Launch Failure!

[bassplayer01]

PTLE 6.4 digi002
Dual G5 2 GHz
osx 10.3.8

My problem started yesterday. I was attempting a playback of a vocal track I had just recorded. I pressed play and got the increase hardware buffer error message immediately. I switched it from 128 to 512 samples. Normally when the hardware buffer is too low, I will get a error message about 30 seconds to a minute into the audio. So I knew something was strange. I attempted to listen again, and got the error message right away. A few more attempts and no luck I closed the song and quit protools. I opened the song again and even tried different songs with same crappy results. So I shut down the mac...waited a few minutes and start it back up. Now my Mac wont boot up. I get the white/grey apple startup screen , which greys out and I get the four language error message telling me I have to restart my computer. I go through this two or three times then call apple. The guy at apple tells me that sometimes external devices can "somehow" currupt OS files??? but he couldnt tell me why or how, or even what to do as a fix. He did however know 6 or so procedures on how to get me to startup correctly. each on more drastic and potentially damaging then the previous one. i ended up doing an archival install of the OS. he told me that it would just replace those files that were currupt, and leave everything else intact. he puts me on hold, comes back on the phone and tells me i will have to reinstall all my software. He puts me on hold again, comes back and tells me that he doesnt know if i will have to reinstall software or not...but its my only option , he says. so i do it. The mac is normally at my studio w/out the internet, so i brought it home this morning to upgrade the OSX back to 10.3.8. and do any other online repairs that are needed. Most of my software works fine. recycle needs to be reinstalled which is no problem and when I open protools, i get this message application launch failure:
the application "pro tools" could not be launched because of shared library error: "1<protools_LE_OSX_Rel><ProTools_LE_OSX_Rel><DAE>< >"
before I reinstall protools, I am wondering if there is a quick fix i can do. I got this error once before when i tried to give a non-admin user rights to protools. I am also wondering what happened in the first place. thank you for your time.

[bassplayer01]

nobody has any thoughts on this? are my questions not clear? please help, thank you

[KingFish]

Well personally, i don't put much faith into these "Partial OS Install / Fix" runs, after a serious system malfunction / corruption.

If I were you, I'd take my lumps, zero the drive, and fresh install OS 10.3.x from your instalation Disk, install, update, and authorize all of your applications.

when your machine is running great, with all applications configured, and authorized. Make an Image of your system drive, so that next time something goes Major wrong with your system, you can restore it to perfect working / configured glory, in about 15 minutes.

[Slim Shady]

Gotta agree with the Fish on this one, back your stuff up, reformat and start from scratch. You have of course done all the normal OSX troubleshooting stuff right?

[bassplayer01]

When i was on the phone with apple care, we ran the disk utility first aid off the the install disk, but that is about it. i am new to the mac world(4 months) and am still learning about OSX. what other toubleshooting options do i have. also, do you guys agree with the apple guy that its possible that my external devices(002 and LaCie HD) may have caused the curruption? all my software is authorized and mac is rarely connected to the internet. I know i have to bite the bullet and start from scratch, but wondering what i can do to prevent this from happening in the future. Thanks again for the help.

Chris

[KingFish]

***As far as "what other Troubleshooting tips are there?" ***

well.. when things go wrong, read the "troubleshooting Thread" that's sticky'd in this forum.

***Preventative ???***

Always back your stuff up, even twice ! I always have redundant bakups of everything i'm working on, at all times it usually exists on 2 hard drives, and DVD by the end of the day.

For the little bit of extra effort, becoming a regular part of your work Habbit, will certainly pay for itself 10 fold, the first time something goes wrong.

Aside from backing up your work, i can't stress enough how important that Image of your working system volume is.
in most cases you can be fully up and running in 15 minutes, even if someone takes your system drive out, and rubs it up and down a big ol' JBL magnet.

While on the Preventative... Repair your disk permissions, and repair your system disk regularly, weather you are having problems or not. this could keep you fairly clear of "Unexpected Quits" for no reason, when you have not updated, or installed new applications.

When you do (install things, and update) - repair permissions following completing those tasks.

*** Why did this Happen***
" o you guys agree with the apple guy that its possible that my external devices(002 and LaCie HD) may have caused the curruption "

No... i don't agree that the 002, and the Lacie caused a Volume corruption on your system drive.

I think the more likely truth is, "you stumped the Apple Guy, and he needed to blame Lacie and digidesign to sound important, and smart"

we all have 002's, and Lacie drives, and your specific problem has never happened to me, on G4, or G5 "Right to the detail"

however, I have, and i'm sure we all have experienced a corrupt, un readable volume, prompting that dreaded "OSX has tried to mount an unreadable volume - Initialize ????" NO ! or worse off, if that unreadable volume happens to be your system drive, then we all get to experience your recent situation, "The Grey screen Of ?"

What do "I personally think happened to you?"

could be a series of things, but likely a power serge, improper shutdown, your system did not properly unMount your system drive, for one of many reasons, and your Volume information became corrupt.

Is one of dozens of explanations, but would be where my bets would be placed, however, damaged permissions on your System directory, could cause the Grey screen, there are many scenarios, computers do the "damnest things" sometimes.... without warning.

Listen to Slim - read that troubleshooting Tip's thread... know it, understand it. If you run into pro-tools problems, a large percentage of peoples woes in "Mac Land" are rectified by the things covered in that thread.

I can't guarentee that this will never happen to you again, however, if it ever does, and you have followed these preventative measures, as well as the Backup, and Image reccomendations. Then i can say - "you did your best" and you'll be up and running in 15 minutes, go grab a coffee, no worries.

[bassplayer01]

thank you so much for the replys. you guys have been very very helpful. thanks

[voce]

I can't guarentee that this will never happen to you again, however, if it ever does, and you have followed these preventative measures, as well as the Backup, and Image reccomendations. Then i can say - "you did your best" and you'll be up and running in 15 minutes, go grab a coffee, no worries.

By what method/program/utility do you recommend one make the backup, and what should one use for the subsequent re-install?

thks

[KingFish]

By what method/program/utility do you recommend one make the backup, and what should one use for the subsequent re-install?

thks

"The Bakup" i was refering to bakup all your work regularly... use the "Save Session Copy In" feature of pro-tools to make session copies of sessions you are working on, to another drive... keep a "Bakup archive" of all of the sessions you are working on, on another drive... as you work more on them, update the archive by replacing the Session Copy. Burn these sessions to CD or DVD at the end of the day as well.

I go one step further to keep backups of all my work at 2 different locations... the studio / and home.

It does me no good if i have 3 local coppies of everything, and a robbery, or fire cleans me out.

The guys at the studio occasionally call me "The Bakup Nazi" - however, every one of them has called me at some point, in a panic, after loosing something important.

As far as "System bakup" an Image of your OS / System volume....

I use OS X's Disk utillity.

Boot off your install Disk
on the installation Screen go to File --> Open Disk Utillity
Click "New Image"
Select your main System volume as the Source, and specify a location on another volume to place the Image file (it will be as large as your whole OS System drive disk usage.)

if you need to restore the system... same thing...
Boot off your install Disk
on the installation Screen go to File --> Open Disk Utillity
click on RESTORE
select the image you made in the 1st process as the Source
select your system volume as the destination
Check the "Erase destination box"
have a coffee... and you're up and running.

Some people use "Carbon Copy Clone" I have no experience with it, i have heard it is great as well, however I have great success with Mac's built in Disk Utillity, and it's Fast.

[voce]

david,

I used the disk utility to make an image, and when i tried to restore it on another partition on that machine to see if it worked, I got error messages (2 and 16, I think) in Disk Utility, and now the image on that partition is shot...any idea why? Where to find what these error messages mean? The image should be about 10 GB, and the destination drive is 20GB...I'd love to make sure I have actually done this correctly (by restoring the saved image somewhere else) before I rest easy...

thanks...