Major problems getting pro tools to work on my new mac

[Jabes75]

Hi there, I recently got a new Mac specifically to run Pro Tools 8 m-powered. Unfortunately I have run into quite a few problems and have had no luck solving them.

First off here is my machine: Mac PowerBook Pro, 2.4ghz intel i5 processor, 4gb of 1066mhz ddr3 sdram. I am also running the m-audio fast track as my input device. I am using an 80GB lacie rugged drive connected through firewire 800 as my external drive.

Here are my problems.

1) At the quick start menu all the drop down menus for the sessions are blank. Not only are they blank in the quick start menu but within Pro tools when I load eleven or the tl intune the drop down menus are blank there as well.

2) When I try to load one of the sessions like "guitar ballad" from the quick start menu pro tools freezes on load up and I have to force quit out of it. So, I can't load any of the sessions except for "misc".

3) I often either get the spinning wheel of death or "Access violation occurred" and then pro tools crashes.

I 've been troubleshooting this all weekend. Here are the measures I've taken:

1) reinstalled mac os x and went down from 10.6.6 to 10.6.4.
2) uninstalled and reinstalled pro tools multiple times (am currently running 8.04cs2)
3) removed corrupt fonts
4) trashed preferences and removed plug-Ins and toolkit warnings everytime I did a re-install.
5) updated the plug ins with the digidesign plugin updater
6) updated flash (in case the menu thing had something to do with that)
7) updated pace interlock drivers

And still not having any luck. Incidentally, I installed pro tools on my Mom's laptop with windows 7 and it runs just fine, no problems what so ever.

If anyone can help me that would be awesome. I've also taken some screen grabs I can email to anyone if they think they can be of help.

Thanks,

Jason.

[lincol1]

I'm not going to be much help to you as I'm on my iPad away from my pt machine right now, however, I'll toss a couple ideas at you. First of all, kudos on posting the troubleshooting you have already done, that helps. Ok, I would think this is a pt installation issue from the sound of it. I would check to make sure your session templates are in place as it seems most of your issues seem to be related to this. This is where I'd like to look at my machine. I think the file are located on Mac hd>library>application support>digidesign>templates. Stress I think. Any way make sure those files are there. I know when I've set up my own custom templates that's where there stored. Id also open disc utility and repair permissions on your system hd after all of these installations.

Good luck hope that leads to something, others will chime in too no doubt...

[tribedescribe]

I noticed you did not mention weather you read the m-powered general trouble shooting thread? IF not you should read it and try everything. I do not believe that lacie drive is approved(needs oxford chip). It could be causing the problems. try running the session from your internal drive.

good luck


scott

[Jabes75]

Lincoln - thanks for the advice, Ill check that out ASAP.

Scott - I don't think its the Lacie, as I tried it with the Lacie removed as well. And as I mentioned before it works fine on a PC laptop with no external connected.

[Jabes75]

Lincoln - I couldn't find the templates folder under library>application support>Digidesign

The only folders I have there are AIR,DATABASES, DHS, DIGITRACE.FRAMEWORK, PLUG IN SETTINGS, PLUG INS, PLUG INS (unused)

I did however, find a session templates folder under Application>Digidesign>Pro Tools>Session Templates.

If it's not too much trouble can you confirm I am not missing some sort of template folder from the Application Support>Digidesign section?

Also, I totally forget to repair my disk permissions upon getting my new Mac. I just did that. It didn't fix my pro tools issues, but I am going to re install pro tools now that permissions are repaired and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for your help.

Jason.

[Jabes75]

Update - repaired my permissions and re-installed pro tools again (10th time) and still the problem persists.

[DigiTechSupt]

Can you try creating a new administrator account, sign into it and test from there?

[Jabes75]

DigiTechSupt Guy - Yes! This seemed to work. Thanks a bunch, I've been trying everything. Now my only question is, why did this work?

Anyways, I am going to test my system out to make sure all the bugs are gone. Thanks for everyones help.

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by Jabes75

DigiTechSupt Guy - Yes! This seemed to work. Thanks a bunch, I've been trying everything. Now my only question is, why did this work?

Anyways, I am going to test my system out to make sure all the bugs are gone. Thanks for everyones help.

You have some kind of corruption with fonts or font rendering in your original admin account. If you've already tried removing corrupted fonts, I'm not sure there's an easy fix.

Is there a lot of data in your original account that you need access to?

[Jabes75]

Well if the work around is simply having to log into the other admin account to use pro tools, thats no big deal.

Thanks again.