"OS held up interrupts for too long" ruined my live recording

[Holly73]

I'm doing live recordings from time to time and didn't have the "operating system held interrupts for too long" for quite a long time. But yesterday, for no reason PT decided to stop recording. I had this problem in the times of PT 7 more often, but this was another software version and another computer. Since v8 it seemed to be gone and yesterday it came back. Makes me feel quite uncomfortable when recording the next time, as you never know when it will happen again.

My system:
MacBook Pro i5, Mid 2010, 4GB Ram
External FW400 HD (with Oxford chipset)
Digi 002R

PT 9.0
OS 10.6.6

This happened when recording 4 tracks with no plug ins. CPU usage showed 1%, HD 2% during all the recording. Bluetooth and AirPort switched off. Processors set to 3, 95% and "Ignore Errors" switched on.

I've got no explanation for the error, as two weeks ago I recorded with the exact same setup for around 16 hours (with stopping in between tracks) and on Saturday it also did 3 hours without any problem. And yesterday it stopped...

It would be great if Avid would come up with a solution for this. With "Ignore Errors" ticked, I at least would expect to have a click or pop in the recording instead of an aborted one.

[DonM]

H:
I can really commiserate with you on this. I do a lot of very long location orchestral recordings for public radio. In the near 30 years of doing this, I have had several instances of lost recordings for no apparent reason.

The only thing I can say is that, even though my gear (like yours) will perform flawlessly hundreds of times, there is one time every four years of so when the recording will be problematic - despite my avoidance of updates, revisions etc.

As a result, I have introduced parallel capture into my workflow. I know simultaneously capture to two MacBook Pros and an Alesis HD24 in parallel. I started to operate this way about four years ago and have never changed that workflow but once in January - and wouldn't you know my MacBook Pro that had operated for hundreds of hours without a glitch introduced gaps in the audio - I had to retake the entire project -

Summary never will I do location work again without parallel capture

-D

[WinTaper]

Make sure Spotlight is disabled - there are known issues with Spotlight/PT9 and live recording (long sessions).
-Dan

[Holly73]

And after nearly 3 years it is back again. Ruined another recording yesterday evening.

I'm not sure which error code I got, as I had to get the recording running fast again, but the computer was hovering at 1% CPU and 2% Disk. The only differnece since then: a new interface. This time it is an UA Apollo. But as the problem is within PT...

What really makes me angry: I have ticked "Ignore Errors" and I would be happy if it did so. Better to have some clicks and pops in the recording than a gap.

As I'm still on PT9, I have been thinking of getting 10 soon, but if I read about it in the PT10 forum, I see these problems are still there.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by WinTaper

Make sure Spotlight is disabled - there are known issues with Spotlight/PT9 and live recording (long sessions).
-Dan

Yeah that's what I would guess also

[Holly73]

Spotlight is disabled for my recording drive. But you mean I should turn it off completely?

[YYR123]

I would follow the procedure and the manuals I believe it says just on your recording drive however if it's going to cost your sessions and very long takes I would definitely turn it off altogether

That being said I would look at the readme notes for all of the updates because I believe they did some updates for a specific bug and nine for that very thing

Also your screensaver and your hard disks set to never go to sleep

[Holly73]

I'm on the latest release of PT9 and did most of the tweaking. I even run PT on its own user account.

I also don't believe in fixes until now, because this problem is there since I use PT (6) and never got fixed.

You can see it didn't ruin recordings during the last 3 years. But you never know. It can happen once in 3 years or twice a week. And it isn't a good feeling.

[Holly73]

Ok, I switched on Spotlight (only for the system drive of course) again, as I can't seem to disable it only for the Pro Tools user account. It is a real pain to work without Spotlight, but I could live with it when working on music. But for the rest of my work I switch to the other user account and there I just need it.

[YYR123]

Yeah spot is on for my - OS as well - I can't live w/o it either - I just turned off my target audio drive

Also I have upgraded all of my drives to the 64mb cAche - makes a difference