FireWire External Help!

[mannyd408]

Well for starters, I have Pro Tools MP9 installed on my MacPro, and I'm using the M-Audio ProjectMix I/O.

Originally, I had all of my Pro Tools session files in a "USB" external drive. Obviously that wasn't working too well cause the data couldn't travel fast enough. So upon reading that a "FireWire" drive is recommended, I purchased one, installed it, and transferred all my Pro Tools files to it.

But now I play my songs for two seconds, then a window pops up saying, "Pro Tools is unable to communicate with HUI. Power-cycle HUI and check its connections. Note, if HUI is not in use, update the Peripherals dialog to prevent further warnings".

This happens every time. One time my computer even froze, and I was force to restart. Seems like I was better off with the USB drive. lol.

Thoughts anyone?

[Bill Denton]

First, a couple of general points...

Just because you did "A" and "B" happened doesn't necessarily mean there is any connection between the two events.

I have a computer and I am posting on the internet. Does that automatically mean I have a clue what I'm talking about? Actually, I do know what I'm talking about, but you should never assume that I (or anyone else) actually has a clue.

First things first...you need to read the system requirements for Pro Tools, which you can find on www.avid.com.

Had you done so, you would have known that external USB drives are not approved for use with Macs...only Firewire external drives are approved.

Had you read the manual, you probably would not have needed to ask your question on here.

But since I'm bothering to post at all, I'll help you on this one...

The message regarding "HUI" is appearing because you have a HUI device configured in Pro Tools but PT can't connect to it. HUI is the protocol used by a control surface to communicate with Pro Tools. The control surface may either be a standalone unit, or it may be part of a keyboard.

So, if you're using a control surface, you need to double-check its configuration; if you're not using a control surface, you need to remove the configuration.

Now, how do you do that? Well, the first step is to open the manual...

[mannyd408]

Well, thanks for the "A and B" explanation. Not really sure how THAT, and your "don't have a clue/do have a clue" gibberish helps me. But lets get right down to the meat of it.

For the record, I did read "system requirements", LONG before buying my MacPro. So I already knew my computer and Pro Tools would play nice together (unlike some people who reply on forums).

And as far as your assumption about me not reading the manual, I actually did. I didn't run out and buy a USB drive when I bought Pro Tools. I had already owned it before purchasing Pro Tools, and just used it temporarily, until I was able to buy a FireWire drive. Sometimes you have to use what you have, until you can get what you want.

And my apologies if it bothered you that I "would have needed to ask my question on here". I was of the belief that this is what forums were for.

My control surface is not part of a keyboard. As I mentioned on my original post, I'm using a ProjectMix I/O. Pro Tools & the ProjectMix were communicating fine when I spent a month using the USB drive. The only problem during that month, was as I began to add more & more plug-ins while mixing, Pro Tools began to lag. So I thought by switching to a FireWire drive, I would have alleviated any problems. I didn't (and still don't) think that by switch external drives, there'd be communication problems.

I've triple-checked configuration, even though I didn't think I had to, considering it was working fine before the switch.

Oh, and by the way. I actually did read the manual upon purchasing Pro Tools.. ..but thanks for the advice anyway.

So if anybody with some actual insight, who wants to chime in, your input is more than welcome.

-Thanks in advance..

[Darryl Ramm]

As Bill explained, HUI is what Pro Tools talks to your Project Mix. I'll always suspect the usual Firewire type issues here.

What exact model/spec is this new Firewire drive?

Can you describe your Mac Pro. Model, any other disks, any other USB or Firewire peripherals/interfaces.

Are you daisy chaining the new Firewire Disk and project Mix? If so try them directly connected them to separate Firewire ports on the Mac. If its a FW800 disk make sure its directly connected to a FW800 port.

Try different cables and any FW 800 to 400 adapters/cables involved, yes even if all this worked before.

What driver versions are you running for the Project Mix? (have you checked they are the latest?).

And as a sanity test if you remove the FW disk and just create a test session on your internal drive, does this HUI error really go away?

Darryl

[CME]

Fwiw I would use a secondary internal drive. That is always better than an external drive. You could possibly take the drive out of either of the external drives and use it. Most external drives have either 2.5" or 3.5" sata drives in them. However a lot are either 5400 rpm or "green" drives. Both will cause problems with audio.

Also what FireWire drive did you get? Some are definitely better than others both in the HD used as mentioned above and in the chipset it's using. I'm sure we can get this sorted.

Also how full is the drive? Once you get about 60-75% full performance starts to degrade.

[mannyd408]

Well the FireWire drive is a "Western Digital My Book Studio" (FireWire 800), 2TB.

MacPro: Model A1224
Processor: 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 8 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Mac OS X v10.6.8

The tower has two FireWire ports. I have my ProjectMix connected to one, and the FireWire external connected to the other (no daisy-chaining).

Connected to my USB ports are, my keyboard, internet antenna, a USB external 1TB, my iLok, my MPC, and my web-cam.

I recently upgraded to the latest firmware for the ProjectMix.

Ran the "Sanity Test". Lol. And hmmm, the HUI error still came up. Weird.

[mannyd408]

CME,

Yeah, thought about purchasing another internal drive.

As I mention above, the FireWire drive is a "Western Digital My Book Studio" (FireWire 800), 2TB. And it's brand new, I just loaded about 12 Pro Tools session files in it, that's all.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by mannyd408

Well the FireWire drive is a "Western Digital My Book Studio" (FireWire 800), 2TB.

MacPro: Model A1224
Processor: 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 8 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Mac OS X v10.6.8

The tower has two FireWire ports. I have my ProjectMix connected to one, and the FireWire external connected to the other (no daisy-chaining).

Connected to my USB ports are, my keyboard, internet antenna, a USB external 1TB, my iLok, my MPC, and my web-cam.

I recently upgraded to the latest firmware for the ProjectMix.

Ran the "Sanity Test". Lol. And hmmm, the HUI error still came up. Weird.

I'm confused: the A1224 model number comes up as a 20" iMac Core 2 Duo not a Mac Pro.

Well for starters take that external drive and throw it far away, its usable as a backup drive at best. It is useless as an audio drive, and even though you might get it to work it will come back and bite you in the ass at some time. I am pretty certain it contains a WD Caviar Green drive -- the infamous pox on Pro Tools hard drive. While these drives are sometimes *marketed* as 7200 rpm, they are notoriously problematic (for Pro Tools) largely because the drive is not really a 7200rpm drive and does slowdown and parking which you never want an audio drive to do, and there may be other power saving/green power management crap going on in those boxes/controllers.

You are generally better off buying a brand that lots of other Pro Tools users are using and we know the exact internal chipsets, rpm and OEM drive specs, etc.. Some good brands to look at are G-Tech (what I use with several G-tech drives on MBP and iMac), OWC (one world computing), and Glyph. But look at the specifics of each drive from those vendors. rpm, oxford FW chipset, and no "green" drives etc. There are are other things WD have done to similar external drives in the past that mean I just would not want to use them on a Mac, I don't know if they still have issue with (like locking partitions, booting problems etc.).

----

Now back to the current problem. If its not the hard drive, I would do all debugging leaving the hard drive fully disconnected. Try swapping Firewire ports, cables, adapters etc. Follow all the Firewire debugging stuff in the standard troubleshooting and optimization guide. http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...oting/en367983 And I'd do the delete databases and preferences stuff as well.

Did this problem start when you recently upgraded the firmware? Try reflashing the firmware again. Besides firmware are you sure you have the latest driver?

Darryl

[mannyd408]

Lol. Oops. Sorry. I had both empty boxes near me, and grabbed the box to my iMac to get the model number instead.

You surely gave me alot to think about. I'll definitely do some price/spec research on other externals and internals.

But I'll do all the debugging, optimization, and troubleshooting you recommended first tho.

Maybe I'll just bury this Western Digital in the back yard. Lol.

All the info, and your time is much appreciated.

-Thanks manny408

[Bill Denton]

Manny...

I apologize for coming across with a major case of 'tude...chalk it up to one bad day!

And after b*tching at you about "not reading" I realized that I did not read your post as carefully as I should have...I completely missed that you were using a ProjectMix I/O, a Firewire control surface.

Most of the control surfaces you see today are using either "direct" MIDI, MIDI over Ethernet, or MIDI over USB, and had I read your post carefully I would have realized you had a different situation. Again, I apologize.

FWIW, I don't know the vintage of your unit, but I bought a WD MyBook about 6 years ago and it came with a 5400 RPM drive. Unfortunately, Western Digital doesn't tell you (either on the website or on the MyBook's packaging) what the speed of the drive is.

If you were daisy-chaining I would suspect that as a possible cause of the problem, but since you are using separate Firewire ports we can eliminate that. One thing you might try is "swapping" the ports to see if that helps, and you might also try swapping cables.

Sorry I don't have any better information to offer, and I truly apologize for the sh*tty advice I gave you yesterday.

No excuses, I stupidly allowed myself to bring some work BS home with me, and since we're on the Internet you didn't know to duck...

Again, my apologies...