Strange transport behaviour and CPU overloadinf

[danieleither]

HD 3 PCIe, Mac Pro 3.1, 16gb ram, PT10 HD

My system has developed some strange issues all of a sudden. It's almost as if it's become affected by a virus (is this possible)? Firstly, the transport buttons are behaving strangely, where usually hitting the 'forward' or 'back' button once would increment the play position by one bar, it will do this for a few bars normally then jump to some random point (for example 200 bars into the timeline, way beyond the end of the audio). Then next click and it will jump to something like bar 360 (for example). The same happens whatever project I open and it's different positions each time.

In addition, the CPU keeps maxing out (playback stops, or stutters then stops followed by an error message saying CPU overload). This happens on the simplest project with a handful of tracks and plugins to large projects with several tracks and plugins. The problems are really steifeling my workflow and I'm baffled as to what's causing this.

There are two things I've done recently that I can think of which are relevant and potentially causing the problem, the first is that I upgraded from HD2 to HD3. The first two cards were bought together as an HD2 system whereby the 3rd that I've added is a used card from EBay. I noticed it is an earlier revision to my HD2 cards. I believe from memory the first 2 cards are revision 'J' and the 3rs card I've fitted is revision 'D'.

The other thing is I imported a MIDI file downloaded from the internet into a project (something I'd never done before) - just wondering if it could have been infected somehow? I don't have any antivirus software on my PT system.

has anyone experienced something similar or can she some light?

[Darryl Ramm]

You need to do some basic troubleshooting. This stuff needs to be second nature. And no it's unlikely your system has a virus, or anything to do with MIDI file downloads. It's much more likely you have the same old usual problems affecting Pro Tools as lots of other users have run into at some time...

Start at the "Help us Help You" up the top of this page. Do the standard troubleshooting steps described there.

Especially trash prefs, temporarily remove all third party plugin files (from both plugin folders in Pro Tools 10). With CPU errors you *always* suspect plugins.

What IO buffer size and sample rate is the session using? What is the CPU spec on the Mac Pro?

If you open one of the misbehaving session using Built-In Output as the Playback Engine does the session still misbehave?

If you remove the HD card you added do these problems stop (I doubt it but try). If so does the HD3 rig past Digitest?

Did you touch the OS or Pro Tools software installs? If so what happens if you roll back to the backup of the previous working system? What OS X version are you using?

[albee1952]

Ditto on running Digitest, but be aware that some recent versions of PT are turning up failing test results on system that are absolutely working. #2-trashing prefs is always worth a try for "odd behavior"( and this seems odd to me). As to a virus, while I do agree its doubtful, I still download and run a suite of stuff here about once a year. Once I run and get clean reports, I uninstall the products(running PC here so can't offer advice on what might be worth trying on a Mac). I am also suspect of a plugin.

My last 2 cents; no matter what platform or DAW, every DAW user should have a serious backup plan. #1 is to incorporate drive imaging. Saving a drive image when things are working great makes it very simple to return to that exact state. #2(for me) is drive cloning and keeping at least 1 spare system drive with the previous configuration(again, when it was running well). I have a system drive with PT11.3.1 on it. That setup was extremely reliable, so when it came time to go with 12.x, I cloned that system drive, swapped out for the fresh clone, and installed 12(12.4 and now 12.7). There are times when the current rig gives me fits(similar to your current experience) but I can swap out a system drive and go back to work on the old setup in 2 minutes

[danieleither]

Thanks for the advice guys. Turned out to be plugins. I had also just installed Lexicon PCM total bundle. I bought it and downloaded directly from Thomann. I consider both th Lexicon and Thomann brands to be reputable So didn't think for a minute it could be this. I removed all ththe Lexicon plugins from the plugin folders and all works perfectly again. So now I need to figure why the plugins are causing a problem...!

[Darryl Ramm]

With CPU errors you *always* suspect plugins.

Contact the plugin developer support. They'll want to know exactly what version of Pro Tools and OS you are running on. And I'd normally want to try fill clean reinstalls of everything to reconfirm the problem happens.