continue. If this problem persists, move unauthorized plugins to the plugins (unused) folder.
-Computer froze twice randomly (totally frozen, no cursor movement). Pro Tools not open either time.

Troubleshooting steps I’ve tried so far:

-changed hardware buffer size, host processors, and CPU usage limit
-trashed Pro Tools prefs
-running sessions from different hard drives
-running sessions with no interface or other hardware connected
-uninstalled/reinstalled Pro Tools twice (tried both safe uninstall and clean uninstall). Followed Avid’s recommendation for this procedure, since 10.3.7 is not technically supported with Mavericks.
-installed Pro Tools 10.3.3 and 10.3.10
-removed unused plugins from plugins folder
-verified and repaired permissions on hard drive
-ran hardware diagnostic on the Mac (no errors found)
-restored time machine backup from March 19, which is before these issues appeared

My setup:

Mac Pro Trash can 3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5, 32GB RAM.
OS Mavericks 10.9.5
Pro Tools 10.3.7

Any thoughts on what might be causing this issue?

Thanks in advance!

C

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

this has been a issue for a couple of years not sure if its Avids problem or 3rd party plugins bad coding at this point its a mystery !

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Well, I've been using Pro Tools since 2003, so I'm no stranger to issues with their software, but I've always been able to find a fix. It does seem odd that my setup was pretty solid for well over a year, and that this just came out of nowhere. I've added a couple of troubleshooting steps to my original post, but nothing has worked so far.

Still not 100% convinced it's a software issue, either. If I scroll up or down, or zoom in in the edit window during playback, the CPU usage goes way up.

Is this typical? It's got me wondering if this could be a graphics related issue.

Any other insight would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,

C

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Update: I made some progress by removing some of the more recently installed plugins from the plugins folder, then adding them back in one by one to try to narrow down which one(s) might be causing the issue.

It seems like the biggest culprit is a Space Echo emulator called Outer Space, which I've used for a couple of years now. It's a CPU intensive plugin, to be sure, but up until a few days ago it was not causing issues.

Leaving that plugin out is helping sessions run smoother, although there's still some clicks/pops when zooming/scrolling that I never had before. It's a bummer though, because it's a great sounding plugin.

Still open to other suggestions anyone might have.

Thanks,

C

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Scratch that, issue is back. :mad:

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Not that there's been much interest in this thread, but I'm happy to report that I fixed the issue by removing and reinstalling the RAM. So far so good.

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Good to hear!

Re: Sudden CPU spike, 6101 and 9128 Errors
 

Wow never thought of that ! Agreed to jfreak.. good to know