At my wits end!

[jamiet]

I'm not too sure how anyone can help here as I have tried to solve these issues for the last few years. I am constantly getting run out of physical ram errors even though I have 8gb and all background activities monitored or turned off and my sessions are always dropping out mid take etc etc, or saying I should remove plug-ins even though I have none at all in my sessions!

I have tried all optimizations recommended by Avid for Pro Tools 12 and High Sierra, plus a myriad of other attempts to rectify. I only run Pro Tools software on my machine. It is a dedicated recording device recording to a separate hard drive.

Over the years, I have spent so much money on Avid software and hardware and yet here I am well over 10 years later still having to deal with a basically unusable product. There is no one who can help and because I am not a professional user spending vast amounts of money on updates and equipment, I'm left out to dry.

I would have loved to have someone tell me when I first bought my MBox first generation that I would be wasting my time to remain a loyal Pro Tools user later in life, as I then would have investigated other DAWs.

Anyway, rant over...I just feel so frustrated and helpless as to how I can improve my situation without the capital required to upgrade to a multi-thousand dollar system.

Thanks for listening!

[musicman691]

8 gig of ram is the bare minimum for running PT12. Can you put more ram in the computer? It would help if you gave the full specs on your Mac. Laptop or desktop? etc.

As to plugins it doesn't matter if you have them in a session - just installed on your computer can cause issues. Do you have any third party plugins? If so try moving them to the unused plugins folder with PT shutdown and then restart PT.

There's a lot of people here who can help but without any info on your system we're just wasting time and spinning our wheels.

[jamiet]

Thank you so much! I'm at work at the moment but I will provide all my system details when I get home!

[Darryl Ramm]

Standard troubleshooting up top of every DUC web page under "help us help you". There will be hundreds of past posts on DUC for solving memory issues. It's hard to understand how you can have this "for years" and not solve it. What exactly have you tried? "myriad of other attempts" tells us nothing useful.

Post the expected info about your system.

What exact version of macOS, Pro Tools 12.what.what etc.

Are all the third party plugins up to date?

What is your disk cache set to? it has to be "normal" with only 8GB DRAM.

What exact Mac... Can you upgrade/ideally max out memory?

Standard type of debug sequence: (do things and keep them that way and go onto the next step)

Trash prefs

Is the session corrupt? Is the session and all copies of it corrupt? Try totally different sessions, try starting with a new empty session.

Do you have a bad plugin? Move *all* plugins out of the plugin folder; trash prefs (pro tools will put the standard ones back magically)

Do you have deeper user corruption? Create a new admin user and test from that account.

Driver is corrupt and has a memory leak? Test with Built-In Output as the playback engine.

Still problems? So when did they start? have you been doing in-situ OS X Upgrades?... grab a spare drive and do a full clean macOS install and Pro Tools and ILM install and absolutely nothing else and test with Built-In Output.

----

As a high level observation Pro Tools 2019.5/.6 are so much better than any 11/12/2015 release I just would not waste my time on old versions unless I really had to.

[jamiet]

Hi,

Thanks so much for your assistance. Please find below the specifications:

iMac 27inch Late 2013

3.2GHz Intel Core i5

8GB 1600MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1024MB

High Sierra 10.13.6
1TB SATA Disk

Pro Tools 12.1.0

MBox Pro 3rd Gen

Some of the suggestions you have made are quite advanced for my knowledge level so if any one could provide a simplified approach it would be most appreciated.

I get the memory message each time I run a session, blank or otherwise.

Any further advice would be exceptionally welcome.

Thank you

[jamiet]

If I was to look at upgrading, how do I do it and what sort of cost am I looking at?

Thanks again!

[Darryl Ramm]

Thanks for the details.

That it happens on a blank session makes me suspect plugins, likely a thread party plugin you have installed. If the plugins are bad you don't need to be using them for them to cause problems. They just need to load into Pro Tools when is starts up.

---

Since you are running Pro Tools 12.1, that predates the disk cache option being standard in Pro Tools (came in 12.6 IIRC), so disk cache misconfiguration is not an issue here.

So you either are 1. running a decent to heavy session and running out of memory for that workload. In which case you need to upgrade memory. (does not seem like it) OR 2. You have a bad plugin or other corruption that is causing a memory leak. And that is more likely a problem if you have a small/tiny session. Because for large sessions, ya just under-configured your computer. OR 3. Your whole Pro Tools install or computer is screwed up

For 1. You should really do that anyhow. Your 27" iMac at least makes that easy with a rear access door to the DIMMs. There are many places online that will let you look up the correct DIMMs for this Mac and them to you memory and many places providing instructions on how to install that memory. In the USA I'd probably buy memory from OWC or Crucial. In Australia, I have no idea. Just absolutely max out the memory. OWC for one sells a 32GB DIMM kit.

For 2.

Try just Trashing Prefs (use Peter Gates Utility from here: http://petegates.com/pg-pt-prefs.html). Just select every option if you are not sure.

Does that fix things? If not then...

Move all .aaxplugin files out of the plugin directory (Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins) The directory must be empty of all those files. Put them anywhere else, .. like in the Plug-Ins (Unused) folder is put there just for that purpose. Trash Prefs again, and Restart Pro Tools.

It will magically put back new copies of the default plugins. Does that now work better? If so come back here and tell us. If not then move any third party plugin files (if you had any installed) back to the plugin directory from where you put them.

If that did not help create a new Admin user on the Mac and test from that account.


If it's (3)?... that's only if nothing else works.

I've broken it down a fair amount, any terms etc. you don't understand here you should Google for help or try reading over the troubleshooting guides under "help us help you.

[jamiet]

Wow Darryl,

That is the most comprehensive assistance I have ever had. I have just finished work and I am going to race home and give it all a go.

I'll report back ASAP.

Once again, thanks a bunch!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by jamiet

High Sierra 10.13.6
1TB SATA Disk

Pro Tools 12.1.0

This might well be the problem. PT didn't get compatibility with OSX 10.13.x and that was for PT 12.8.3 and compatibility with OSX 10.13.6 wasn't until PT 2018.12 Couple that with only having 8 gig of ram it's no wonder you're having issues. PT12.1 was only qualified for OSX 10.10.4 so it could well work in later OSX versions but might not be stable for all.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by musicman691

This might well be the problem. PT didn't get compatibility with OSX 10.13.x and that was for PT 12.8.3 and compatibility with OSX 10.13.6 wasn't until PT 2018.12 Couple that with only having 8 gig of ram it's no wonder you're having issues. PT12.1 was only qualified for OSX 10.10.4 so it could well work in later OSX versions but might not be stable for all.

^^^ Thanks Musicman for spotting that.

So given that, and your whole need to clean things up. If it was me and I really wanted to get work done. I'd max out the RAM in that iMac and install Mojave (full clean install not an upgrade) and install Pro Tools 2019.6. 2019.5/.6 are stunningly better releases than any of Pro Tools 11/12/2018. Mojave is a great release to run 2019.6 on. Your iMac supports Mojave, and will support Catalina, so is not going to be redundant any time soon.