Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Hey everyone. Ive actually experienced this issue over the last few versions of Pro Tools, and on Sierra as well as High Sierra. Often (not always) when I zoom in on a at some point (zoomed in pretty close) Pro Tools begins to lag. If I try to zoom out it will zoom out 1 frame every 5 seconds or so until it gets to a certain point and begins to work normally. Sometimes restarting Pro Tools helps, sometimes not.

Any advice?


2013 Mac Pro
3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5
64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3
AMD FirePro D300 2048 MB

Lynx Aurora x2 with via thunderbolt
Avid Artist Mix x2
Ipad Running Pro Tools Control
G Drive Thunderbolt Hard Drive

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

What Pro Tools version are you running?

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

I knew I forgot something....
2019.10. This issue has persisted through multiple versions though

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Well you'd think with a computer that powerful you wouldn't have lag issues. Maybe a plugin is causing it. Have you tried opening a session with plugins disabled?

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

How many screens are you using, and what resolution are they running?

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Screens....you may be on to something here...

Two screens - Main screen over hdmi running 1080p - second monitor running on DVI to display port adapter (generic, not apple) running 1080p.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

2x 1080p shouldn't be an issue though. But I noticed GUI lag with two or more 4K or Ultrawidescreens hooked up.
But still, wouldn't hurt to check what happens, when you disconnect one of the screens.

Another source for GUI lag I tracked down is using a screen sharing app called Remotix. It's basically the same as TeamViewer, but it seems to mess with something that makes PT trip.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Can you please verify you are running displays on separate GPU's or by any chance both on one? You can get this information from the Apple menu, About This Mac, System Report, Hardware, Graphics/Displays. In case both displays share same GPU and you have a free GPU doing nothing, just swap the DP adapter to another TB slot and try again.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Both displays are running on the first card. I just swapped the second monitor to the second GPU. Let’s see if that helps. Good thinking!

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Experienced the GUI lag last night. Unplugged the second monitor all together and didn't solve the problem. Hopes dashed....

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Any other ideas? I have yet to try running without plugins as the issue appears at random and sometimes not for a while so Im gonna have to have some serious downtime to try that.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

I've had these GUI lags on all kinds of computers and I have never been able to pinpoint it 100%. But it was never a CPU or other performance issue.
My recent Hackintosh - for whatever reason - is the first and only machine I've used where I didn't experience this lag. I wish I knew why, but unfortunately I don't. Nothing changed periphery or software wise.

However what I've noticed when those lags occured was the following:

There's a process running in the background of MacOS called "WindowServer". It handles all kinds of display activities. If you force quit it from activity monitor you're being kicked out of MacOS back to the login screen. BUT - it consistently solved the lag for a while. Just logged back in again and everything was snappy.
It's feels like some kind of graphical memory leak (don't quote me on that).
Give it a try, sure won't hurt anything.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Sure. Killing the display manager reverts you to command line interface. Lucky that OSX has automatic restart of dislpay manager so you don't (normally) have to do anything to get GUI login.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

You don't, and whatever helps, right?
Obviously you shouldn't mess with processes required by the system, and this shouldn't be the solution for the problem. But in this case it is, and I prefer a re-login to a painfully stuttery PT GUI.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Right. Slightly faster than cold reboot which UNIX should never have to do, except when you update kernel.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Quite a lot faster. It's instant.
Still, it shouldn't be necessary at all and I wish I knew what causes this behavior in the first place. I sank hours into that, and I'm really glad I found this "dirty fix".
If anybody has a cure I'd gladly take it. I'm just fighting a symptom.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

If it's a memory leak, nothing cures it except OS update (that fixes window server or graphics driver)

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

I don't know, I've posted this back in Feb 2018 for the first time and had experienced it long before that post:

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=397516

I've seen lots of OS updates, none of which fixed the issue.
And with my current system at home I'm using the same OS (10.14.6) as on my iMac Pro at the studio. The iMac Pro does have the issue, my Hackintosh doesn't.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

And which GPU (graphics drivers) are we talking about? Hackintosh itself does not explain the (lack of) issue, only software does.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

https://i.imgur.com/XwHLBil.png

But I've had the same issue with NVidia GPUs on10.13 and below.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

I have experienced the issue across at least Sierra and High Sierra as well as multiple versions of Pro Tools.

Force quit WindowServer didn’t work for me today.

Re: Gui Lag in 2019.10 on OS 10.13.6
 

Now on OS 10.15.7 and PT 2021.9 and still having this issue. Im dying over here.