PT9.0.1 and new Avid MBoxPro. Does this work reliably for anyone??

[lancemcv]

I have had nothing but problems and would love to here from anyone who is up and running with PT 9.0.1 and the new Avid Mbox Pro and is not having major issues. My 002 with pro tools 8 was pretty solid for me but this upgrade is a disaster so far.

For instance I was trying to record a vocal track today. Audio was coming in via a external mic pre into the line input of the mbox and it shows on the meters on the mbox and pro tools but there was no audio to be heard coming back out of the tracks outputs which are set to 1 and 2 and this is in stop mode not playback, I played around with the mbox software in apple system prefs and found it was not set to the right outputs. I changed it and got audio but later it just stopped working again after recording a little. I can then hear it on playback so its recoring but you can't hear the incoming signal even though its showing on the meters. I have gone through all the settings like no wifi, no blue tooth, etc. I have used pro tools HD and LE for years and so far this is the worst setup I have ever had. It's been terrible!!! I can't get any work done.

The Mbox Pro driver may be the culprit. One minute I have audio when recording next I don't. If I don't hit play on the session for a few minutes it stops playing audio all together and I get the -6085 error. Oddly I used the mbox with Garage band and had no issues.

So again if there is someone with PT9 and the new Mbox pro running on OSX I would love to here from you, before I consider reinstalling everything I want to know someone out there has a solid reliable setup before I waist anymore of my time.
Please don't send me fixes there are plenty of other posts reporting issues that I am following. i just want to here from someone who actually has this particular setup working like it should.

[Siddhant Bhatia]

I'm sure you have ... but still checking ... Have you installed the new MBox Pro Driver update before installing Pro Tools 9?

Anyway ... 9.0.1 has been acting really weird ... Maybe something else ...

[lancemcv]

Yea I have the latest driver installed. I did a test last night and used the mboxpro with garage band and just left the session open for an hour and came back and it played and never has had playback issues when I try it with the new mboxpro as the interface but I don't use GB much. When I open my PT session that is just audio files now after printing all my instruments and then making their tracks inactive, If I don't play the session back for a few minutes it looses connection with the mboxpro and you can hear the audio / hiss turning on and off and if you look at the cpu meter in PT it goes green at 20 percent then turns red when the hiss drops out. Then I have to restart PT or even reboot. If I reset the playback engine sometimes that gets it to play back again without rebooting or it crashes PT all together. My tracks are 88.2 24bit.
The sessions I am woking on are the same ones I was using with PT 8 and my 002 which I sold and that was pretty darn solid for an le system and I pushed it too it's max all the time track count and pluggins. My system has not changed. Yes Pro TOols 8 had some issues but nothing like what's going on here. If you have too many firewire peripherals connected it will cause playback issues. I mboxpro is the only firewire connection at the moment. It seems to me it is actually PT 9 the mboxpro driver works fine with Garage band and also if I just use it for my mac pros audio output
My mboxpro is connected to my old 002 firewire cable which is long so I am going to move the mboxpro and put on a really short firewire cable. But I did try this already and still had playback problems.

[rinconenclave]

I don´t know if I understand your troubleshooting correctly, but I think is not a good idea to have selected the mbox on your apple system prefs panel when you are using PT.
I know is a pain in the ass to change it when you want to use another sw such as garage band but, for instance, it's possible that OSX try to call DigiCore AudioDevice to play a sound when you are using PT and then crashes.
Did you try to select built-in audio in apple system prefs and then use PT?
If PT9 select built-in audio by default, try pressing N during launch to select Mbox...

[ChubB79]

I've been troubleshooting my iMac i3 3.2 GHz & Mbox 3 Pro rig for a few weeks now and I think I finally have it running well.

I think a clean install of 9.0.1 from the web download helped things for me (I got the PT 8 LE crossgrade to 9 w/ the Mbox). Also, I was having huge issues running the Mbox 3 Pro after an OWC Firewire drive (and a couple Iomegas that I tried too). It flat out did not like having anything in between the Mbox & the iMac. Buffer underuns, clock issues and random disconnects / hardware not found were common on every session. Now my chain is iMac > Mbox 3 Pro > OWC firwire HD and I haven't had any issues for a few days. Granted, I'm running very, very basic sessions (4 tracks) as I'm new to DAW's. I did a firewire test where I used the above setup to run a 4 track session and then connected a 2nd drive off of my audio drive. This 2nd drive has my iMovie video library, so I opened iMovie along w/ Pro Tools. I was able to playback my PT session and play clips from my iMovie library simultaneously with no buffer issues.

When I was having issues (w/ the audio drive before the Mbox) I found that when I opened a session and it did not recognize the Mbox, that it would default to the Apple I/O playback. Then I would restart Pro Tools and it would recognize my Mbox, but still have the Apple I/O playback & would have to be reset to the Mbox (which would cause PT to reload). Then of course I would have a bunch of problems with the buffer, etc.

I'm not sure if this helps you at all, but I feel your pain. Very frustrating when you spend a bunch of cash and it doesn't work. Good luck.

[mizieg]

Hi
My system is now running ok smooth.
Here's my setup:
1. Made a user comletely for PT use. (With all the recommendation setups from Avid)
2. As ChubB79, iMac - MBox Pro 3 - Lacie HD FW 800 to 400 adapter, relative short cable.
3. 2 HD usb only for transfer.
4. In Workspace marked all drives "Transfer" exept the Lacie that are marked for "Record"
5. In System Preferences under Spotlight, put all the external drives under Private.

I can have the MBox set as system output with no problems whether PT is open or not, meaning that I can play from iTunes or any other app while PT is open.

If I want to ajust the MBox in the MBox control panel I have made another user for that. (when it's working, is quite cool becuse our singer can have no latency while recording with a buffersize of 1024 or higher)
If I do it in the PT user it will crash.
So I belive the problem is definitely the MBox driver...

Regards
-Z

[mizieg]

Forgot to say, I first did a clean install of OS X, installed PT 9, upgraded to 9.1.1 and AFTER that installed the MBox driver.

System language is US...

-Z

[filobus]

Hi, I recognize most of you guys from other threads on -6085. It Is a very common error mentioned in at least a dozen threads in PT 9 mac os x with PT9, as well as 9073 and 9128 (CPU errors).

Despite the very kind help of many users who suggested to follow the standard Avid troubleshooting procedures and system cleaning, the error, in most cases, is still there.

I always thought it was a problem with PT 9 or/and external hard drive firewire chain. But I discovered something new today: I tried a friend´s macbook pro with PT 8.0.4 and my avid mbox pro, no ext firewire Hard drive. We got the -6085 as we accidentally touched a random key on the macbook pro. This confirmed somehow another cause of -6085 produced with my Mac pro quad-mbox pro sometimes: opening or closing an application (like Mail for example) during a PT session, caused 6085 err. (PS this was not happening with PT 8 and Mbox 2 pro or 002.)

Now, as you might have seen, once the first 6085 error is produced, there is no way back. The session goes on producing it. The way out is quitting Pro Tools and restart, or toggling the session clock. Then it goes on fine again for a while.

(Please Avid read this), I might obviously be wrong, but it is my believe that the problem not only lies in PT9, but also in the Mbox pro drivers
and the mbox firewire system.

Yes, what Mizieg did might surely help (i will have to re install everything), but I am sure a very few -Lucky- people are using PT9 and Mboxpro without problems.

[jbasil]

I don't think most of the problem between the mbox Pro and 9 are 9 specific. I've been help a friend set up his project studio with a brand new MBP (zero other software installed on it) and an mbox pro, which doesn't come with 9, and it's been a horror show. It's been a few weeks and every day what fixed a problem before doesn't fix it today. A single new OWC drive, same one that screams on my TDM system, and the box. Nothing else connected anywhere, everything else turned off. We basically can't work there. Some days we can record for a few hours before buffer under/overrun alerts pop up, which cannot be fixed by adjusting any settings. It just means you're done for the time being. The alert might as well say "Just go to lunch and try again when you get back. Nothing else we can tell you".

I have lots of experience dealing with Macs and PT and this box is definitely not ready for prime time. It is very possible that the Mbox drivers are hosing the system, but in the meantime there are no workarounds that I can find to make it work predictably, and I've been banging away at it for weeks.

[collinsylex]

Mine was doing alot of the same stuff you guys are having problems with... I spent a week and a half busting my head with that thing but never achieved real stability.. when it worked, it was really great, i liked it alot. To make a long story short, I don't have it anymore... and protools is working much better now using a 3rd party device.. Most of the strange stuff that was going on with my pro tools has been instantly resolved! Im sleeping much better now lol

I chose the mboxpro as i was determined to have access to the LLM feature but at this point i am happy enuff without it, actually i am even better off not using it anyways. I have been able to re-think my ideal tracking and mixing workflow to work without LLM and just go with the Zero Latency mixer/routing on my interface. Since my new card is USB, i have also managed to dedicate the firewire800 bus to my drive, which is ideal!

The avid mboxpro sounded really good to my ears and had the right features in the right place for me. Too bad it didn't work so good. Hopefully future firmware and drivers can sort it out for you all.