Help! PT5 Cannot open Session due to Type3 Error

[D E K]

Hmm, I've had serious PT5 problems today...

I was working tonight and PT5 started its slowing down routine, so I saved
the session and restarted my BW450G3 Mac. Only to try reopening the session and
to my horror, when the session got to Verifying Session: Main Playlists, the
waving hand took a while, then bang...PT quits leaving DAE in the background
and a Mac Error Type 3 message appears. This is 100% repeatable, and worse,
all 3 session files accumulated today have the _same_ problem. Note that one of these sessions was saved to a different 18Gb HD as precaution. (I have 5 drives across ATTO dual SCSI)

The only common thing I can see between all these sessions is that there are
all over 3Mb in size. The last one that opens was 2.9Mb, and that still
opens OK. I've mainly been adding some MIDI stuff today, so track transfer
isn't going to be a lot of help in salvaging individual elements.

I need to see if I can get this data retrievable - well, I would
appreciate any suggestions. I've got 320Mb RAM in there and have tried:

•allocating 130Mb to PT to open the sessions
•the inverse, allocating only 35 Mb to PT

still no joy. My normal allocation's about 70Mb. I also reinstalled 8.6.

This is, needless to say, a major PITA, and a real concern that larger files
are prone to this kind of corruption.

Thanks in advance...

DEK
Zeus Records Ltd
London

[DigiTechSupt]

DEK,

A 3 gig session document is MASSIVE. You got some serious info in there. Type 3 huh ....
Did you change the minimum setting when you were allocating memory to pro tools (or DAE for that matter). Trash the pro tools 5.0 prefs and the DAE prefs folder. After you restart, go back and do the memory allocations again (only change the preferred setting). Let us know if this works or if you find the problem.


B Carter
Digidesign

[swils4]

Just a week ago I faced a similar problem which though not the same did always end up in a Type 2 or 3 error. Listed below is some of the stuff I tried.

1. Checked the RAM Allocation to PT and DAE. The minimum memory setting of the DAE and PT are left at its default value.

2. DAE buffer size set to 2. (Originally found at "1")

3. The Disk Cache in the memory control panel set to 512KB.

4. DigiSetup File, ProTools and DAE preference file trashed. ProTools was then started up from the ProTools application Icon and not directly from a session. All hardware settings reconfigured.

5. Desktop was rebuilt on startup.

6. P-RAM cleared.

7. Only extensions necessary for PT operation were selected.

8. Finally OS and PT were re-installed.

The reinstallation of the OS or PT software is not the key to the solution but only a desperate resort.

You can try all of the above though I must tell you that my problem went away when I swapped my SCSI card.

This installation of PT was a new one and so not tested. And I happen to work for the Digidesign dealers in India

Baylon
[email protected]

[D E K]

Thank you both for the replies - B Carter, I think you meant to write 3 _Megabytes_ not Gigabytes re session size - I think you're thinking of PT6.0 Anyhow, I think I have found the cause in my case. I needed to shift all audio regions aft of a tempo change to realign with the midi data. I do this by selecting all audio tracks and splitting them so I have a clean marker at the "old" beat 1 position. Then, when the tempo change alters the beat 1 position for the next bar, I spot the split regions to the new beat 1 position, and trim them back as appropriate. This is a kludge for performing a simple rit., but I know currently of no simpler method. Anyohow, there were fade files which were split during this operation. I am aware there is/are bug(s) re fade files where PT5 will not find them upon rebooting, and I suspect the fades in this case became corrupt. The only way I got theses session to open after several hours of troubleshooting, was to delete fades created in the last 24 hours up to that point, and allow PT5 to rebuild them. This worked. So I have to conlcude that it wasn't _actually_ a memory problem as such, but PT crahsed when it found "bad" fade files on relaunch. PT5 has added about 500Mb to my fade file folder for this project because it's occasionally 'lost' them. The problem is if I deleted them _all_ and started again, I think that sessions created, say, a fed days ago would lose track of all fades (the numbers would be different - right?), so it would be a vicious cycle.