30 Second Delay when Hitting Record - Pro Tools Le 8.0.3

[xesands]

Hi there!

Up until yesterday, my system was behaving (relatively) normally. I hit record, and Pro Tools started recording. Then yesterday, it started crashing the first time I hit record after opening or creating a file. But, after reopening, it was stable.

Then today, it started delaying upwards of 30 second before actually recording. This is a NIGHTMARE when using the Quick Punch feature...I don't have 30 second to spare every time I have to punch in to correct a mistake.

What I've already tried:

It's NOT the MIDI Count-off
It's NOT the Open-Ended Record Allocation (no matter how low I go, doesn't change the delay).

I've already uninstalled and reinstalled Pro Tools LE 8.0.3.

Here's the specs I can get my hands, if they help:

Mac OS X 10.6.8
2 X 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processor
5 GB RAM
Start-up drive: 500G (about 400G free)
Record drive: 500G (about 200G free)

Could this be an issue of a disk fragmentation? Last time Pro Tools started having a ton of errors, I realized my disks were too full. But that's not the case this time around.

I'm pretty desperate at this point. I've got multiple deadlines looming and am already far behind. Anything to try? I'm game to try just about anything, although might need some hand-holding as I'm not entirely tech savvy.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!
Xe

[TOM@METRO]

The simple solution for this is; restore your last working system drive image or clone. You'll be back in a few minutes.

[Darryl Ramm]

"Crashing" - exactly what happened, what exact Pro Tools or OS error message and/or type of crash.

You don't describe what is happening during this 30 seconds? Are the UI windows doing anything? Are the PT windows or whole computer frozen?

You are absolutely sure its not countoff being unintendedly turned on. The countoff status/button is not illuminated in the transport window (believe me this gets everybody confused at some time, so check). Similarly you don't have pre-roll enbled? rolling over silence?

Have you done any of the usual troubleshooting steps of deleting preferences and databases, tryign to create a new session/try a different session? Read carefully all the information under the "Help us Help You - READ THIS Before Posting!" link on this page.

Your next post here should include the result of those standard troubleshooting steps.

Darryl

[xesands]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

The simple solution for this is; restore your last working system drive image or clone. You'll be back in a few minutes.

Thanks, Tom. Might just do that. Might be something up with one of the two drives used. Unfortunately, been a while since I backed up either one, so will require a bunch of copying/transferring if I choose to boot from a backup.

[xesands]

Originally Posted by Shan

If you have access to another audio drive, then give it a try. I had this happen many years back and it ended up being a botched drive.

Shane

Shane - do you mean the boot drive, or the drive that Pro Tools is using to record to/save files onto?

[xesands]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

"Crashing" - exactly what happened, what exact Pro Tools or OS error message and/or type of crash.

You don't describe what is happening during this 30 seconds? Are the UI windows doing anything? Are the PT windows or whole computer frozen?

You are absolutely sure its not countoff being unintendedly turned on. The countoff status/button is not illuminated in the transport window (believe me this gets everybody confused at some time, so check). Similarly you don't have pre-roll enbled? rolling over silence?

Have you done any of the usual troubleshooting steps of deleting preferences and databases, tryign to create a new session/try a different session? Read carefully all the information under the "Help us Help You - READ THIS Before Posting!" link on this page.

Your next post here should include the result of those standard troubleshooting steps.

Darryl

Darryl -

Answers in order:

When I say "crashing," I mean Pro Tools just closes without giving me an error window - just says asks if I want to report, ignore or reopen. To be clear, it is no longer doing this.

During the 30 or so seconds between hitting record and Pro Tools actually beginning to record, I get the dreaded rainbow clickwheel. Rest of the computer is fine. No other programs affected. PT windows are frozen during this time.

Absolutely positive it's not the countoff - the MIDI controls show in the Transport window. Nothing highlighted (had this problem prior so know what you're talking about - wish that was the problem).

Yes, pre-roll is on - but only for 2 seconds. Yes the problem persists, even when Pre-roll is deactivated.

No clue what you mean by "roll over silence"

Don't think there is any point to deleting databases and preferences, as this is a completely fresh install of Pro Tools, first time opening it since the reinstall. But yes, I tried the usual measures before going through the annoying process of reinstallation earlier today. It did not fix the problem. Neither has reinstallation.

At this point, I'm thinking that there's an issue with the drive that Pro Tools is recording to. Don't understand why only PT seems to be affected, however.

[Darryl Ramm]

It sounds worse than a corrupted session, but I'd exclude that as well. Create a brand new empty session and see what happens with that. Worse case you'll need to import that old data into a new session.

For a quick test try a new session on the boot/system drive and see if that also fails.

Also try creating another brand new admin account and try these tests again from there... very strange things like this can happen if your account becomes corrupted.

And finally temporarily remove all the plugins from their folders and try running with that.

Darryl

[Darryl Ramm]

By "roll over silence" I just mean when a pre-roll is setup but there is no content on unmuted tracks that will be heard. This confuses folks sometimes and they don't realize pre-roll is happening. Clearly this is not the issue here...

[xesands]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

It sounds worse than a corrupted session, but I'd exclude that as well. Create a brand new empty session and see what happens with that. Worse case you'll need to import that old data into a new session.

For a quick test try a new session on the boot/system drive and see if that also fails.

Also try creating another brand new admin account and try these tests again from there... very strange things like this can happen if your account becomes corrupted.

And finally temporarily remove all the plugins from their folders and try running with that.

Darryl

Wish it was a corrupted session (although those definitely suck as well), but this is with fresh sessions. Hmm...wait, let me try creating one NOT from my standard template...

Dang. Was hoping. Just tried that and no go. Problem persists.

Just checked my drives - they don't appear to be fragmented, and Pro Tools is the only program having this issue. What could possibly have changed in the last two days? This is the craziest thing I've experienced yet with PT and it's making me completely crazy.

[Darryl Ramm]

This is never going to be fragmentation. Something more serious is just broken.

Try all the other things I suggested.

Also go back over your systems optimizations and make sure nothing has been accidentally changed. Especially make sure that Spotlight is not set to index *any* drive--not just the audio drive. There were versions of OS X where spotlight indexing was quite aggressive and Apple really throttled this back in the most current OS X releases, I just can't remember exactly what release that improved in, it might have been the first Mountain Lion. I remember seeing spinning pinwheel issues with those aggressive indexing versions of OS X if Spotlight was on. Either way, just turn it totally off for every drive. And also make sure time machine is not running.