Pro Tools SE 8.0.3 hangs at Xpand!.dpm on Win XP SP3 and Crashes on Mac OS 10.6.8

[SmartAlex]

Bought the KeyStudio 49 package at Guitar Center on 12/2/2013 think I would learn a little about ProTools. Tried to install on my iMac and got a application error screen that I've never seen on a Mac. The equivalent to the BSOD on a PC. Decided to try it on my PC. After installation and restart, Pro Tools SE 8.0.3 hangs at Xpand!.dpm and won't continue. Does anyone know what is wrong with this garbage? Silly me, but when I buy something, I actually expect it to work! I tried the 003 patch on the mac, but it may have actually made it worse. I even tried a plugin updater on the PC. I'm losing my patients very fast and don't know why anyone would consider ProTools to be the "industry Standard". I've wasted two days on installation and searching for answers. Surely someone must have the same problem.

[Darryl Ramm]

Sorry you are having problems, but well unfortunately you made a whole series of mistakes there.

Shopping at Guitar Center. If you want to buy stuff from a large retailer, Sweetwater is much better, and you could have just called them up and gotten (typically) very good telephone support.

Buying a ~$50 "special". I assume it seemed a bargain when you were shopping. What you got was a discontinued bundle with Pro Tools SE 8.x That's three generation old technology compared to current Pro Tools 11.

Buying Pro Tools SE anything, its a very low end package. And basically valueless, it cannot be used to upgrade to any better version of Pro Tools software. And pretty severally limited even if it was just not old. Avid and some partners now sell Pro Tools 10 Express bundles that are a lot better.

M-Audio now owns these products and you may want to look for help on their forums.

If you want help here you need to provide more info. Start by reading the "Help us Help You - READ THIS Before Posting!" link above on this page. Seems there is some mysterious error message on one OS and a mysterious crash on another. Include what *exact* error messages or problem you are getting on each platform. For a crash what exactly is crashing? Just the app? or the whole OS? An application crash (not the OS) on a Mac is *not* the same as a bluescreen (OS crash) on Windows. So the description is very confused/confusing. Why we cannot just guess what exactly is going on I'll leave for you as a thought exercise.

Have you carefully followed the installation instructions? What exact interface driver and version do you have installed? What exact Windows service pack is installed.. actually just post a SiSoft Sandra report.

But my first advice would be return this and go find something better, with more modern Pro Tools software if you want that (be careful with what OS versions it will run on), unless you just want to toss the software and use the controller. I assume you are a keyboard player and not interested in a plain recording interface. If you say what you are after folks here into keyboards and virtual keyboard instruments can probalby provide some recommendations. If you are primarily after a recording interface and Pro Tools (or any other DAW) there are a lot better (non keyboard) options.

[Darryl Ramm]

And I hope you are not on IE 8 on your Windows PC? http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=243183

[SmartAlex]

I appreciate your help, bit In my opinion, when you sell a product, it's supposed to work or you remove it from the market. Both my Mac and PC systems meet the requirements. My title is pretty descriptive. "Pro Tools SE 8.0.3 hangs at Xpand!.dpm on Win XP SP3". When launching the Protools SE application on a Win XP SP3 PC, it starts loading the plug-ins and then hangs at Xpand!.dpm. When launching the Protools application on the Mac, the application crashes with a five page error. I would have to copy and past the entire 5 page error text and it is so cryptic, I doubt that anyone will understand it. I've been using Mac's and PC's since the 80's and the installer is supposed to detect if there are issues, install a work around or let the customer know what the issue is. This AVID ProTools software is the worst application I have ever installed and the company has made their customers unwilling beta testers. You can't even contact AVID! I'm not going to purchase one of their $10,000 systems when their entry level system won't run out of the box on two different platforms... I personally think that anyone buying AVID software must be asking for irritation. Every other company on the planet can make their applications compatible with all the other OS versions and applications on the market, but AVID and M-Audio are obviously disregarding all the proper OS guides just to make their garbage code run. ProTools is a hack and AVID is a bad company because they don't support their products or customers. I can't be the first person to buy this product and have this problem. When I search on Google, there should be an answer. By the way, IE8 is absolutely necessary on a PC because the automatic updates will not run without it. I shouldn't have to "Roll Back" anything because the ProTools application should know how to work around it or disable any interference when launching. It does have the word "PRO" in the name. I have found ProTools to be the least "Pro" application and company I have ever seen. Even SoundEdit way back on Mac OS 6 ran better than Protools. I expect to hear from AVID and not have to ask other suffering customers for support. Maybe I'll just return this "Pro" application and go back to using my amature Sony ACID software which actually works when you install it. I won't go into all the problems I had registering and logging into this site as if it is some privilege for me to tell them how bad their software is. You all should boycot this software till it works out of the box rather than paying AVID $40.00 per phone call to correct intentional problems with their products!!!!

[SmartAlex]

By the way, the links in this AVID post are no longer accessible.

Avid is pleased to announce that updates are now available for our A.I.R. virtual instruments on Mac and Windows computers. See the pages below to learn more about, and download, these updates.

Mac and Windows

Structure 1.0.5 and Structure LE 1.0.5 Update

The Structure/Structure LE 1.0.5 update resolves issues in the following areas:
Structure Import of EXS files on Mac and Windows
Pro Tools hangs when scanning plug-ins if Internet Explorer 8 is installed

Windows

The following updates resolve an issue with these plug-ins on Windows systems:
Pro Tools hangs when scanning plug-ins if Internet Explorer 8 is installed.

Hybrid 1.5.4 Update for Windows

Strike 1.0.4 Update for Windows

Velvet 1.0.4 Update for Windows

_________________
Avid Customer Support

[Darryl Ramm]

Ah Avid *did* remove this product from the market, but you still purchased it!

What IE version are you running on Windows?

That multi-page crash report will do fine. Helpful to lots of folks here, including me. A lot better than almost no information. And a Sandra report as well.

This is a user forum, your asking for help from other users here. if you want help try to answer all he questions, provide all the information asked as thoroughly as possible and please just stop the whining and learn to use line breaks to make your posts more readable.

[SmartAlex]

By the way, none of these updates apply to ProTools SE 8.0.3 because those plugins are not part of the package. More wasted time downloading and running programs that don't fix the problem!

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by SmartAlex

By the way, the links in this AVID post are no longer accessible.

Yes I realized that later, the first question is are you using IE8?

You can find the installers by just googling for the update like this one.. "Hybrid 1.5.4 Update for Windows" which will take you here http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...nload/en366175

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by SmartAlex

By the way, none of these updates apply to ProTools SE 8.0.3 because those plugins are not part of the package. More wasted time downloading and running programs that don't fix the problem!

And for the third time... Are you running IE 8?

If not why even bother looking for any updates related to that?

[SmartAlex]

Yep. IE8 like all good XP SP3 systems. That is the last browser for XP.