Digi 003 Rack Buffer Size and communication problems on Leopard

[BGPeres]

Hello everyone.

I recently began working in a studio, and I'm using a DIGI003 rack factory, with PT 8.0.1 on a 10.5.8 Mac OS in an Aluminum IMac (3GB AM, 2.4 Dual Core).

Since we've upgraded to PT 8, we've been having both communication AND buffer size problems.

If I just leave PT open, sooner or later it'll lose it's communication with DIGI, it doesn't matter if I'm working on it or not, it doesn't seem to make any difference. This might happen as soon as I open Pro Tools, or it may take a while to happen.
When this happens, I just have to change ANY setting in the Playback Engine and it'll start working again.

And besides that, we've been having playback issues. Playback gets kind of "stuck" and starts popping. Then I get an error message saying I have insufficient CPU power, and that I should increase buffer size or lose a few plug-ins.
But this seems weird to me, since the sessions I work with are quite light, and I've worked with sessions just like them in a 2.0 C2D Imac with only 1GB RAM.

I've called our local (Brazilian) support, searched around DUC and lots of internet forums, but so far, I've found out that there could be a dozen different causes for this.
I've changed firewire ports in the DIGI, I've tested it in another more powerful 2.66 C2D Imac (with the same OS), I've gone through THREE different firewire cables, and it's still the same.

I'm beginning to think it might be related to firmware stuff. If so, what should I do? shoud I update firmware? How?

We're on a real tight budget here, and sending it to authorized dealer's maintenance would really be impossible right now.

I really need help, I've been struggling with this for 2 weeks, and I had no improvement so far.

Please, if you guys can give me any tip, or can help me in any way, I'd appreciate it.

[SpinningDisk]

What are you using to record to (external firewire drive, internal drive, usb drive)? You have not mentioned this.

[BGPeres]

I'm recording straight into the IMac's HDD (250GB SATA ICH8 Hitachi).

Is that OK? Should we be recording in an external FW drive?

p.s. Thanks for the reply.

[SpinningDisk]

Yes you should. You should never record to the system drive or use a USB drive to record to. Firewire to 003 and firewire to your external firewire drive. If you have to chain, make sure your 003 is last in the chain.

[BGPeres]

OK, I had read about that before (about recording in a FW drive), and I'll notify the owner of the studio here.

But the thing is I get the "Lost Communication" error even when I'm not recording anything (or haven't recorded anything all day).

Simply editing or playing back audio will get me errors.
Even DOING NOTHING will give me an error message sometimes.

But thanks for the tip.

However, I still need some help here, and it would be greatly appreciated.

[SpinningDisk]

Sometimes deleting the DIGI preferences will fix that. Make sure your not running anything in the background like Spotlight, Airport, Wireless mouse etc..

[BGPeres]

Yeah, we got both wireless mouse and keyboard. Airport was on (but we can use LAN).

I turned Airport off, but I can't turn bluetooth off (or I'll have no mouse/keyboard).

But I tested this 003 in another IMac with no wireless devices, and I still had that problem.

Well, thing is that after some more reading in the internet, I found out that I should set "Host Processors" to 1 instead of 2.

I had never thought about that, I actually thought it mean processor CORES, but it actually means processor.

So I set it to 1, and it's working smoothly.
I can't believe it was that simple.

And neither can I believe that I could've been so stupid.

After all, the IMac has ONE darn processor unlike Mac Pros (that have two sockets).

So... I've testing sessions for the last half an hour or so, and it's been just perfect.

Sorry if I wasted your time Spinning Disk, but your help was not all in vain, I'm gonna tell my boss to buy a FW drive as soon as possible in order to avoid future problems while recording.

One more time: Thanks!

[SpinningDisk]

Your not the only one on the forums who have had brain farts (me). I'm so glad you got it working. You have to remember if you do a reinstall don't forget to set it back to one. I remember a couple times I forgot to set it back to one and spent the whole day scratching my head. Hate when that happens. Have fun making music.

Disk

[Obsidian Dragon]

I'm glad your problems are resolved. That is why we're here afterall. These fixes are all clearly documented in the General Troubleshooting sticky thread at the top of this forum.

[nst7]

The "Lost Communication" error is oftentimes because of the firewire cable. If you're using the cheap one that came with your unit, replace it with a different one.