10.3.8 and 6101 / 9128 errors

[Muzoid]

OK, for starters please don't tell me that I shouldn't have upgraded my Mac to Mavericks (OS 10.9). I did and it's been working just fine for quite some time now.

Here's what happened... I'd been working on this mix for a few days on and off. Fairly large session but not huge and I've done larger sessions on this machine before. Early 2011 15" Macbook Pro 2Ghz i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB SATA drives internally (took out the DVD) - system on the SSD, session on the SATA. All is running just fine, NO glitches at all. FYI, I'm primarily using the digital out of the mac, but I have tried using other interfaces to isolate the problem, though same results.

I have probably never seen a 6101 error on this machine before this ever. I've got a dual install with PT11 and the latest version of 10.3.8, loads of plugs, etc. About the most annoying thing about running PT on an mbp is the fans... they go crazy.

Anyway, about a week ago, I print the mix to send to the client and all is fine. 2 days later when I go back to make revisions, the session will only play for a few seconds at a time and I keep getting 6101 and 9128 error messages. The system usage meter is hovering around 40%,but keeps spiking into the red like crazy.

I've searched for answers to no avail. Tried a bunch of things to fix the problem... trashing prefs, repairing permissions, checked the hardware with Apple Hardware Test, etc. I've setup PT rigs for major studios, producers, composers, etc and many for myself over the years... but this is stumping me!!!

At first I thought it might be Mavericks, but I'm pretty convinced that it's not. I also thought that maybe some part in this MBP was dying (logic board, graphics board, hard drive) but AHT says all is good.

zapped pram, reset the smc... I think I've exhausted the possibilities...

so... I'm asking for some real insight here. If you've seen this kind of behavior and have some ideas that might be helpful, PLEASE respond or PM me. I'm ready to rebuild this machine from scratch or replace it, because it's very suddenly become almost unusable, though I would really like to avoid either of those options. I had to print stems of the mix today (deactivating all other tracks) to print the final today - a complete PITA.

Any insightful suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

[Chief Technician]

Do you have auto save enabled? If you load a copy of the session that was saved before these errors started happening, do the errors continue to happen?

Have you tried opening the session with all plug-ins disabled, and then enabling them? You could do this either one at a time (could take a while), all on a particular track, or all plug-ins in a slot (insert A, insert B, etc.).

How much free space do you have on your disks?

Anything abnormal in Activity Monitor when these errors occur?

[dford]

Originally Posted by Muzoid

OK, for starters please don't tell me that I shouldn't have upgraded my Mac to Mavericks (OS 10.9). I did and it's been working just fine for quite some time now.

Here's what happened... I'd been working on this mix for a few days on and off. Fairly large session but not huge and I've done larger sessions on this machine before. Early 2011 15" Macbook Pro 2Ghz i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB SATA drives internally (took out the DVD) - system on the SSD, session on the SATA. All is running just fine, NO glitches at all. FYI, I'm primarily using the digital out of the mac, but I have tried using other interfaces to isolate the problem, though same results.

I have probably never seen a 6101 error on this machine before this ever. I've got a dual install with PT11 and the latest version of 10.3.8, loads of plugs, etc. About the most annoying thing about running PT on an mbp is the fans... they go crazy.

Anyway, about a week ago, I print the mix to send to the client and all is fine. 2 days later when I go back to make revisions, the session will only play for a few seconds at a time and I keep getting 6101 and 9128 error messages. The system usage meter is hovering around 40%,but keeps spiking into the red like crazy.

I've searched for answers to no avail. Tried a bunch of things to fix the problem... trashing prefs, repairing permissions, checked the hardware with Apple Hardware Test, etc. I've setup PT rigs for major studios, producers, composers, etc and many for myself over the years... but this is stumping me!!!

At first I thought it might be Mavericks, but I'm pretty convinced that it's not. I also thought that maybe some part in this MBP was dying (logic board, graphics board, hard drive) but AHT says all is good.

zapped pram, reset the smc... I think I've exhausted the possibilities...

so... I'm asking for some real insight here. If you've seen this kind of behavior and have some ideas that might be helpful, PLEASE respond or PM me. I'm ready to rebuild this machine from scratch or replace it, because it's very suddenly become almost unusable, though I would really like to avoid either of those options. I had to print stems of the mix today (deactivating all other tracks) to print the final today - a complete PITA.

Any insightful suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

I'm not gonna tell you that you shouldn't have upgraded to Mavericks, but I am gonna tell you that a dual install of Pro Tools is not supported past Mountain Lion.



Dev

[Muzoid]

Originally Posted by Chief Technician

Do you have auto save enabled? If you load a copy of the session that was saved before these errors started happening, do the errors continue to happen?

Have you tried opening the session with all plug-ins disabled, and then enabling them? You could do this either one at a time (could take a while), all on a particular track, or all plug-ins in a slot (insert A, insert B, etc.).

How much free space do you have on your disks?

Anything abnormal in Activity Monitor when these errors occur?

some good suggestions here, Jonathan, thank you.

as it turns out, I think this is heat-related. The session hovers at around 40% CPU and would spike inexplicably. The other day I was making changes and using the stems, so the CPU was at about 17-18% and started spiking and I started to get error messages, so I thought that this mbp must be dying, when I realized that it was being bombarded by bright sun. Got it out of the sun and watched the CPU meter drop considerably. Opened it up, vacuumed and blew out all the dust in the machine - really cleaned those fans as they had a lot of old very fine packed dust on them...and VOILA!!!
This machine is now better than new, fans rarely even turn on audibly and I can run the session with all the original tracks (not stems) playing.

I'm posting this as a reminder to all the laptop users, as cleaning these out may actually be a good part of regular maintenance!!!