Protools 8 LE bug report video, distorted audio PLEASE READ!

[rootyjooser]

hey all long term protools user seeks attention to a bug I've seen on multiple protools systems and some feedback on the bug, with hopefully a confirmation it will be fixed from Avid. I made a video showing this and explaining my logic to make this simple for people to understand and to highlight the issue publlicly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOItBsK5xMo

5:14 for issue

Hopefully we can get some attention to this and it does not get lost in compatability issue posts :)

Thanks

Andy

[rootyjooser]

hey all long term protools user seeks attention to a bug I've seen on multiple protools systems and some feedback on the bug, with hopefully a confirmation it will be fixed from Avid. I made a video showing this and explaining my logic to make this simple for people to understand and to highlight the issue publlicly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOItBsK5xMo

5:14 for issue

Hopefully we can get some attention to this and it does not get lost in compatability issue posts :)

Thanks

Andy

[Benoni]

Ive had that happen before where the audio will get distorted for no observable reason in PT8. Have not had this happen in PT9.

I imagine you have already trashed prefs and databases, but if not it may be worth a try.

As for your question on why PT is showing 8 CPUs on your quad core, my guess is you are running an i7 and have hyper-threading turned on, and your friend with a Dual core probably has an i5 or i3. Is that the case? With hyper-threading each core can handle 2 threads instead of the normal 1 thread per core.

[rootyjooser]

hey thanks for your reply, really appreciate it :)

okay Avid that is 4 different systems the error has been seen on! anyone else seen this?

the processor thing does make sense although you would have figured they would have abstracted the user from that.

[rootyjooser]

I also posted this in the guitar section as it occurs on the eleven rack and we have one more confirmed instance of the bug from another user.

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?p...62#post1828262

anyone else?

[DigiTechSupt]

I've merged both of your threads, as crossposting is not allowed here.

First off - have you tried running the systems with less than the max number of processors assigned to RTAS in the Playback Engine? The General Troubleshooting thread has info on why that's required on some systems running plug-ins that may not be fully optimized for RTAS.

The General Troubleshooting thread also has several other troubleshooting and optimization suggestions - which of those, exactly, have you done? Can you give me a clear description of the system, how everything is connected and configured?

What is your buffer size set to and does the problem occur less, the same or more frequently at higher buffer sizes?

I need to know to be able to diagnose what may be going wrong.

[mano111]

Hi Andy,

It seems you are a veteran when it comes to using protools , and as such I would imagine you are now used to having bugs in the software. sad but true.

I have been on PT since 1999. I personally have not seen the bug you are describing on my studio setup. I'm using 8.0.4 cs2 for a very long time and 8.0.3 before that since it was released. I have also been working in quite a few other studios with PT 7.4 to 9 and haven't seen anything like it. For me personally 8.0.4 cs2 is the most stable bug free version of PT, with 9 HD native on Mac a close second (but even that one has some never fixed interface bugs I can trace back to 6.x on Mac - why oh why Avid cant fix these simple OSX bugs is beyond me)

To the problem at hand - the fact that you and your buddies in your band are all seeing the same bug might suggest it something you all have in common. A hard drive fragmentation issue or possibly a corrupt audio file, or maybe an incompatible plugin (all plugins need to be updated from the manufacturer's site to match your current version of protools)

A strange thing to see you use only 1 processor when you have 8 available (threads). I like to set it to 7 procs @ 99% so that the single thread is available for OS background tasks.
From what I've seen in your workaround the recorded file itself isn't distorted? or does it get distorted when you record? I couldn't tell.

Based on my long time experience as software QA tester and on my personal experience with Avid beta testing, in order for them to address this problem they will need to be able to reproduce it in house. Sadly you have not shown a work flow that causes it, other than - it happens on your machine.

To get their full attention you will need to post a Sandra report describing all the details of your system hardware.

[rootyjooser]

Hey thanks for your replies

DigiTechSupport: I generally run on 1 processor as a matter of habit as it avoids issues protools has always had running on more than one. My band mate runs of more than one processor and gets the same issue. To be clear before we get into the obligatory compatibility find something thats not supported in my system discussion, I want to re-articulate I have seen this bug personally on 3 different systems and as you can see from his post here Benoni has also had this issue. So thats 4 different systems. I have also seen this on a new clean install with no plugins used at all on a new session. Naturally I have checked to ensure if its a plugin issue.

To help you narrow this down, without hopefully just looking for something that is not supported in my hardware config here are the specs of my 2 laptops I've seen this issue on.

IBM Lenovo Thinkpad W510, i7 CPU Q720 @1.6Ghz, 4GB RAM, 320GB 7200 hard disk, 1GB graphics card andFull HD display. the usb ports on this are USB 3 however this is not the issue as a 002 I use to own created the same issue. even though it was firewire connected. This laptop runs windows 7 professional 64bit.

Dell Latitude D820, Intel Dual core 1.6GHZ, 4GB RAM, 80GB 7200rpm hard disk, 256Gb graphics card. This laptop runs windows XP Pro SP3.

Both the laptops above are considered some of the best built and quality robust systems available, hence I picked them.

The Dell served as my main protools machine for 4+ years running versions of Protools from 6 thru 7 without any issues once I had it configured right, as soon as 8 was installed this issue started to occur though.

My buffer size is always set to the out of the box default.

The big challenge I have is the issue occurs very randomly and without any noticeable predictable pattern. I have been using my work around for months in the hope that a new update will fix this problem. If it was not for the need to run the eleven rack and to have 64 bit support I would happily return to version 7 as none of the new features interest me.

I find it hard to believe this issue has not already been raised with Avid from the number of machines I've seen it on. I will however post a full Sandra report on my thinkpad shortly but as I said this is not a request for help configuring one specific system.

thanks for your assistance....I really do want this officially reported as a bug.

[rootyjooser]

Ok as I said its on 4 systems but here is my Thinkpads Sandra report


SiSoftware Sandra

Computer
Model : Lenovo 4318CTO
Workgroup : WORKGROUP
Host Name : Paladin1
User : defintionofself

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
Speed : 1.73GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Mobile, Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 4x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L2 Cache : 4x 256kB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L3 Cache : 6MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 12-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size, 16 threads sharing

Computer
Mainboard : Lenovo 4318CTO
BIOS : Lenovo 6NET74WW (1.34 ) 10/27/2010
Bus(es) : PCI PCIe IMB PCMCIA USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM

Chipset
Model : Lenovo Core (Clarksfield/Lynnfield) DMI
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 2.4GHz (4.79GHz)

Chipset
Model : Lenovo Core Mobile (Clarksfield) UnCore
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 2.13GHz (4.26GHz)
Total Memory : 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM
Channels : 2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 533MHz (1GHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Hynix (Hyundai) HMT325S6BFR8C-G7 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-8500S DDR3-1066 (7-7-7-20 4-27-8-4)
Memory Module : Hynix (Hyundai) HMT325S6BFR8C-G7 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-8500S DDR3-1066 (7-7-7-20 4-27-8-4)

Video System
Video Adapter : NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M (32 SM4.1 1.22GHz, 1GB DDR3 1.58GHz 128-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)
Video Adapter : NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M (32 SM4.1 1.22GHz, 1GB DDR3 1.58GHz 128-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor
OpenCL GP Processor : NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M (48SP 6C 1.2GHz, 1GB DDR3 1.58GHz 128-bit)
Compute Shader Processor : NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M (32SP 1.22GHz, 1GB DDR3 1.58GHz 128-bit)

Storage Devices
Seagate ST9320423AS (320GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache) : 298GB (C:) (D:) (Q:)

Logical Storage Devices
SYSTEM_DRV : 1GB (NTFS)
Data (D:) : 124GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST9320423AS (320GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Windows7_OS (C:) : 161GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST9320423AS (320GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Lenovo_Recovery (Q:) : 12GB (NTFS) @ Seagate ST9320423AS (320GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Lenovo QM57 LPC Interface Controller
Audio Device : Lenovo P55/PM55/3400 High Definition Audio
Audio Codec : Conexant 5069h
Audio Device : Lenovo High Definition Audio Controller
Audio Codec : nVidia 000Ah
Audio Codec : nVidia 000Ah
Audio Codec : nVidia 000Ah
Serial Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : Lenovo P55/PM55/3400 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Disk Controller : Lenovo PCIe SD/MMC Host Controller
Disk Controller : Lenovo PCIe SD/MMC Host Controller
USB Controller 1 : Lenovo P55/PM55/3400 USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller 2 : Lenovo P55/PM55/3400 USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller 3 : Lenovo Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Lenovo FireWire Host Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel ICH SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)
Printer : EPSON PX710W Series (360x360, Colour)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network) (Ethernet)
Network Adapter : Intel(R) 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection (Ethernet)
Wireless Adapter : Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6200 AGN (802.11g (ERP), WEP n-bit, 54Mbps)

Power Management
Mains (AC) Line Status : On-Line
Battery No 1 : 100%

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 6.01.7600
Platform Compliance : x64

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 5.3

[DigiTechSupt]

I see only one drive installed:

Storage Devices
Seagate ST9320423AS (320GB, SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache) : 298GB (C:) (D:) (Q:)

Are you using your system drive for recording and playback of audio? If so - that's very likely the problem or at least a contributor.

Now, as far as '4 systems experiencing this problem' - that may be the case but, because the issue is 'undefined' and may have several causes, we can't go lump all of these together and call it a 'bug' until we've done diagnosis on each system. Since the factors and possible causes involved are many, there may be different solutions for each system.