Pro Tools 12.5.2 freezes with the PC

[M.B.]

Hi,

I was working on a mixing session when 3 days ago Pro Tools froze and I had to restart my computer manually.
Now every time I open the session I have like 5 to 10 minutes then it freezes.
As usual, I have Waves plugins and a couple NI instrument tracks which is no problem normally. It's not even one of my biggest session.
Pro Tools doesn't do that when I open a new session, I did not do anything out of the ordinary on this one, except that we had a lot of heat this past fews days around here. Now it's like 10°C less and this is still happening, so heat problem perhaps.
It does this only with Pro Tools.

What I did since then: change the buffer size/cache disk, free some space on the hard drive, clean the area where I can access in the computer, change the comptability in Pro Tools icon properties (desktop), read numerous thread.. still nothing.
I also had a message today a few minutes before it happened - AAE error
can't get audio from the drive(s) fast enough. Your drive may be too show or fragmented, or firewire drive could be having trouble due to the firewire bandwith or CPU load. (AAE -9073)
I did an analyse with Whocrashed:
Crash dump directories:
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\Minidump
No valid crash dumps have been found on your computer
Crash dumps are enabled but no valid crash dumps have been found. In case you are experiencing system crashes, it may be that crash dumps are prevented from being written out. Check out the following article for possible causes: If crash dumps are not written out.

I need some help..
Thanks in advance

My setup: Pro Tools 12.5.2
WIN 8.1 i7-4700 HQ 2.40 ghz 64bits, 16GB de RAM, HD: 7200


SiSoftware Sandra

ID
Host Name : AKT
Workgroup : WORKGROUP

Computer
Model : ASUS N56JR
Serial Number : DBN0BC0********
Chassis : ASUS Notebook
Mainboard : ASUS N56JR
Serial Number : BSN1234567**********
BIOS : AMI (OEM) N56JR.204 10/31/2013
Intel vPro : 9.00.20.1447
Total Memory : 15.9GB DDR3 SO-DIMM

Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700HQ CPU @ 2.40GHz (4C 8T 3.29GHz, 3.3GHz IMC, 4x 256kB L2, 6MB L3)
Socket/Slot : FC PGA947 (G3)

Chipset
Memory Controller : ASUS Core (Haswell) DRAM Controller 100MHz, 2x 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM 1.6GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Crucial CT102464BF160BM16 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-12800SO DDR3-1600 (11-11-11-29 5-40-13-6)
Memory Module : Crucial CT102464BF160BM16 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-12800SO DDR3-1600 (11-11-11-29 5-40-13-6)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : LG Moniteur Plug-and-Play générique (1920x1080, MC6JN�156WF1
, 15.5")
Monitor/Panel : BNQ FP71G+
(1600x1200, 17.1")
Video Adapter : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (20CU 160SP SM5.0 600MHz/1.2GHz, 512kB L2, 2GB DDR3 1.6GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics)
Video Adapter : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (20CU 160SP SM5.0 600MHz/1.2GHz, 512kB L2, 2GB DDR3 1.6GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics)

Graphics Processor
CUDA GP Processor : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M (768SP 4C 627MHz/719MHz, 256kB L2, 2GB 4GHz 128-bit)
OpenCL GP Processor : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (160SP 20C 600MHz/1.2GHz, 2MB L2, 1.8GB DDR3 1.6GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics)
OpenCL GP Processor : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M (768SP 4C 627MHz/719MHz, 64kB L2, 2GB 4GHz 128-bit)
Compute Shader Processor : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (160SP 20C 600MHz/1.2GHz, 512kB L2, 2GB DDR3 1.6GHz 128-bit, Integrated Graphics)
Compute Shader Processor : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M (768SP 4C 627MHz/719MHz, 256kB L2, 2GB 4GHz 128-bit)
OpenGL Processor : GeForce GTX 760M/PCIe/SSE2 (2GB)
OpenGL Processor : GeForce GTX 760M/PCIe/SSE2 (2GB)

Storage Devices
WDC WD7500BPKX-80HPJT0 (750.2GB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache) : 699GB (C:) (D:)
MAT****A DVD-RAM UJ8E1 (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) : N/A (E:)

Logical Storage Devices
OS (C:) : 279GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ WDC WD7500BPKX-80HPJT0 (750.2GB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Data (D:) : 398GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ WDC WD7500BPKX-80HPJT0 (750.2GB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Recovery : 900MB (NTFS, 4kB) @ WDC WD7500BPKX-80HPJT0 (750.2GB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Restore : 20GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ WDC WD7500BPKX-80HPJT0 (750.2GB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 16MB Cache)
Optical Drive (E:) : N/A @ MAT****A DVD-RAM UJ8E1 (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : ASUS Lynx Point LPC Controller
Audio Device : ASUS Lynx Point HD Audio Controller
Audio Codec : Realtek Semi High Definition Audio
Disk Controller : ASUS Lynx Point 6-Port SATA AHCI Controller
USB Controller 1 : ASUS Lynx Point USB xHCI Host Controller
USB Controller 2 : ASUS Lynx Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2
USB Controller 3 : ASUS Lynx Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel ICH SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Send to Microsoft OneNote 15 Driver (1200x1200, Colour)
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer v4 (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)

Network Services
Wireless Adapter : Qualcomm Atheros AR9485WB-EG Wireless Network Adapter (802.11g (ERP), AES-CCMP, 54Mbps)

Power Management
Battery No 1 : ASUSTeK N56--52 48.84Wh/4.40Ah

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 8.1 Home 6.03.9600
Platform Compliance : x64

[junkgear]

It looks like you are using a single hard drive for everything on this system. Although there are several partitions, it's one drive serving up all the data.

Even though you have not changed anything on the system, maybe something did actually change. Were there any recent Windows updates installed or did you install anything new recently?

If you happen to have a spare external drive handy, Try using that for your sessions and see if you get better performance in your sessions. If not, make sure virus scans are not running during your session, defrag the drive, and free up as much space on both partitions as you can. You can also look at Windows task manager when having issues and see if there is something else using system resources.

[M.B.]

Thanks for the reply.

Recently I reinstalled PACE license services (iLok 2) because in the Services (control panel), it switched every time to "desactivate" and I couldn't use PT, this was 2 weeks ago.

At this point this is not about performance, it's like an "automatic freeze" in this session whether I mix or do nothing and wait until it's doing it.

I will definitely buy an external SSD hard drive shortly, I have no choice.
Hope this will fix the issue, otherwise I don't do what I should do.

[M.B.]

Today I can't even open it it says
"The document could not be opened because it was created with an older version of Pro Tools."

Indeed I created this session with Pro Tools 12.4 maybe 3 weeks ago.
I worked a few days on it then I installed the 12.5.2 never had this issue in the first place..

[albee1952]

Not sure what's going on, but it might be down to some computer settings. Besides the single hard drive mentioned(which is a performance killer) I see you have integrated graphics AND an nVidia graphics card. If the integrated graphics are not being used, it may help to disable that in BIOS

#2-the error mentions firewire but the Sandra report does not list a firewire controller. Is firewire in use? What is your interface?

Re the single drive that is partitioned; if you are recording to the D: partition, that hurts performance even more than recording to C:)because now the head must search between multiple partitions instead of just multiple spots on the same partition).

[M.B.]

Hi Albee,

I don't have firewire.
Roland quad-capture.
I'm not sure to know for sure if it's recording to the D disk but I rather think it's on the C, where PT has been installed