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  #1  
Old 07-28-2007, 05:33 AM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

Hi all - PT 7.3 on Win-XP, HD3. The darn thing crashed, suddenly and unexpectedly. I wasn't even doing anything. I went away for a few minutes, and when I came back the computer was in a miserable state. The last thing I remember doing, is switching over the audio engine so I could activate the delay compensation. Then I got up for a cup of coffee, and when I came back PT was very unhappy.

But now I can't load any of my projects anymore. ProTools gets about halfway through loading a project, and just stops and hangs when it tries to set up the inserts. K ran DigiTest and all the hardware still seems to be working, and ProTools is okay up until the point where I try to load an old (existing) session.

PT seems to work fine "natively", that is to say, I can create "new" sessions with "new" tracks, but as soon as I try to open an old session, whammo. It always hangs right where the message box says "restoring tracks" and "activating inserts". Then if you hit the "cancel" button, the message box header changes to "(Not Responding)". Nothing more happens, but then if you try to shut down the machine you get the Windows nasty-gram "This program is not responding, if you press End Now you will terminate the program and lose any unsaved data". The only other info I have, is that if the session I'm trying to open is especially large, I might get another message box about "out of resources", and at that point the mouse becomes jumpy and periodic and the system response becomes very slow, and the computer doesn't seem to want to paint windows anymore.

But here's the bizarre part: when I go to my Task Manager, I find that my CPU utilization is near 100%, and ProTools is chewing up 99% of my CPU time, and that's when it's NOT DOING ANYTHING - it's just sitting there with a blank screen (this would be right after I start it up, but before I try to open a project).

Well, someone (from DigiDesign, I think) told me at one point that there were a couple of directories I could clean out, on my machine, when ProTools became confused like that - only trouble is, I don't remember their names.

Can someone please help alleviate my ignorance?

I forgot what exactly he said was in those directories - cached files or something (it's not the wave cache - those I know about - but it's some other thing he said was in there). But whatever it is, I hope it fixes the problem. Otherwise, does this problem sound familiar to anyone, and if so is there a fix for it?

Thanks!
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  #2  
Old 07-28-2007, 07:12 AM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

It looks like it's trying to do something (while the CPU is up at 100) - I have a little "i/o monitor" program, and it's showing me that "something" is accessing almost every file on the disk, VERY SLOWLY. And, something is writing to a system log file "ntuser.dat", it's up in the 10 mB range so far. Something must be horribly wrong. It's never done this before.

Add'l info: I can shut down ProTools, while this is going on, and I can start it up again, but when it starts up the second time, I get this error: "DAE error -4 was encountered". When I hit OK, it says "An error has occurred, please save your session and restart your computer (-9003)". Then ProTools closes itself automagically. If I try to start it up again a third time, it doesn't give me that error again, but it's VERY SLOW when it loads the plug-ins, and then it ends up displaying that same behavior again (ie it works okay till I try to open up an old session).

Other info: I did succeed in opening up one "empty" session, which has nothing in it but 24 aux tracks. The very first time I tried to open it, it took forever, but on subsequent tries it did okay. So, I'm sitting there cycling through files of increasing size and complexity, seeing if maybe there's a threshold or something, and lo and behold, I get to a session with just a few tracks and a few plug-ins, and I get this message box: "The following plug-ins were made inactive because of insufficient system resources: Dither(1)... (and some others)". So I say YES, I'd like to save a detailed report, but there's nothing in it - it says "some inputs or outputs were inactive". Harumph. So much for a "detailed report", ha ha. And by the time this message box pops up, my system is all screwed up again, the mouse is jumping around, and etc etc. But it actually DOES (eventually) open the session. However the whole thing hangs eventually, as soon as you try to do anything (even bring up the file menu or something simple like that).

That's it for now, will keep you posted with further info.
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  #3  
Old 07-28-2007, 07:22 AM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

It might be trying to index the disk or something wierd like that. When I try to shut down the machine (after ProTools gets into its "slow" state, and IF the session is small enough), ProTools hangs when the message box says "updating audio file catalog" or something like that...

So, as I'm cycling through these sessions, every session that I've already managed to open at least once, seems to open okay. But this is monstrous, I mean, it takes like fifteen minutes the first time, and I've got many dozens of sessions on this machine - do I have to sit through every one waiting for it to reconstruct whatever it's reconstructing?

Yeah, it must be those cached files or something - it's definitely confused about SOMETHING.

What might be going on here?
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  #4  
Old 07-28-2007, 07:30 AM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

The PCI bus is completely saturated. 100% utilization. Should I let this go on? Is there any chance ProTools is actually DOING something? Hmmm......
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  #5  
Old 07-28-2007, 07:50 AM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

This is very strange. The TIMING of the onset of maximum CPU utilization, is different every time I start the machine. I'm starting the Windows Task Manager just before ProTools, and I'm looking at the CPU utilization. Sometimes ProTools gets all the way through startup with perfectly normal-looking CPU utilization, and then it goes nuts immediately when I try to open a session. Sometimes though, it'll start going nuts BEFORE I open anything. It'll get "almost" all the way through the sequence of startup message, and then sometime after the DAE objects are created but before the Midi is initialized, the CPU utilization jumps to 100% and the whole system slows down to a crawl.

So that's where it's at now (a crawl), and I just rebooted the machine and I haven't opened any session yet, and I've got 100% CPU utilization and my PCI bus is saturated, and my file monitor is telling me that I'm touching some files I really shouldn't be touching, like temp files in my internet folder and log files from stuff that's been long since de-installed - it looks like it's just slowly but surely cycling through every file in my system.

This is REALLY BAD - man, I'm going to get SHOT if this ever happens in the field (and I might get shot anyway, if I can't recover my client's files today). I'm very unhappy with ProTools this morning.

Someone please tell me how to fix this, please? PLEEAZE? I'll be your friend for life. Anything I can do for you in the way of vintage audio electronics (which is my specialty), I'll be happy to do, if I can only get my sessions back. Yikes. I need a beer....
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  #6  
Old 07-28-2007, 08:09 AM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

And my "browsers" field is greyed out in the "window" menu....

Yeah, smells more and more like it's trying to reconstruct some kind of index, and failing miserably.

The strange thing is, that WHEN ProTools manages to close gracefully, the CPU utilization will go right back down to zero. It'll take an annoyingly long time to get there, but it'll get there eventually.

But a lot of the time it won't be able to close the session, it'll get maybe halfway through and then it'll say "can't close session: out of resources" and then you just have to reboot.

MAN is this annoying. I don't know what the hell happened, but I sure hope DigiDesign pays attention to this. I'm not sure what's going to be slower, trying to fix this problem, or restoring my system from backup. Jesus H. Christ. I sure hope someone has a solution for this.....
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  #7  
Old 07-28-2007, 09:40 AM
Rail Jon Rogut Rail Jon Rogut is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

Delete the Digidesign databases as described in the LE Troubleshooting thread:

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.p...fpart=1#802377

I'm not sure why this isn't in the XP TDM troubleshooting thread.

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  #8  
Old 07-28-2007, 10:11 AM
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t resta

Quote:
I'm not sure why this isn't in the XP TDM troubleshooting thread.
It is now... Windows XP and Pro Tools Setup and General Troubleshooting
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Old 07-28-2007, 11:17 AM
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t resta

Quote:
Quote:
I'm not sure why this isn't in the XP TDM troubleshooting thread.
It is now... Windows XP and Pro Tools Setup and General Troubleshooting
Hey Digi, you might want to add the link in the "Help us help you" thread, too.
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  #10  
Old 07-28-2007, 04:13 PM
nonsqtr nonsqtr is offline
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Default Re: please help! emergency!!! (crrashed ProTools won\'t restart)

Thanks guys. Unfortunately, the cleanup doesn't seem to have worked.

Here's what I know so far:

1. My ProTools is unusable. It goes into this wierd mode where 100% of the CPU is utilized, and 100% of the PCI bus is utilized, and once that happens the system slows to a crawl, and it's so bad that there's a five to ten second delay for mouse movements to be reflected in the position of the screen cursor.

2. PT seems to go into this "wierd mode" randomly - sometimes it happens right when PT starts up, other times it only happens when I try to open a session. But once it happens, there's only one way to get out of it gracefully, and that's to be very very patient while ProTools takes twenty minutes to shut itself down (and it'll only do that "sometimes" - sometimes it'll stop in the middle of the shutdown with one or another bizarre message, depending mainly on how big the session is that it's trying to close.

3. IF I get lucky and ProTools doesn't misbehave before I try to open a session, I can then open "small" sessions. Mainly, in this case, "small" seems to relate mostly to the number of plug-ins that are involved. On projects with lots of tracks but very few plug-ins, it seems like ProTools does better. On projects with few tracks but lots of plug-ins, I sometimes get an error message that says PT can't load a particular plug-in because the "system is out of resources", and as soon as I hit the OK button on that message box, PT goes immediately into its "wierd mode", and it's very unlikely to be able to shut down gracefully at that point.

4. The troubleshooting thing was actually helpful. I tried deleting the databases and folders as suggested, and it seems to have slowed down the intiial startup process to where I can actually read some of the messages as they're going by. So, first PT says "locating plug-ins", then it says "loading plug-ins", and then it says "initializing plug-ins". WHEN ProTools goes into its "wierd mode" during startup, it mostly seems to happen right when it says "initializing plug-ins". IF I get an error message at that point, it'll usually include the Dither and TLSpace plug-ins, and nothing else. Is there a chance these plug-ins have somehow become corrupted? And if so, is there a way I can temporarily disable my plug-ins to find out which one(s) is(are) misbehaving?

(note in passing, I'd previously done all the other recommended "optimizations" for Windows).

5. When loading a large project with lots of plug-ins, ProTools always hangs at the point where it says "restoring tracks... Activating inserts". That's when it goes into its "wierd mode" and the CPU and PCI start going nuts. If I just let it go on, at that point, it MIGHT come back with an error message (eventually), but it takes a long LONG time, and at that point the CPU is already hogtied and it's basically impossible to do anything anymore. If I'd previously started a "System Activity" window inside PT, at that point it won't refresh itself anymore. I can hit the "Cancel" button on the message box that says "restoring tracks... activating inserts", and at that point I'll also SOMETIMES get an error message - and sometimes the message box header will change to "not responding" and it'll just sit there - and sometimes it'll hang Windows up completely and the whole system will die a miserable death.

I'm thinking, that the trick with the plug-ins might be helpful - if I can temporarily disable all the plug-ins, and then re-enable them one by one, I can probably figure out which one(s) is(are) causing trouble. But I don't want to go through the pain of de-installing and re-installing them, please tell me that's not necessary.

Thanks for your help and input, it's greatly appreciated.
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