Midi notes completely disappearing ... including all backups!

[meech]

I was working on a session, cutting parts on instrument tracks (I had several up). The regions were absolutely there with plenty of notes within them ... for several hours. Time Machine did two backups, Pro Tools created plenty of backup sessions.

I closed the session and opened another to listen to a track, and went back to the session I was working on. On two of the tracks, the midi regions were still there but were completely blank! On one of those tracks, the very first note still remained but that's all.

I'm 100% positive that the notes were there and 100% positive that they aren't any longer ... they weren't bizarrely transposed out of view (my zoom toggle setting would reveal them), the midi tracks were assigned to the correct plugins.


Now the crazy thing is ... every single backup of the session file shows the same thing! The notes were there at 7:15 when I went into the other session. When I came back they were gone. All the backups Pro Tools made (up to 2 hours earlier) showed the same thing ... The midi regions were there, but containing no notes (except for the one). It is the same thing with restored time machine backups. It's like the midi was erased from the session and simultaneously erased from two dozen backup sessions on two different hard drives! I called Digi tech support and emailed them the session (and a backup) and their computer also showed that the midi was missing (the sessions files were somehow changed, it wasn't PT on my computer reading the sessions funny).

So the midi notes are almost certainly gone for good, but does anyone have any ideas on how to recover the session files (when you save a session, does it write over the existing file, or would the previous version be recoverable if I bought DiskWarrior)? Does anyone have any idea what causes this problem?

I had several virtual instruments open in the session ... one omnisphere, one ivory, one Kontakt 2 player, one minimonsta, and a Vienna Ensemble with 5 or so patches loaded. Tech support told me that Digi doesn't recommend used Time Machine because it can cause archiving issues. I have never had this problem after using time machine for probably a year. What I don't normally use however, is Kontant 2 player and Vienna Ensemble at the same time. So maybe those plugins (or just VE) were acting strange in conjunction with Time Machine? Kontakt 2 player is awful with Leopard ... taking 30 seconds to save a session, so I know it doesn't perform well, but I use it fairly regularly without incident so I would suspect Vienna Ensemble.

My specs are
Mac Pro 8 core 2.8 ghz xeon
6 gb ram
Mac OS 10.5.6
Pro Tools HD 8.0cs2

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Pro Tools (updated to cs3, i couldn't find cs2) to see if the midi would reappear (it didn't). But now I'm trying to see if I can recreate the problem but maybe it won't happen with cs3. I also deleted prefs and repaired permissions but of course the notes are gone for certain...

So I know this is a lot of information and even Digi's tech support on the phone couldn't find an answer ... but if anyone can help please don't hesitate! And if you know whether a data recovery program could help please tell me