Anybody experience THIS ?? ( not Power Harness )

[danocaster]

hey guys -

anybody experience this :

I'll be playing a session - or recording - and my cinema screen goes blank , computer seems to go to sleep , and PT crashes. Hitting spacebar awakens the Mac but PT is quit

I have 7.1 w/ the MP Toolkit running on a Dual 2.7 ( lotsa ram )..

I usually record at 44.1 and can run 25 tracks or more w/ plenty of plugs as well - and still keep a very low buffer to keep latency down - like 128, or even 64. I never have problems w/ my OWN sessions


But I was mixing a friends session ( 48 / 24 ) and the above situation happened for the first time. Doing guitar overdubs for another friend's session today ( also 48K ) the same thing happened twice

shouldnt I get a " Increase Buffer" notice or something - it's just crashing !!

I was thinking this may be the dreaded Power Harness - but typically "communication" w/ the 002 is perfect and my serial # ends w/ G ( which means it has the latest PH )

any ideas ?? The crashing goes away if I raise the buffer - BUT I would like to be TOLD to increase the buffer if thats really the issue. I fear its something bigger

[Park Seward]

Check the power saving settings and see if your computer is set to sleep. Never set it to sleep.

[danocaster]

Thats not it - but thanks

It's EXACTLY what it's acting like though ( computer sleeping ) but it is set to Sleep NEVER

[Barnabas]

Do you have screen saver disabled?

[Park Seward]

The crashing goes away if I raise the buffer

Then keep the buffer raised.

[danocaster]

ok.. OBVIOUSLY I can do that

But if it hurts when you push on your leg and you know there's a problem - you dont really want or need the DOCTOR to say " Well..then dont push on it" !!

You wanna FIX the problem

[Park Seward]

Setting the buffer to the correct size for the session is NOT a problem.

From the manual:

"The DAE Playback Buffer Size determines the
amount of memory DAE allocates to manage
disk buffers.

?DAE Playback Buffer Size settings lower than
Level 2 may improve playback and recording
initiation speed, but may make it difficult to
play or record tracks reliably with sessions con-
taining a large number of tracks or a high den-
sity of edits, or running on slower or heavily
fragmented hard drives.

?DAE Playback Buffer Size settings higher than
Level 2 will allow for a higher density of edits in
a session or a higher track count when using
slower hard drives. However, a higher setting
can also cause a time lag to occur when starting
playback or recording, and result in a longer au-
dible time lag while editing during playback.

If Pro Tools needs more system memory for
the DAE Playback Buffer, it will prompt you to
restart your computer.

[danocaster]

Thanks Park -

I will look more closely into that.

Do you think having that set incorrectly would cause my Mac to just essentially go to sleep w/ out a "Pro Tools quit unexpectedly" window popping up ??

I do know it happened w/ a buffer of 64 ( level 2 DAE ) , NO plugs at all , and one stereo bed track imported into a new session and while recording a new gtr track

in the middle of playback of a freshly recorded take , the screen went dark and the computer's fan went off, etc... hitting spacebar awoke the screen - but PT hadnt quit , although the session had crashed