-9171 and -9172 errors Pro Tools 11 | HD

[Skwaidu]

I am getting this error in both 10.3.9 and 11.3.0. I'll copy over my post from the sticky thread. Note, in addition to using other programs during playback, I have now seen it in plain PT use as well (on 10.3.9). No VI's in the session.

Copied post:

I just upgraded my HD Accel3 PT HD 8.1.1.1 rig running on a Mac Pro (4,1) 2x quad core on OS X 10.6.8 with 8 gigs of memory, into a HDX PT HD 10.3.9/11.3.0 co-install. I also upgraded the memory to 24 gigs.

I first started this upgrading OS X to 10.8.5, and after some hurdles both PT 10 and 11 were running ok.

However, I soon noticed that in normal large-ish mixing sessions (60-100 tracks and a lot of plugins, a session that ran fine on my Accel rig, most plugins native on both rigs) with 35% CPU usage, if I did anything outside of PT, playback would stop with one of the CPU errors mentioned in this thread (-1972 error) with a CPU spike so going from 30-35% to 100%. An easy way to get the error would be to actually open the PT manual to the outside browser from within Pro Tools. Also easy to get with plain websurfing (Chrome) or email (thunderbird). This happened most frequently with 128 and 256 buffers, with one or several cores unaloccated for PT.

Switching to 512 buffer helps some but it isn't foolproof, and I could run HD Accel on 128 buffer easily (preferable to keep long ADC chains manageable among other things)

The weird thing is that this happened both on PT HD 10.3.9 AND PT HD 11.3.0

I then did a few things, I upgraded to 10.9.5, this helped some and opening the manual doesn't give the error in the same test session anymore. But 5 minutes of browsing will. And the weirdest thing was that PT HD 11.3.0 benefitted from the update slightly less, giving MORE of these errors than PT HD 10.3.9.

I then upgraded my CPU's from 2x quad 2,26 to 2x 6-core 2,93 - even with the massive CPU overhead from the upgraded system the errors still come. Ed: I also tried disabling hyperthreading via XCode. No tangible effect on the problem.

My next step will be to try OS X 10.10.1 running only PT HD 11.3.0 (once Slate's VCC get's 64 bit AAX support) but I am doubtful that this will be a fix.

I NEVER had this issue on my Accel rig. What gives?

[Skwaidu]

Oops, forgot to add email notifications. It seems I need to post again to enable them.

[brianjanthony]

I think I may have an answer to this. Maybe not an answer but a cause. I noticed my system threw these out with safari, but... Also anything that required/asked the mac to make a sound. So email didn't cause the crash, rather the ping sound did.

I noticed in console that Mac OS asked sys to open and close the core audio door for a split second. Sure enough crashes occurred every time this happened. I found others with this issue, not in PT but in other apps (glitchy sound). I learned to make a simple sys pref file that blocked the sys from doing this little open/shut and haven't had those errors at all since, give or take.

[brianjanthony]

I mean errors not crashes but you know what I mean

[Skwaidu]

Hi Brian. That's interesting. Can you share that pref file and explain more what it does? I'd love to try it.

FWIW My mac is configured to output from the analog line output always so it shouldn't intervene with the HDX hardware (but do you mean that the issue is *any* OS audio calls at all?)

[Skwaidu]

Interesting thought that you're running HD Accel, my Accel rig never gave these, it only started with the HDX upgrade. Weird.

[brianjanthony]

In my case: HD5 Magma PE6R4, Pro Tools 10 and 11 latest, I use line out for Mac audio. Should have no bearing on my system at all. The open/shut system thing seems to affect 2 things. 1) if it happens near a punch in, the punch take sounds all crazy distorted. 2) a program which uses audio extensions of some sort (like Safari bc of its multimedia tie ins), bad things happen.

This is conjecture from a guy who is not a system IT kinda guy. My guess is that Mountain Lion, with its addition of garbage like notification center , and other background stuff that is increasingly hard to turn off, created these probs for us. Never had them before, because the OS wasn't as unnecessarily complicated. I'm sure Mavericks and Yosemite Sam are worse.

Come to think of something else, us guys with co-installs. The ones having issues. In my case, since I am still on TDM, I use Mac Line Out to monitor PT11. I get the errors in 10/TDM world too. But maybe there is a tie in that somewhere in the prefs/code etc, that PT is always looking at least a LITTLE at core audio services. And the second that door is "shut" by system, PT goes "wait, shut? I am recording here" and then it hiccups. Again ALL THIS IS CONJECTURE SO DON'T HAMMER ME FOR TRYING LOL!!!!!!!

As far as the pref file… I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY IF THIS WHACKS YOUR SYS. CLONE drive first ;-) Here's what I did…. and it helped…

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g3f839lxsc...audio.txt?dl=0

[Skwaidu]

Thanks! Though I realized that I am now on Mavericks. But I'll investigate if I can try that (when I have a little time)

[brianjanthony]

Originally Posted by Skwaidu

Thanks! Though I realized that I am now on Mavericks. But I'll investigate if I can try that (when I have a little time)

Open Console. Watch the sys messages. See if every time you have a system ding (email, etc), if it says something about opening then closing Stack Shots.

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by brianjanthony

Open Console. Watch the sys messages. See if every time you have a system ding (email, etc), if it says something about opening then closing Stack Shots.

Ok I'll check it out. Though I don't think I really get those - my email is Thunderbird and I only ever have Chrome open. It happens when I'm actively using either of those, but it can happen otherwise too.