HDX PT 2018 CPU Spikes AAE -9171 Halts Playback

[Howardk]

I am having problems putting this system into production. . . been working on it for bout a week w/ no luck so far with errors causing Pro Tools to stop playback.

In one simple test session, I have one stereo audio file routed to 16 stereo Auxes, and one Interface connected, with a 128 sample buffer and 44k1 sr. I am getting CPU spikes of up to 40%. . . won't run for even a second with 64 sample buffer. I have tried with either just a single Aurora Lynx or a Single 192 I/o with same results. Tried different Digilink cables. I have remove All plugins from the folder, Trashed Prefs etc. . . Unused Network interfaces are Off, Wifi off, Blue Tooth off, created a new Admin Login (with minimal things going on), enabled Trim. . . no appreciable differences from any of this. I did go thru the Avid Optimization notes and I think I did everything suggested . . . maybe I missed something?

Interestingly, if I take the same session and change the Playback Engine from HDX to Built-In Outputs, the CPU Total meter stays at 4% and solid, no spikes.

I am coming from a 7 card HD Accel system on PT 10, which has been mostly solid (other than elastic time crashes and poor Virt Inst performance) and very powerful for mixing and was low latency for tracking. . . I am trying to move to newer Po Tools for 64 bit, so I can run newer VIs, and also for features such as Freeze/Commit. I have a couple projects that I need to get started on right away. . .

As soon as I start using some Virtual instruments or other AAX Native plugins, I start to get AAE -9171 halts with a 128 sample buffer. Hard to work at tracking with the system as it is performing at present. . . basically light sessions will not run without the AAE -9171 freeze frequently occurring due to CPU Spikes . . .

Hoping this is solvable. . . Ideas/Suggestions?


System Outline:
Pro Tools 2018-12 on Mac Pro 2010 2.93GHz 12 Core 48GB, ATI Radeon HD 5770
Sierra 10.12.6, 1 HDX Card, Lynx Aurora 16 x 2, 192 i/o x 2
System Disk: OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD
Session: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
Also tried Mac Pro 2010 2.66GHz

[Howardk]

Also, I noticed that Pro Tools Quicktime Server shows as Not Responding in Activity Monitor, in case that is relevant.

[Dynamixaled]

i had removed hyper-threading and it helped for a day or so, but the next day things were so unstable that i was unable to work at all. I decided to start from scratch, which i had done once before - beginning with a new HD and reinstalling EVERYTHING. One rather huge mistake i had made before things started to go downhill was installing High Sierra - it was the closest OS i could get to El Capitan, which I had been using, but it was not compatible with the latest version of PT i'm able to use - 2018.1.0. I was able to get a Sierra installer from our local pro audio shop and was able to load from a bootable USB drive. i think Apple support might have helped me accomplish that if you're lucky enough to talk to a knowledgeable support person. There's a compatibility chart available from Avid outlining which OS's are tested with the various PT versions.

The great thing about going through all of this was it forced me to go back to the sources and get the latest versions of all of my plugins. Since PT HD is 64-bit, i'm wondering if you're having issues with 32-bit plugins.

in my case, the CPU was spiking up to 100%. I had been using the highest buffer size with 'ignore errors' checked and was still having crashes. Now that i've re-installed everything i noticed yesterday that i was running on 256k buffer without problem, although i had previously rendered some of the tracks with CPU intensive instruments - ie Omni2 and Kontakt.


__________________

[Howardk]

Hi

Looks like I am not alone.

I just installed Pro Tools 2018-12 on a fresh install of Sierra 10.12.6

Ran my Test Session (one stereo audio file routed to 16 stereo Auxes, and one Interface connected, @ 44k1 sr):

64 sample HW Buffer - Instant AAE-9171 Halt
128 sample HW Buffer - 30% Total CPU Spikes
256 sample HW Buffer - 8% Total CPU Spikes
512 sample HW Buffer - 2% Total CPU Spikes

Basically the same performance as my other system installation, which has all my plugins, Cloud Drives, etc. . installed, and on that one, once I load up some AAX plugins and try to work, Pro Tools frequently halts playback.

What am I missing?

[DetroitT]

Ive never had stable HDX under 256 buffer.
DSP only on masters.
Places that helped advaced systems on older machines:

Video AMD 7k or better. Nvidia pascal up to MacOs 10.13.x
Ram 16 and above
Ssd with trim enabled. Owc ssd n/a

Try aax plug in folder empty. Launch Pro Tools Ultimate. (This will install match core AAX)
Install and restart HDX Driver.
Resetting P-ram 1 bing
Try test again.

I ve found core Aax should be clean installed with first launch.

Add back/install as needed

[Howardk]

Originally Posted by DetroitT

Ive never had stable HDX under 256 buffer.
DSP only on masters.
Places that helped advaced systems on older machines:

Video AMD 7k or better. Nvidia pascal up to MacOs 10.13.x
Ram 16 and above
Ssd with trim enabled. Owc ssd n/a

Try aax plug in folder empty. Launch Pro Tools Ultimate. (This will install match core AAX)
Install and restart HDX Driver.
Resetting P-ram 1 bing
Try test again.

I ve found core Aax should be clean installed with first launch.

Add back/install as needed

Thanks for the info. I will see what I can try out of the things you suggested that i have not already. . . or will try again. . .

Only thing I have not done is try a different video card but don't know of a good one that is handy (running dual monitors (34"Samsung on DisplayPort + 20"Dell@90degrees on DVI) and the other card i have is a Radeon HD 5870 and it takes up both power connectors. I have not done a PRAM reset in the last couple days. I did enable Trim Support along the way, I think that as a couple days ago (I have a combination of Samsung and OWC drives). I have trashed the Pro Tools Pref and Plug-ins folders a number of times (I have a backup on the Plug-ins folder) and at this point testing on this system is being done with core Avid Plugins only. Disabling Hyper-Threading didn't seem to make any difference to these pesky CPU spikes. Tried just 1x192i/o or one Aurora 16 with v28 for the Aurora and v15 for the LT-HD. I am borrowing an AVID interface from a studio I support, to try. I have disconnected every peripheral I can, no difference. I heard someone had a mouse cause a similar problem. Computers came be fussy things!

Doesn’t the HW buffer size directly affect the minimum latency when recording? If so 256 would be a problem... that is about 6 msec @44k1... I will have players not liking it and it is a step back from my old HD system... so not good news.

Interestly, I reinstalled my old System disk (Pro Tools 10 on Mountain Lion, originally connected to an EB7 with 7 mix cards) into this computer, still w/ HDX card inside computer, and ran the test session, CPU(Native): Solid at 3%, no spikes.
. That says something. . .

Unfortunately a lot of my iLok authorizations are blown up by upgrades done for Pro Tools 2018, so going back to the old HD 7 system would be some work and does not address being able to use newer virtual instruments, etc. . .

Test I will do next is a clean install on El Capitan, see if there is any difference compared to Sierra. . . and from there, if no success, try and get my hands on older versions of Pro Tools 2018 (I only have access to 2018-01 & 12).

. . .fingers crossed. . .

[Howardk]

Ok, fresh install of El Capitan and Pro Tools 2018-10 on a single Aurora 16. . .

Running simple test session and seeing this for CPU Spikes:

Buffer Spikes

Aurora 16 (Firmware v28/v15)
------------------
64 AAE -9171 instantly
128 1-89%
256 1-46%
512 1-13%
1024 1-3%

192 i/o (Firmware ?)
---------------------
64 AAE -9171 instantly
128 1%-58%
256 1%-24%
512 1-4%
1024 1-4%


AVID 8x8x8 Interface (Firmware ?)
---------------------------------------
64 AAE -9171 Pretty quickly
128 1-75%
256 1%-49%
512 1%-10%
1024 1-4%


I did not run these test for long. . . and the Spikes are a bit random, so not totally conclusive readings, but the Spikes are certainly there in all cases, compared to running Built in Output for instance, or an older HD Accel rig.

[DetroitT]

512 1-16%
1024 1-4%


these follow.
I track, use VI's, Mel mostly 48Khz 32bit-f
operational is sig config.
none to one time daily crash event. fully recoverable at 1 min episodes.

crashes besides the xAvid error code. Seem to coincide with autosave.

[Howardk]

Did a guitar overdub session today and got thru it without many errors. The player was complaining about the latency, so we could not work at 512 buffer. . . in the end 256 worked for him, but he is not as fussy as some of the other people I work with. . . a vocalist and drummer I often work with both freak out if anything more than 4 milliseconds, so this looks like it could be a problem going forward sometimes because I would like to be at 128 or smaller to accomplish lower latency at 44k1 sr.

So in summary, at least in my limited world, it appears that Pro Tools Ultimate 2018-10 or -12, have issues with CPU Spikes on Sierra or El Capitan. . . compared to either the HD Accel or HDX cards in Pro Tools 10 on Mountain Lion, which does not exhibit the CPU Spikes. . . so more latency with this newer Pro Tools configuration because buffer needs to be higher. . .

I am concerned about bigger sessions, when i am recording a 12 piece band live off the floor, with multiple stereo monitor mixes etc. . . that used to be a piece of cake with my portable HD2 Accel system or my HD7 system in the studio. . .

I wonder what the root cause is of these spikes, when in the Pro Tools development cycle the problem showed up, and what most recent hardware/software combo does not exhibit CPU spikes. I heard from a hardware company support person that Interface issues started showing up in Pro Tools 12.5. I would do more testing if I could get my hands on older Pro Tools version. . . all I have access to in my Avid Account is Pro Tools Ultimate 2018-10 and 2018-12.

[Howardk]

Continued working on some editing and mix development for a project on this new system back on the original system drive. All worked well for a couple hours. Then I started to get several: "Pro Tools ran out of CPU Power. Try de-activating or removing Native Plugins (AAE-9173)"

However I had already converted about 10 plugins from Native to AAX.DSP an hour earlier. . . BX_Digital_v2 (Native) to BX_Hybrid_V2(DSP). . . so I was surprised to see the error afterward. CPU Total seems to be pretty stable around 10%, which is lower than it was with my simple test session, and this session has about 40 tracks compared to the simple test session with 1 stereo track routed to auxes.

Confusing. . .

I also just got the AAE -9171 again, but not seeing CPU spikes on the meter at this time, seems to be hovering at 7-11%.

Strange. . .