<Random> Pro Tools Issues (all of a sudden)

[Coconut_Head]

Hello all, I need help. I've been working on mixing a demo. I did not do anything to cause this; didn't update PT, update my OS, change ANY settings, open an old version - NOTHING.... And nothing in Settings to change it.

But all of a sudden I started having several issues for seemingly no reason. To start with the one that I'm currently noticing, which I need help with:

1) Just now I needed to see the Clip Gain Line so that I can automate a printed audio clip I'm using for sidechaining. There's no Clip Gain Line, which is fine because I can just go to the Clip menu and turn it on, right? Wrong, now there's not even an option for Clip Gain Line or Clip Info or anything other than just Bypass and (a grayed out) Render. Anyone know why and how I can switch it back? There is no ARA data tied to it



Other randomly new issues/unwanted changes:

2) Now, whenever I click on or highlight a MIDI track, it automatically record-enables, no matter how many tracks are clicked on or highlight. This is really frustrating because when a song is playing during mixing and I click on a MIDI track, the automatic record-enabling causes a CPU spike and the session pauses and gives me the classic CPU overload error. This is a headache and a blow to my workflow efficiency.

3) Related to that, now whenever I click on any plugin on any track, that track highlights. This is annoying for two reasons. The first reason is what I said in Issue #2/last issue, which causes CPU spikes constantly. And the second reason this is an issue is that it shifts my viewing location within my session: Say I have 3 grouped tracks whose inserts I'm looking at; if I click an insert on a different track it moves the entire view of my session so that the track of the insert I'm clicking on is at the bottom of my screen (which would be Issue #4 ), effectively taking the main/3 grouped tracks in focus out of my view (so I have to constantly keep going back).


Please, if anyone has any idea WHY this happened and HOW I can fix it, let me know! Seems to be no rhyme or reason to why...

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi, Welcome to DUC.

Does this only happen in one or a few similar sessions?

The first step in troubleshooting Pro Tools is to Trash Prefs. You should be doing this automatically, without really thinking. Use Pete Gates free PT Prefs utility. But read the standard troubleshooting steps under "Help Us Help You" up the top of every DUC web page.

And specifically trashing prefs has fixed tracks automatically record arming in the past. For some of the other stuff seems like Eucon induced mess, if you are using Eucon try disabling it and see what happens. Try the other troubleshooting steps if still stuck, especially testing from a newly created admin account.

[albee1952]

Excellent advice above, and here's a little more to think about.
1-Totally agree on trashing prefs. If you are on a PC, protoolspc.com has a handy utility called Trasher that you can "buy" for a donation(I gave $10) and its worth that and much more(this opinion by a 20 year PT veteran)
2-Anytime I see "all of a sudden", I suggest thinking about what else might have happened. Could it be, a virus/malware? Did you recently install ANY new software(plugins or even something unrelated to PT)? Can you roll back your system drive to a point when things were working well?
3-If you can't roll back, then its time you get on board the "backup plan bandwagon". Anyone that uses computers for anything important, NEEDS to have a backup plan in place. Once you manage to solve the problem, start saving drive images of your boot drive to a large external drive(which can be a slow 5400 rpm because speed is not a problem for this purpose)
4-can't speak for Mac OS, but many Windows updates will actually reset some system tweaks so recheck that all are still set correctly(for me, USB Power Management has been reset multiple times over the last year).

[JFreak]

Whenever I hear someone complaining about a random error, I recommend making a clean install of OS and PT and especially importantly not using any kind od migration/restore utility. Copy everything manually, install everything manually.