Pro Tools Crashes, Keeps Running in Background After Force Quit

[gabriel b.]

Pro Tools 11
OSX 10.8.5
15" Macbook Pro - Late 2011
2.4 ghz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1333 Mhz DDR3 (Crucial)
1 TB SSD Internal (Crucial)
1 TB Glyph Studio Mini External 7200rpm Firewire 800
Mbox 3

OK, I'm baffled by this one; I haven't been able to find anything online that speaks to it—I'm wondering if anyone has experienced similar, or might have ideas on how to address it.

It begins with Pro Tools hanging indefinitely—I get a spinning beach ball.

I have to force quit, but when I do, the session windows—mixer, transport, etc—stay visible in the background.

Logging out of my Mac user account and then back in clears them from the screen—I can then reopen and use Pro Tools, but after I've quit again (normally), and try to dismount my external HD (audio + session files), I get an alert that the drive still in use.

Checking active tasks in Terminal (using lsof grep command) shows a number of audio files from the crashed session are still in use (even several hours later, after reopening, and closing Pro Tools again).

Checking Activity Monitor and Terminal shows Pro Tools and Pro Tools Quick Time tasks still running, even though I've closed the program, and it doesn't appear in the Force Quit window. Force quit functions in both Activity Monitor and Terminal (via kill and kill - 9 commands) don't do anything.

That means the only way to shut down the computer (and dismount the external drive) is by doing a hard shut down (using the laptop's power button; otherwise I just get gray screen with a spinning wheel, like the OS is waiting for Pro Tools to close, or for the drive to dismount).

At first I thought it was just a corrupt session; I tried importing to a new one, and it seemed to work fine for a few hours or so before crashing again, and repeating the problem. I haven't been able to recreate the exact problem on a different project yet; I did get a spinning beach ball on another song today, but the audio kept playing through the interface, and the system eventually recovered… a slightly different manifestation).

Then I thought it might have been a Waves v9 plugin (technically unsupported with PT11 on 10.8.5)—namely the NS1 noise suppressor, which I've made inactive on the mixer (and AudioSuited instead). But it happened again this evening with the plugin nixed from the session.

Active plugins include a bunch from Waves Gold (which I've been using for months on this system with PT11 and years with PT10 without problems). Also, a bunch from the SoundToys bundle including Little Plate, only about a month old but fine on other sessions. Inactive include a Reason 9 Rewire + Melodyne Demo.

Any guesses as to whether this is a plugin, DAW, or hardware issue? Any ideas on how to stop the hung process when it happens again, so I can dismount the external drive and shut down?

Thoughts much appreciated.

[musicman691]

Making a plugin inactive in the PT mixer or using AudioSuite won't help resolve whether it's that plugin or not. You need to move the plugin(s) to the unused plugins folder with PT not running and then restart PT and the session. You'll want to hold down the shift key when starting the session & PT to start the session in safe mode. That way all plugins int he session will be inactive.

Just having a plugin in the regular plugins folder is enough to sometimes cause problems.

[gabriel b.]

Thanks Jack. Will try moving the suspect plugs to the unused folder, see if that solves it...