AV Option XL Need help urgently!

[onezerozero]

Hi Guys'

Right now I'm sitting in my post production suite pulling my hair out. It's 10pm local time & I have an important session (which cannot be moved) in at 10am tomorrow. I'm running Pro Tools vers 5.1.1 Mix Plus, AV Option XL, Digi 13 slot exp chasis on a Mac mirror door/cheesegrator 1ghz with 1.5mb Ram.

My system keeps freezing up since I tried upgrading it from an AVBV to AV Option XL. I have lost the software/drivers but we run the exact same system spec (apart from software vers 5.1.3cs11) on an older Mac Quicksilver 867mhz, 1.5mb Ram and it runs sweet as a nut. So I thought it would be fine to use it's software.

I also tried to upgrade the software from 5.1.1 to 5.1.3 pro tools won't even boot. So I'm back to 5.1.1.

The only help I could get from DIGI UK before 5pm closing was "it could be the Meridian board Revision, try downloading the right Meridian driver" How do I find out what revision my boards are?

Any of you PT Guru's can help? Obviously you need more details, no sweat. I can forward the email I sent to digi explaining the whole ball of wool & the system profile from said machine. Anyone brave/nice enough or just plain bored enough to help I'd really appreciate it here is my email address: [email protected] I can phone anyone anywhere if need be.

sorry I tried to keep it short.

thanks in advance, Joe

[DigiTechSupt]

Hey Joe,

The first thing I would do would be to, temporarily, remove the "Video Engine" folder from the DAE folder which will be in your system folder.

This will prevent the video engine from attempting to launch and will help determine if the problem you are having is related to Pro Tools software itself or the video hardware.

Also, when attempting to launch Pro Tools, keep an eye on the lower part of the Pro Tools splash screen to see what components are loading and exactly where the crash occurs. This assumes you are getting to a splash screen and Pro Tools isn't crashing prior to it.

You may also want to temporarily remove all plug-ins, except the stereo and/or Surround mixer plug-in from the Plug-ins folder and put them into the Plug-ins (Unused) folder. Both of these are located in your System/DAE folder.

Let me know if this does or doesn't help.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist

[onezerozero]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for geeting back to me, I'm a little surprised that no one outside of digidesign offered to help I finally gave up & left the studio at 2am last night a beaten man with my tail firmly between my legs.

Anyhow I've just got your email after finishing a session in the other AVXL suite.
So armed with a print out of your email & a strong coffee I'm about to go back in, wish me luck.

One things bugging me tho, I think Dan Muchmore of Digi UK might be right about the Meridian cards being different revisions. The system thats running fine was purchased post 2002 where as the troublesome board was if I'm not mistaken pre 2002 (how can I check this?).
As I'm using the newer cards software/drivers for both boards (lost the older boards while refitting the studio). Is that a big no no?

One more thing that could be pretty important is that the host computer was running AV Option (AVBV) before the AV Option XL was installed. Meaning that the AV Option software/drivers/prefs are all still on the system board. Should I remove them & if so what other files/drivers/prefs
need to go?

I can send you system profiler files from both systems if you like?

Thanks once again Jon, Joe

[Richard Fairbanks]

Don't think you're completely alone. I saw your post this morning, but it was more than 12 hours after your first post (which means you would have been in that 10am session by then, according to the post!) Besides, Jon's suggestion is the dead-on first and best thing to try. You changed software and hardware so there is a need to isolate one from the other.

I have one of the very first AVXL systems that shipped and it runs on my G4/867 with 5.0, 5.1, and 5.3, and 6.2.3. Since I doubt digi shipped you an earlier revision board than mine is, I would look elsewhere for the trouble. Was the meridien stuff pulled from an Avid?

Locate the Video Engine folder in your DAE folder and drag it to the desktop, then run Pro Tools. After doing this you can determine if the problem is with the video engine. First off, AVoption and AVXL are completely different, and require completely different drivers and so forth. Remove the AVoption stuff.

I do not recall exact changes from one version to another but it is easy to believe the files from another system with a different software version would not work for you, or that you may not have copied them all. Extensions may be different versions, too. If I remember correctly, one of the extensions you need is "SVI.CF" I could be wrong about that, but it seems like once I turned it off and could not launch AVXL.

You really need to find your 5.1 AVXL install disk, and then update from the digi website.

[onezerozero]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for taking the time to reply it’s greatly appreciated. After completely striping my system of anything relating to Pro Tools (backing up to a F/W Drive first) I’m just about ready to begin install a fresh P Tools 5.1.3. I've also downloaded PT 5.1.3cs1.11, DAE 5.1.3cs1 & AVXL 5.3.1 for Digi.com to upgrade in stages. I reckon this should at least eliminate any configuration issues. I'll also take your advice & begin the AVXL process from the original 5.1. I'll make sure to post how I got on Richard just in case you’re curious.

One thing is slightly bothering me though, after removing the Digi Files I decided to run Norton on the System drive before defragging it. It cam up with the message "major problems found - Multiple System Folders found on your Boot Disk - Norton cannot repair this. So I ran the Find file command but with no success. I then ran Apples Disk Aid but it found no problems, any ideas as to why?
I also ran an Apples bench test & wasn't very impressed with the results: Processor was excellent, CPU - same, FPU? - same, Video - really poor, rating - best described as sad (I saved the test if anyone’s interested) Not great for a G4 mirror door 1ghz cpu with 1.5GB Ram. Why?

Best wishes & thanks again guys if we ever meet I'll buy the Guinness, Joe

[Richard Fairbanks]

You MUST start with the 5.1 AVXL installer from your CD, because it installs a bunch of supporting files that do not get replaced by AVXL updates. The updaters replace some of them (you drag and drop the new ones into existing folders, which replaces them!). The others are assumed to exist already. This is mentioned in an updater readme.

Do you have the most recent Norton? I do not know what to tell you about it. Good luck!

[onezerozero]

Re: AV Option XL Need help urgently!

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your help & all others who chipped in along the way. You'll be happy to know that the system is finally up & running & its stable (up to now, touch wood).
I took you're advice & completely stripped the Mac of Pro Tools, then ran Norton disk doctor & defragged all the drives. Created a new base set of extensions and began the installation process with PT 5.1 followed by 5.13, DAE 5.1.3, & AVXL 5.1.3. When I booted Pro Tools it logged on to the internet to download some extensions, asked for the AVXL key disk & that was it.

So should I stick with a stable AVXL 5.1.3 system or is there an advantage/risk to upgrade to PT AVXL 5.3.1?

Doe's PT ver 6.0 run on Mac OS 9.2 & if so can I upgrade my AVXL set up to PT ver 6.0?
What are the cons & pros?

Thanks again guys I really appreciate your help.

Best wishes, Joe Goudie
One Zero Zero
Belfast

[onezerozero]

Hi Guys,

Hold the front page.... It's crashing again.

Richard I followed your instructions up to PT 5.1.3 (the other suite is very stable using this version & we want the two suites to be able to swap video files) and at first it seemed to work perfectly, the system looped fo a couple of hours solid with no trouble what so ever.
But 35 minutes into a booking it frooze, so we restarted & it ran ok for approx 30 minutes then it frooze again, followed by restart - imediate freeze x four. At this point we gave up & moved the client to the other suite to get the booking finished.

Please advise..

Regards, Joe

[Richard Fairbanks]

If it was running stable for a period of time then the software is most likely working the way it should. It is time to look at other problem points. As I write this I do not remember your specific configuration, so forgive me if some of this does not apply. Is your system running hot? Have you reseated the cards again? I have had freezing from a bad Apple mouse cable! What exactly was the operator doing before the system froze? Are there any other applications running? How much memory do you have, and have you allocated plenty to both the PT application as well as DAE? I seem to recall having something like 75M allocated to DAE and 500M allocated to the application, because this allowed very large sessions to remain stable. If you do not have a gig of RAM installed, then perhaps try lowering the levels of undo and see if that helps. Each level of undo requires more RAM, so you can adjust that preference to accomodate systems with less RAM. I have not experienced that to make any difference on my systems except with huge sessions, but it is worth a shot.

There are so many variables on your system, it will take some energy and time to narrow them away. It is possible that the expansion chassis cable is stressed, so as a last resort you can install just a few mix cards, the meridien board, and a single scsi card into the cpu and run that for awhile. If that is stable for day then maybe you have expansion chassis problems. I would look for other problems first, though.

Since you are running version 5.1.3 then you are using Mix hardware. You cannot run 5.3.1 since that is a version specifically for HD hardware with OS9.2 and is not for you. 5.1.3 is fairly stable and should be running well for you. I would not go to OSX until fixing this problem, because that will just introduce MORE variables.

[onezerozero]

Hi Richard,

I just thought I would inform you of our system configuration, I'll put it in mac terms here goes:

Mac G4 Mirror Door
Formac 21" LCD ADC monitor x 2
Machine speed - 1250mhz
Built in mem - 2GB
Disk Cache - 512k
Backside L2 Cache - 1mb
Atto dual scsi
audio drives = 2 x digi scsi 73gb
video = 2 x digi firewire 80
Mix Plus
AVoptionXL
Digi 13 slot exp
USD
888/24 i/o x 2

Richard if you wish I can send you the system profile file & the digi/meridian test results if you want to email me privately @ [email protected] or I could phone you at an appropriate time.

I hope I'm not taking up to much of your time digidesign seemed to have lost interest

thanks for all your help

a despairing Joe.