Not you again, Mr. -9173

[justinhill]

Originally Posted by Landetta

Did the OP find a solution for this!

No, I never found the solution for what was happening. After a frustrating day and a half of constant re-booting and teeth-grinding it stopped happening and I finished the work in double-quick time before it came back!

I'm working on another project and Pro Tools is stable as a rock right now. This has probably jinxed it though.

[VisionsMusicGroup]

Originally Posted by clivvy

news flash 9173 is still a problem even when you update it comes and goes sometime at the start of play back or when you least exspect it avid needs to seriously look in to this even protools users including my self with powerful computers with fast cpu native cards or AAX are dealing with this hopefully the next update will address it!

While everyone else is having fun learning Finnish, I too have the accursed -9173 error, and it ONLY began for me in Mohave/PT 2019.6.

I do not have backups, agents, software, anything fancy running. All my plugins are up-to-date, according to the Avid Link thingy.

I normally have one single track in my entire session which is a Stereo INSTRUMENT track, using the MiniGrand plugin that comes with Pro Tools.

100% of the time (not exaggerating), when I freshly boot MacOS, go into PT, and load my 1-instrument-track session and Play, it, 100% of the time, tells me the CPU Power has been consumed.


Today (screen shot attached), I am using 1 Piano Instrument track, and ezDrummer, which is also up-to-date. Doesn't matter if ezDrummer MIDI is included or not, still the same error on the very first MIDI note played - but ONLY after a fresh boot of MacOS (so, guess who I am blaming :) )

The CPU is not running out of power, not visually anyway using System Usage. From my eyes, it never leaves 2%. Unless it's doing it SO quickly I cannot see it spike...


Regardless, as with the OP author, out of nowhere, this started happening when I upgraded both MacOS Mojave and PT2019.6 a few weeks ago.

Annoyed. But thankful if anyone can tell me wtfigo.

[Darryl Ramm]

.... so of the very obvious things you should be trying to check what have you tried?

Trashed prefs? Removed all .aaxplugin files from plugin folder and seen if Pro Tool is stable with just the stock plugins?, tried a different/new session? Tried running as a new admin user? tried using Built-In Output? Still problems? Was this an insitu macOS upgrade--then spin a clean macOS install and test... then if you show this as a generic problem, or can finger what plugins seem responsible, then scream it from the rooftop. And lots of folk will go to bat to get it looked at. Until then anything is too easy to be ignored as yet another plugin version issues or messed up system.

And again, plugins 101: it does not just matter what plugins you are using, it can also matter what plugins you just have installed in Pro Tools and are not using.

What sample rate and IO buffer size are you workin at? What playback engine?

Originally Posted by VisionsMusicGroup

While everyone else is having fun learning Finnish, I too have the accursed -9173 error, and it ONLY began for me in Mohave/PT 2019.6.

I do not have backups, agents, software, anything fancy running. All my plugins are up-to-date, according to the Avid Link thingy.

The Avid Link "thingy" does not check anything about third party plugins, which are an obvious suspect to exclude here. And even if third party plugins are up to date... you need to test/try to exclude them as a factor.

I normally have one single track in my entire session which is a Stereo INSTRUMENT track, using the MiniGrand plugin that comes with Pro Tools.

100% of the time (not exaggerating), when I freshly boot MacOS, go into PT, and load my 1-instrument-track session and Play, it, 100% of the time, tells me the CPU Power has been consumed.

With such trivial sessions especially, it it seems *more* likely that you have something messed up specific to your system. Lot of us are running the same identical versions on the identical macOS release as on similar Macs and running hundreds of tracks, including MiniGrand with no problems. MiniGrand also gets use lot for testing and problems there would tend to get lots of visibility.

As has been explained on DUC a lot, this is caused by transient latency, and can happen with very low CPU meter readings. The message is misleading and looking at the CPU meters does not really help.

Today (screen shot attached), I am using 1 Piano Instrument track, and ezDrummer, which is also up-to-date. Doesn't matter if ezDrummer MIDI is included or not, still the same error on the very first MIDI note played - but ONLY after a fresh boot of MacOS (so, guess who I am blaming :) )

The CPU is not running out of power, not visually anyway using System Usage. From my eyes, it never leaves 2%. Unless it's doing it SO quickly I cannot see it spike...

Regardless, as with the OP author, out of nowhere, this started happening when I upgraded both MacOS Mojave and PT2019.6 a few weeks ago.

Annoyed. But thankful if anyone can tell me wtfigo.

"(so, guess who I am blaming :) )" -- this gives you *no* idea what is the cause. All this is entirely consistent with plugin induced problems, and you just upgraded... which can break plugin compatibility, or cause audio driver issues (which yes on some rare occasions can cause CPU errors, which is why you should have tested against Built-In Output). And It's also entirely consistent with problems in Pro Tools. Asking anybody here for help right now is a waste of time. *You* need to troubleshoot stuff, starting with third party plugins, basically running the troubleshooting list I gave above. If that is new to you/not clear ask for help and you will get it. And you will get help here in escalating stuff... once there is enough knows about what might be broken.

[Darryl Ramm]

I tried to make a MiniGrand session fail on my system (2019 15" MBP, 6 core, 32GB, top end GPU). Using "Macbook Pro Speaker" as playback engine. Mojave 10.14.6, Pro Tools Standard 2019.6. Tried 44.1 kHz session at 32 sample IO buffer. 96 kHz session at 64 sample buffer. ... but buffer size is largely irrelevant here as Pro Tools will be using the fixed playback buffer size on an instrument track. Nothing I could to to get that to fail, running the session fast after a computer reboot, etc. I duplicated that track over one hundred times, and it just worked. (Well OK at >> many hundreds of duplicated tracks Pro Tools lost it and the GUI seemed to go off to noddy land, and oh boy did the cooling fans start spinning). Ignore errors was NOT checked. Avid Complete plugin bundle, lots of Toontrack, iZotope, BIAS, and some BlueCat, and a few other third party plugins installed.

And in your case you have an iMac 5K, so also add that to the list of things to look at. Do you see the increased CPU activity with say the edit window on screen? I thought some of those issues were improved with Mojave. Discussions elsewhere on DUC about sRGB colorspace and screen resolution settings to try if this is suspect... but I would be a bit surprised if that is a cause issue here, and worry about that only after looking at most of the other tests.

[unkJE]

Wondering if this 2017 fix works:

Avid Knowledge Base
AIR Mini Grand causes -9173 errors sometimes followed by distortion
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...-by-distortion
Last Updated : October 10, 2017
Products Affected : Pro Tools, Pro Tools HD
AIR Virtual Instruments Mini Grand causes -9173 errors sometimes followed by distortion. This seems to happen more when using Apple Built-in Output or Pro Tools Aggregate I/O as the Playback Engine in Pro Tools.
Deleting the following Apple .plist files has been found to resolve some cases of this problem:

• com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
• com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist

These files are found in: Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/Audio/

After deleting them, you should restart your computer before launching Pro Tools.

If this does not solve the problem then you may need to delete Audio MIDI Setup preference, more details here:
Avid Knowledge Base
MIDI track crashes Pro Tools in OS X.
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...ssage/en341985

[Darryl Ramm]

^^ damn nice, thanks for passing on.

[VisionsMusicGroup]

^^ damn nice, both of you's. Thank you so much for not only the incredible amount if troubleshooting tips, Darryl, but taking the time to analyze some things yourself.

By your own response, it seems there's an enormous list of info I would have to give to nail down my exact scenario - and IMO, nothing should be this difficult to analyze or troubleshoot... reinstalling my entire MacOS to verify it isn't the Upgrade from High Sierra? Uninstalling the entirety of Pro Tools, all stock plugins and all my 3rd party plugins and analyzing each one one at a time (into the hundreds)? No, I'd rather switch DAWs. Or live with clicking the OK and restarting playback. Or, never rebooting my Mac :)

I came here because I saw someone else had this specific error box pop up, and was hoping someone else had an issue with MiniGrand specifically, and it appears someone(s) have or there wouldn't be a KB article (thank you, unkJE, precisely what I was after, specific issues)

I definitely appreciate the input, and will try the easy fix first, and from there, I guess I'll wait until the MacOS needs a refresh before I will be in a position to try allthethings.

Thank you both again for the responses.

[VisionsMusicGroup]

FYI, just tried the KB article fix, and while promising, it did not solve the issue. It was hopeful, though! I will need to wait until I have time to unravel my entire empire to test clean OS/PT installations. But you've given me a lot to think about, and dabble with in the future. Thanks again!

[justinhill]

...and speaking as the OP, thanks to all from me as well. The DUC is an extraordinary place.

Mind you, I didn't really start this thread looking for help. I was just having a rant and 'sharing my pain'. It is worth noting though, that my problem appeared without anything having changed in my system, and went away without anything having changed in my system.

Pro Tools, MacOS, Avid and 3rd party plugins, audio interfaces, video drivers, RAM, storage, the list goes on. It's a mind-bendingly complex ecosystem that all has to work together to get the music in and out. Working with Jazz, as I do, is probably not much different from any other music field - though undoubtedly different from post of course - but I don't use VIs, I don't use MIDI really, I don't use a lot of outboard. I just have 20 or 30 tracks of audio, usually at 96k, lit up like a Christmas tree with plugins. It's a miracle all this works at all really.

Sure, I get cross and frustrated when nothing seems to work. But I just as soon forget about it when everything just comes together, it sounds wonderful, and the musicians are grinning at me.

[VisionsMusicGroup]

Originally Posted by justinhill

Mind you, I didn't really start this thread looking for help. I was just having a rant and 'sharing my pain'. It is worth noting though, that my problem appeared without anything having changed in my system, and went away without anything having changed in my system

True, sorry to hijack your rant then because my stuff definitely changed, but as always in the computer world, it's never just one thing; upgrading an OS, then upgrading the DAW because now it works with the new OS, then upgrading all plugins because they now work with the new DAW that now works with the new OS, ad nauseam.

It's usually a sleigh ride into total f#$@ery anytime I upgrade anything. I should know by now, eh? Thanks for letting me piggyback!