Random Graphic Characters in Audio Regions - PT TDM 6.2.3

[ChrisMitchell]

Hi all,

Was doing a session today and encountered something strange.

While recording, I noticed that one of the audio regions in the Edit window showed strange graphic characters instead of the wave file. It played perfectly through that region; it just looked strange. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if it looked like that from when I opened the session, but I didn't notice it until a while into recording. We recorded over that part (we needed to anyway), and it obviously went away. I figured it was some kind of random system "burp" and went on.

Later on, I noticed a different part of the same track had the strange graphic characters again. Again, it was later on in the track, so I don't know if it was there from when I opened the session, or if it randomly appeared at some point.

I rebooted the system, and then ran Disk Warrior on all drives and repaired permissions. I shut down the entire system, i/o interfaces, clock, and all external FW hard drives. Then rebooted again. I haven't seen those strange characters again in that session or any other, but that has me slightly nervous about the integrity of my system. It's getting up in years.

It was audio I imported from another session done on another system (original was 44.1k at 24-bit, and I imported into a 48/24 session).

I have a cell phone pic that I shot of the graphic characters if anyone would like to see them.

Session was a small 16-track session at 48/24 (live show dump off mixing console).

My system:
Power Mac G4 Dual 533 Digital Audio w/ 896 MB RAM
Mac OS 10.3.2
Pro Tools TDM 6.2.3 - HD3 (1 Core, 2 Process cards)
3 - 96 i/o's
Apogee Big Ben Master Clock
Apogee PSX-100 (used to be master clock, but now just use for stereo converters).
40 GB Master drive (original with system)
80 GB 2ndary internal drive
320 GB OWC Mercury Elite FW drive (this is the drive the session was on).
120 GB External FW drive (WD drive in Ultra enclosure)
80 GB External FW drive (wd drive in Ultra enclosure)

I thought I remember at some point on this forum somebody mentioned something about this same issue, but can't find it. Any ideas?? Thanks in advance,

Chris

[crizdee]

Hi Chris,

I can't recall seeing any graphic problems in the waveform itself being posted, doesn't may to say it hasn't been though! there has been graphic problems caused by plugins, which show up in the plugins menu etc.
If you got the picture digitized you could use www.sendspace.com to upload to where Digi or anyone might be interested in taking a look for reference. place the download link up here.

Chris

[ChrisMitchell]

Ask and ye shall receive!! Let me know if this link doesn't work.

Here you go: Example of Random Graphic Characters

From what I remember, that is not a punch in, that's just part way through the audio file (show was over 1 hour 30 minutes in length, so it's one long audio file).

I'm hoping Disk Warrior and repair permissions did the job. I just remembered a client saying recently that when they were using that same system, they got two kernel panics during the course of a 10 hour day. I never saw them before or since, but they were working on that same hard drive that this issue occurred on; and no I don't know the specific error message cuz I wasn't there at the time. They just rebooted and went on.

[DigiTechSupt]

I'm speculating that this is a corruption of the waveform overview file, since the actual audio file plays back fine. RAM could possibly be a factor as well - something misread or written to RAM.

It may have just been a one-time random glitch, or it could be an indicator of a drive problem - difficult to say for sure.

Repairing permissions wouldn't have done anything to fix this problem - here's more info on what it actually does.

While Disk Warrior may have helped, I wouldn't necessarily trust it for a long term solution. Typically if you start to see any kind of drive corruption, it's best to backup the drive and erase it using the Disk Utility. DW should really only be used to repair a drive as a short term solution.

I would probably recommend trashing database files, just in case they may have been involved in the glitch.

[ChrisMitchell]

Thanks for the info.

I have a feeling it's a drive issue, because the only problems I've ever had on that system, as old as it is, have been on the OWC Mercury Elite drive. Again, these problems are VERY few and far between.

I just ordered an OWC Neptune drive (running out of space), so I'll probably switch to that one as my primary recording drive and blow away the Mercury and reformat. Thanks for the info.