Avid Pro Audio Community

Avid Pro Audio Community

How to Join & Post  •  Community Terms of Use  •  Help Us Help You

Knowledge Base Search  •  Community Search  •  Learn & Support


Avid Home Page

Go Back   Avid Pro Audio Community > Legacy Products > Pro Tools M-Powered (Win)

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old 01-23-2007, 02:47 PM
DigiTechSupt's Avatar
DigiTechSupt DigiTechSupt is online now
Avid
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Worldwide
Posts: 33,877
Default General Troubleshooting: Pro Tools M-Powered Systems on Windows

Troubleshooting Pro Tools issues is typically done by process of elimination - start with the simple things first, then move on depending on the results you're getting.

For problems regarding registration and installation:

Pro Tools Technical Support, Registration and Setup Videos

These videos have information on the following topics:

Product Registration
Technical Support - Searching Answerbase and getting answers to your questions
Pro Tools System Compatibility - How to determine if your system is compatible
Mbox 2 family - Information on what's in the box
Authorizing Ignition Pack 2

If you are getting an error in Pro Tools, the first step would be to search both the DUC and the Answerbase for the error number(s) you're getting, as a vast majority of errors have solutions already. Make sure to remove the minus sign (-) from in front of the error number during you're search, as a minus sign in a search field means you want to exclude the following term from the search.

If you are experiencing a particular technical issue that does not include an error number, try searching the Answerbase and DUC by key words that are related to your problem. Try a few different, related terms to see if they produce better search results. Use the Advanced Search on the DUC to narrow or expand your search results. For general 'assertion', 'neoaccess' or 'neoassertion' errors, see below for a possible solution, then do a search for the last few sections of the error if the presented solution does not help.

If you are experiencing random, unexplained issues on a system that was previously working well is to trash preference and database files.

Compatibility:

- Verify your computer is supported and that your system meets all of the minimum requirements. You can find compatibility information (processors, chipsets, hard drives, operating systems, requirements, etc.) in the Support section of the website:
http://www.digidesign.com/support

Choose from the product list for compatibility information, and click on the links in the compatibility section for each product for additional information.

Verify that you have the Minimum/Suggested amount of RAM installed in your system. You can find this information in Control Panel > System > General. It is recommended that you have a minimum of 1GB of RAM installed and that the best performance reported has been with 2GB or more, especially when using virtual instruments/software synths/samplers.

Plug-In Compatibility

Make sure that all Plug-Ins are compatible with the version of Pro Tools you're running. It is extremely important that you have installed only compatible plug-ins. See reply post below for more info!

-Open MacHD>Library>Application Support>Digidesign>Plug-Ins

You can check the version by selecting the plug-in and go to the "File" menu and choose 'Get Info', or hit Command-I and look at the version information under the 'General' Section.

Compare the version installed against the compatibility grid here and update or uninstall as necessary:

Pro Tools Plug-In Compatibility

IMPORTANT! You MUST use a secondary hard drive (not your main OS drive) for recording and playback of audio in Pro Tools. Recording or playback from the OS drive is known to be problematic and the cause of many different error types. If you are using your system drive and encountering errors, the first thing you should do is get a compatible drive. USB drives are not supported and are known to be problematic, so please do not use them with Pro Tools. If you're recording or playing back from a USB drive and are getting errors in Pro Tools, please switch to using a compatible external firewire drive or internal SATA/ATA/IDE drive and disconnect the USB drive.

Pro Tools supports recording and playback to a secondary drive that meets the following requirements:

7200 rpm or faster
9ms seek time or faster

Firewire drives must have the Oxford 911 (FW400 port), Oxford 912 (FW400 & FW800 ports) or Oxford 924 (FW800 ports) Bridge chip.

Mbox 2 Pro and M-Audio firewire device specific issues

You should NOT use the AC adapter for the Mbox 2 Pro unless the firewire port on your computer doesn't supply power - for instance, if it's a 'mini' firewire port with only 4 pins. Doing so can cause 6085 errors.

Mbox 2 Pro and most M-Audio firewire interfaces do not support FW800 connections anywhere in the chain. If you only have a firewire 800 port on your computer, you can try using a FW800 to FW400 adapter cable however keep in mind that this is not the ideal solution and may still be problematic. A better solution is to get a FW400 expresscard (for laptops) or PCI/PCIe FW400 card (for desktops) and connect your interface to that. The Siig 2 Port card (link to expresscard or PCIe versions) has been shown to be suitable for this situation.

If your computer has both FW400 and FW800 ports on it, they're most likely using the same bus and the above info would still apply, though you have the flexibility of connecting any firewire drives you're using either to the FW400 or FW800 ports on the computer or to the card, as long as your interface is not on the same bus - so if you connect your drives to the computer ports, connect your interface to the card or vice versa.

General Setup and Optimizations

Note, Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage is highly recommended, as it lets you save your system in a working state and easily revert to that state should you accidentally disable anything that your computer needs. You should use these tools to keep recent backups of your system drive, especially before doing any updates or installing new software.

- Before installation be sure to follow the instructions in your Digidesign product "Getting Started Guide" to configure your system for use with Pro Tools LE. If you do not have a hard copy of the guide, you can download a copy from our website.

Then, continue on with the troubleshooting and optimizations for your OS version:

Windows 7 Optimizations and Troubleshooting
Windows Vista Optimizations and Troubleshooting
Windows XP Optimizations and Troubleshooting

We also have YouTube and Vimeo videos on the above topics:

Pro Tools Optimization Videos on YouTube

Pro Tools Optimization Videos on Vimeo


Quicktime is required for proper operation of Pro Tools in WinXP systems - please make sure you have Quicktime installed. You can download the latest version at www.quicktime.com</a>.

Further troubleshooting tips:

Please download and install the Pro Tools Tech Support Folder , which has tools and utilities to assist in diagnosing and troubleshooting potential problems you may encounter, including a plug-in version generator which can be useful when verifying plug-in compatibility.


- Remove any unnecessary USB/FW devices[/i] or any other extraneous hardware and then restart the CPU

- Test your interface connected to a different port on the computer, as you may have a malfunctioning port. On certain systems, on port may work better than the other.

Uninstall and reinstall the drivers for your M-Audio hardware

- Make sure you're using the latest driver for your hardware and platform, available on the [URL="http://www.m-audio.com/"]M-Audio Website[/B]

If you are on a multi-core system and continue to get errors after verifying you're on a compatible system, using compatible components and have done all the optimizations, please try reducing the number of CPU's in the Playback Engine, as this can solve some compatibility issues with certain plug-ins and VI's.

Creating a new administrator account: (This is recommended if all other troubleshooting does not solve our issues)

Go to Control Panel>User Accounts and create a new administrator account, then restart and login to the new account, then test again.

If you have an NVidia graphics card, some users have reported that switching to the standard Windows video driver will fix -6xxx (6129, 6031, etc) errors.


Utilities

DPC Latency Checker can be used to determine real-time compatibility of your system.

Tech Support Folder - Utilities and Troubleshooting Tools has common utilities for diagnosing problems and generating information about your system.

Tech Support Utility are tools for removing expired/demo plug-ins, trashing preferences and generating plug-in version lists.

- Uninstall and reinstall Pro Tools (This is done only if you cannot solve the problem through any of the above steps or if the issue points specifically to a corrupted Pro Tools installation)

Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs and remove Pro Tools LE. Then reinstall the software from CD-ROM or web download. If you are unable to remove using this method, you can use the Pro Tools Uninstaller Utility for Windows XP which will remove all Pro Tools components from your system (a version for Windows Vista will be coming shortly).

If you're experiencing noise from the Mbox II, there are several things to try:

- Make sure you're using balanced cables on all balanced inputs and outputs. Remember that the Mbox 2 outputs are unbalanced, and should use unbalanced connections.
- Try using a power conditioner for all your electronic gear (Furman, Monster).
- Run your outputs directly to shielded monitors and not through a mixer to see if the noise goes away.
- Some noise complaints arise from noisy power supply units inside computers - try installing and running on another computer (or if you're using a laptop, unplug the power supply and run off of batteries to see if noise goes away). Moving the Mbox II in relation to your monitor, computer or speakers may also lessen the noise.
- Unplug and turn off all unnecessary gear and run only the computer, the Mbox II, and monitors.
- Listen through headphones to determine if the noise is isolated to a particular output.
- Make sure you're not running through a USB hub or other device - the Mbox II always needs to be plugged directly into the computer.
- Try all USB ports on the computer to see if the noise lessens.
- Trace your cable path for long cable runs, and isolate your cables from possible interference (other gear, florescent lighting, CRT monitors, etc).

Lastly, if you feel a repair is necessary, please contact Digidesign Tech Support to set up an RA.

How to Remove Expired (Demo) Plug-Ins & Software:

- See Answerbase 19348

You can also use the Tech Support Utilities above to help remove expired/demo plug-ins.

=====

Note: To enable other users to help you, please include all of your system details when posting an issue to the DUC; Pro Tools hardware, Pro Tools software version, CPU, OS version, Motherboard make/model, chipset, amount of RAM, type of hard drives used, etc.

- Please - Use SiSoftware's Sandra Lite application to generate a full system profile:

www.sisoftware.co.uk

Under SiSoftware Sandra, click on "Download & Buy" to download the free Sandra Lite version or purchase other versions. After installing Sandra, click on the 'Hardware' tab and run the 'Computer Overview', then copy and paste into your post here on the DUC.


=====


Digidesign Wavedriver Info (or how to get Windows sounds to play back through your Digidesign Hardware)

See this page on our website for information on installation and configuration of the Wavedriver:

Digidesign Wavedriver Information

Note - Currently there is no Wavedriver available for Windows Vista. The ASIO driver, however, is compatible with Vista. Windows 7 has a new multi-client driver as well as an ASIO driver.
=====

- Additional resources for Pro Tools LE on the the Windows XP platform can be found in the "Windows Utilities & Web Resources" section at the bottom of this page:
Links to Miscellaneous Websites & Information
__________________
Avid Audio Tech Support
Help us help you - read this before posting
Support FAQ

Last edited by DigiTechSupt; 12-16-2008 at 02:40 PM. Reason: Update with more current info
  #2  
Old 10-26-2009, 11:00 AM
DigiTechSupt's Avatar
DigiTechSupt DigiTechSupt is online now
Avid
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Worldwide
Posts: 33,877
Default Re: General Troubleshooting: Pro Tools M-Powered Systems on Windows (XP & Vista)

Plug-In Compatibility - It's Important!

Many issues are caused by incompatible plug-ins being installed. They don't even have to be used in the session to cause problems - just having them in the plug-ins folder can cause bizarre problems. The reason is that, upon launch, Pro Tools caches all the installed plug-in data - that cache interacts with many aspects of Pro Tools, from thread scheduling to automation, etc.

I strongly recommend taking 30 minutes to carefully go through your plug-in list and compare it to our Pro Tools Plug-in Compatibility Grid. Remove or update any plug-ins that are not the minimum version listed. If you don't see your plug-in on the list, remove it temporarily for testing purposes then, once your system is stable, verify with the manufacturer regarding it's compatibility. If they indicate it's compatible, put it back into your plug-ins folder and test again. Do this ony by one for any plug-ins in question, so you can narrow down which ones my be problematic.

FWIW I have never, ever seen a case where someone said 'all my plug-ins are compatible' and actually have that be the case so, please, double and triple check. You can't be too careful in regards to this! A majority of instability reported on the DUC has been traced to plug-ins.

After removing/updating any plug-ins always trash preferences, then restart, so that all plug-in data can be reloaded and re-cached.

If you are still experiencing problems, please use the Tech Support Utility to generate and post a plug-in version list so we can double check. Given that our time here is limited, we expect you to carefully verify your plug-ins first.

Also, due to some plug-ins using code that cannot run on a processor dedicated to RTAS, you may need to reduce the number of processors in the playback engine to avoid errors. The processors are still being used - they just run the code that can't run on a dedicated RTAS processor. Some code will interrupt real-time processes if they're run on the same core.
__________________
Avid Audio Tech Support
Help us help you - read this before posting
Support FAQ
  #3  
Old 05-11-2010, 02:31 PM
DigiTechSupt's Avatar
DigiTechSupt DigiTechSupt is online now
Avid
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Worldwide
Posts: 33,877
Default Re: General Troubleshooting: Pro Tools M-Powered Systems on Windows (XP & Vista)

If you're experiencing problems with the MP3 Option, please see this page:

http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/self...p?DocId=357165
__________________
Avid Audio Tech Support
Help us help you - read this before posting
Support FAQ
Closed Thread

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Windows XP and Pro Tools Setup and General Troubleshooting DigiTechSupt Pro Tools TDM Systems (Win) 1 05-11-2010 02:32 PM
Pro Tools M-Powered Setup and General Troubleshooting DigiTechSupt Pro Tools M-Powered (Mac) 4 05-11-2010 02:31 PM
General Troubleshooting - Pro Tools LE on Windows DigiTechSupt 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Win) 2 05-11-2010 02:30 PM
General Troubleshooting - Pro Tools on Mac OS X DigiTechSupt 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac) 5 05-11-2010 02:30 PM
General Troubleshooting: WinXP/Pro Tools M-Powered franporto Pro Tools M-Powered (Win) 0 01-04-2007 07:22 AM


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:13 PM.


Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited. Forum Hosted By: URLJet.com