Show/Hide tracks memory locations getting corrupted?

[clutch]

Hi, it's not often I'm at my wits end with a PT problem, but this one has me really stumped.

I have an issue where my track show and hide memory locations are off by three tracks after I close and re-open a session.
That is, if I have set memory location A to show tracks 1,2,3,4 and location B to show tracks 5,6,7,8, they work fine until I close and reopen my session, when suddenly memory location A show tracks 4,5,6,7 and location B shows tracks 8,9,10 and 11!
These are just examples - it's happening on many, many tracks.

I made a new session and imported the tracks from the bad session - issue still persists.
I trashed PT prefs, restarted my computer and the issue persisted.
I created new tracks and copied the data from tracks 1,2,3 and 5,6,7 onto them and things were fine again. Closed and reopened the session without issue.

Went home last night, came in this morning, fired up the session and the issue is back.

I don't want to have to make new tracks for all the offending tracks again as there are a lot of them, and updating the many memory locations I have with all the different track views takes a while, and it's not something I want to do every day.

Any ideas as to what's happening?

PT2018.4 OSX Sierra 10.12.4

[Tweakhead]

I don't use PT2018, but perhaps see if there's some kind of setting for "Auto-Update Memory Locations" . . . if so, uncheck it.

[DAWgEAR]

This is a bug and it has been present since at least PT 10. I have experienced it in each version of PT since 2014 on Windows and Mac. I have started support tickets twice over the years. Avid has acknowledged the issue in a reply to my first support ticket, but they have yet to fix it.

Playlist view corrupts memory locations - BUG??

memory locations - track show/hide weirdness

BUG: Random Show/Hide Track Issue w/ Mem Locations

The quick summary is that, if you save a session with tracks in playlist view, show/hide tracks memory locations become corrupted. The workaround is to always put all tracks in some other view such as waveform or volume automation prior to saving. If an automatic backup occurs while the tracks are in playlist view, that backup session file is corrupted and you cannot import session data from it to get back your memory locations. Another imperfect workaround is to use edit and/or mix groups.

I am heavily reliant on show/hide memory locations to keep complex sessions organized and to navigate the session. This bug is my nemesis! It is extremely frustrating to have to reconstruct all your memory locations because, in the heat of a creative moment, you reflexively hit Command+S before remembering to put all tracks in waveform view. I would gladly pay $399 right now to have this longstanding bug fixed. Wait ... I already have. Twice. Plus $599 for the first year when Avid introduced the support plan model. And that is in addition to what I paid for my HD Native system.

Below is the text from the most recent support ticket I submitted earlier this year:

I am using Pro Tools HD 2018.1 on Mac OS High Sierra.

In a Pro Tools session with memory locations involving Track Show/Hide status, saving the session with playlists view engaged corrupts the memory locations.

Repro:

(1) Create a new empty session (not from a template).

(2) Create three audio tracks.

(3) Check "Automatically create new playlists when loop recording" in Preferences>Operation, and then

(i) engage loop recording mode
(ii) set locators to a 1-bar loop
(iii) record arm all three tracks
(iv) record two passes through the looped region - this will generate two playlists for each of the three tracks.

[This step is not critical to the repro, but it is a fast way to get a bunch of playlists.]

(4) Open playlist view to check that the playlists were created, but put all three tracks back in waveform view.

(5) Create these five track show/hide memory locations in this order:
track 1 only
track 2 only
tracks 1 and 2
all three tracks
track 3 only.

(6) Test out your memory locations. They should all work properly.

(7) Put track 2 in playlist view, then back to waveform view, and save the session.

8) Close the session and reopen it. All five memory locations should still work properly.

(9) Now put track 2 in playlist view, and save the session with track 2 in playlist view.

(10) Close the session and reopen it.

(11) The first three memory locations should be working, but the third and fourth will not. Specifically, any memory location involving track 3 will not show track 3.

The pattern seems to be: when a session is saved with any tracks in playlist view, any memory locations involving tracks below the track left in playlist view are corrupted.

In the context of this simple test, it doesn't look too bad, but in a large session with a complex arrangement and meticulously created memory locations involving show/hide tracks, this is a nightmare.

Your first reaction might be like mine - I'll just remember to put all tracks in waveform view before saving. But when you are working and have a dozen things to remember, this doesn't always happen. I tend to save frequently and on the fly after important edits, changes, or recordings. Further, automatically saved backup sessions are affected. And you cannot import the memory locations as session data because they are corrupted in the saved sessions.

[Tweakhead]

Wow. That is a perfectly-written explanation by DAWgEAR.

And you could not ask for more in his "Steps-To-Reproduce". Simple. Concise. Exacting. Reproducible.

. . . and it's still not fixed. Pro Tools 10 came out in 2011 ! Oh right, that explains it. Avid simply have not had enough time to address it, what with the successes of Cloud Collaboration and all that it entailed.

[DAWgEAR]

Originally Posted by Tweakhead

Wow. That is a perfectly-written explanation by DAWgEAR.

And you could not ask for more in his "Steps-To-Reproduce". Simple. Concise. Exacting. Reproducible.

. . . and it's still not fixed. Pro Tools 10 came out in 2011 ! Oh right, that explains it. Avid simply have not had enough time to address it, what with the successes of Cloud Collaboration and all that it entailed.

Thanks! I edited my post to include two additional threads documenting encounters with this issue. One of them is from 2010 and the user appears to have been on PT 8 at that time.

If anyone else is frustrated by this issue, please give the repro a try (it takes only a few minutes) and start a support ticket.

[clutch]

Oh boy. Was really hoping for a quick fix or this one. Thanks for letting me know.
I've started a support ticket, but am not fancying my chances.

Bah!

[clutch]

Update: I logged a support ticket with Avid and after much back and forth with broken sessions etc it was confirmed it was definitely a bug, and that due to the few numbers of people who have this issue, it wasn't going to get fixed.

Here are the relevant bits of the response:

This bug was logged for many years ago and we have had very few bug reports from customers regarding this issue.
Which makes the priority for a fix for this bug very low. As of today, this is an inactive project.

We have updated the info in our bug database, associated your case and added info that this bug are still affecting our latest versions of Pro Tools.
Unfortunately I believe this will most likely not be fixed very soon, so please don't keep high expectations for a quick fix.

In the meantime, I accidentally managed to fix one of my broken sessions!
Unfortunately I'm not sure which action actually fixed it, but I have a feeling it was something to do with moving my master video track to the bottom of the session instead of at the top.

[DAWgEAR]

Originally Posted by clutch

...due to the few numbers of people who have this issue...

How are users organizing complex sessions? It's not like we folders ...