Screen Freeze - Plug-ins periodically become 'corrupted'

[Drywsef]

Good morning, everyone - at least it is here in California.
Dave, I did reinstall the MOTU drivers before the following test.
I ran the session keeping an eye on the RAM usage via task manager. I have attached some photos of the results throughout time. The freeze/crash DID occur, so I had to snap the last image on my phone. The memory PT is consuming doesn't get anywhere near the 4gb limit. It session seems to hang out at 0.8. Please have a look at the images and let me know if there's anything I'm not doing right.
Thanks so much for the help, everyone.

The 1st image shows my computer's RAM usage right after logging in.
The 2nd image shows memory usage shortly after loading the session.
The 3rd image shows the overall system memory usage as the session has been in loop playback for about 1min.

The 4th image was taken on my phone and shows PT memory usage at the time of the freeze.

[TOM@METRO]

Another reality to consider here is that simply having a corrupt outdated, or incorrectly authorized plug-in loading into Pro Tools (on launch) can be an illusive source of trouble. Simply rendering a plug-in or VI inactive will not always fix things. The offender should be removed from the system.

Also keep in mind that plug-ins can react to one another in strange ways when something goes wrong, making it difficult to single out the real culprit.

If you find that it is not the RAM ceiling being challenged, you might list all of the 3rd party plug-ins (with version numbers) that are in your session.

[Drywsef]

I also checked the same session on PT11 (which has most, but not all of the same plug-ins as those used in the 10.3.7 session). I could not replicate the crash/freeze there; the session is solid on PT11 (except for the MIDI timing issue, but that's in another thread).

[mjslakeridge]

Have you tried my suggestion from a couple of days ago to move all of the plugins to the unused plugin folder and see if the session still crashes? I could be wrong, but I still think it is something other than a plugin.

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by Drywsef

I also checked the same session on PT11 (which has most, but not all of the same plug-ins as those used in the 10.3.7 session). I could not replicate the crash/freeze there; the session is solid on PT11 (except for the MIDI timing issue, but that's in another thread).

Don't be fooled by this. It really is not a real comparison as PT10 is using all older 32bit plug-ins and PT11 is using rewritten 64bit plug-ins.

[Drywsef]

Originally Posted by mjslakeridge

Have you tried my suggestion from a couple of days ago to move all of the plugins to the unused plugin folder and see if the session still crashes? I could be wrong, but I still think it is something other than a plugin.

I did try this just now. The session will not crash if all plugins are in the unused folder. However most of my sound is coming from VIs, so there's hardly any strain on the system.

[Drywsef]

However, I just found that the session will freeze/crash if I so much as add the VIs back in, all of which are Native Instruments.

[mjslakeridge]

Looks like you are finally zeroing in on the problem. Is it possible to add the VI's back in one at a time, or are they all in a bundle?

[dave911]

If one of them is Kontact, Kontact options has a settings to disable multicore use by Kontact, I think it is under the engine settings.

[Drywsef]

Mjslakeride and dave911, thanks a lot. Dave911, I too first suspected that it was Kontakt, but it appears the culprit is Absynth. The moment I added that one back in, the freezes started coming back. Even with Absynth as the only plug-in in the folder, the freezes occurred - I could have all VIs going (and DYN III) except for Absynth in the session, and it would remain stable. I will try reinstalling Absynth to see if that helps. Does anybody else know of anything within the plug-in that might go wrong in terms of settings?