Blue Cat Patchwork: PT11.3 Hard Freeze and AAE Errors (PC)

[dougdude9]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Oh an on your S20...

Not only is it limited to SATA II on the Motherboard but I believe they are also only PCIe 2 on the two X16 slots (I suspect the other slots are all PCIe 1.x). Check your documentation. And presumably you have a graphics card stuffed in one of those PCIe 2 x16 slots. So you would want to add a SATA III PCIe adapter card to a remaining PCIe 2 slot, presumably the second x16 slot. And ideally you want to use a SATA III adapter that has more than a single PCIe lane on it. Like this one http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1376 which is a x2 PCIe 2 card.

I have not used this card myself, it would be nice to hear that other folks are using this card or another Marvell 88SE9215 based card with an SSD and Pro Tools but OTOH they are cheap enough to just get and try (~$30 street).

Are you certain SATA II is too slow? I mean there has to be a number of people running large sessions just fine on SATA II, right? I think I know someone that has a 500gb WD Black 7200rpm 64cache drive I can have. I can install it, but it will only run SATA II... however, I suppose that has to be better than my external usb 2.0 I've been using.

I know one of my slots is for my firewire card. I'd have to see what's left.

My thoughts were try this WD black that will run at SATA II speed. Then maybe get a USB 3.0 PCI card so I can plugin my current external drive that is usb 3.0 capable. Surely there are people with good results recording to usb 3.0.

Doug D.

[Darryl Ramm]

SATA II controllers will absolutely be a performance bottleneck for any current decent SSD. Including the Samsung 840 SATA III SSD you are using for a C: drive and especially for anything like the Samsung 850 Evo I am recommending you use for a session drive. HDD performance is so pathetic compared to current leading SSDs that ah how do I put it politely... who cares.

Lots of people record to USB3, it is much faster than USB2, you can try going there if you want. But you are having a lot of issues at the moment. I know what I would be doing, and I've described that clearly already.

[dougdude9]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

SATA II controllers will absolutely be a performance bottleneck for any current decent SSD. Including the Samsung 840 SATA III SSD you are using for a C: drive and especially for anything like the Samsung 850 Evo I am recommending you use for a session drive. HDD performance is so pathetic compared to current leading SSDs that ah how do I put it politely... who cares.

Lots of people record to USB3, it is much faster than USB2, you can try going there if you want. But you are having a lot of issues at the moment. I know what I would be doing, and I've described that clearly already.

I'm just trying to not spend much if I can help it. So let's say I'm not going to buy a SSD. Like I said, I'm pretty sure I can have a 500gb WD Black if I want it. Yes, I understand I only have SATA II, so it will suffer some, but I mean it has to be way better than what I'm doing now and I think there are probably people that have had success with SATA II. THen I thought since I already have the external drive that is capable of usb 3.0, I can get a usb 3.0 card for like 20 bucks.

Thanks,
Doug D.

[dougdude9]

Originally Posted by guitardom

More than likely the drums are needing more ram.

I really hope you are right! I got 12gb ordered. Should be here by the end of the week... or maybe even tomorrow. If that doesn't do it, then it is either Reaper Rewire itself or the drums because I did another test where I moved the session to a different drive (Internal SATA II) and it still did the same thing... 9173 error. So I don't think it is a drive I/O issue at all... however, I still plan to upgrade my drives in some fashion.

Anyway, so that leaves the RAM. If that doesn't do it, then it is something with Reaper Rewire ot the plugin I'm hosting. I could update the plugin (EZ Drummer) so I wouldn't have use Rewire, but I'm afraid if I do, I will still get the 9173 errors... in other words... wasted money.

Is my CPU not up to the task of those drum plugins? Surely it is... W3520 2.66 ghz Quadcore Xeon with hyperthreading?

I will let everyone know how the testing goes once the ram is installed.

Thanks,
Doug D.

[Darryl Ramm]

Yes get rid of rewire and get all your plugins up to date ASAP. Get as much set up properly as you can,.

[dougdude9]

**UPDATE**

I now have 12gb of ram. The issue still continues.

Again, I have narrowed in down to using Reaper Rewire and Reaper is hosting EZDrummer. If I delete the reaper tracks (drum tracks), I can loop the session all night long. With the reaper rewire tracks, I get 30 minutes if I'm lucky.

So it isn't lack of ram. It isn't a slow drive. I wouldn't think it is my processor as I have larger sessions and I have seen people with a hell lot more going on in their sessions with a slower processor.

THe only other thing for me to try is to trash preferences. I will try to do that tonight, but I'm not holding my breath as I don't know that I read one thread where that did any good.

I can format my system and reload, but I think that would be a waste too... the system has nothing on it but pro tools and my plugs... it is as clean as clean can get and again, I did all the optimizing stuff.

Of course I could update EZdrummer... at a cost... and then what if that doesn't work... now I'm out more money trying to fix this problem.

I created 2 threads over at the Reaper forums. One for if there is anyway to optimize rewire and another with my problem details. So far no one has chimed in the past 2 days.

Anyone here have any other suggestions?... without being rude about it?

Thanks,
Doug D.

[Darryl Ramm]

The first thing I suggested you do was get rid of reaper and always suspect plugins. Like many other users I can run all day here with EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer.... nobody would start by wanting to rewire those. The other advice you have been given is folks watching your back because you seem to be struggling, get your system up to spec/commonly accepted config and you may improve things and may avoid the next problem you would otherwise hit.

[dougdude9]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

The first thing I suggested you do was get rid of reaper and always suspect plugins. Like many other users I can run all day here with EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer.... nobody would start by wanting to rewire those. The other advice you have been given is folks watching your back because you seem to be struggling, get your system up to spec/commonly accepted config and you may improve things and may avoid the next problem you would otherwise hit.

**UPDATE**

I consider this issue solved...

I know I said it looked like Reaper Rewire being the issue. My testing showed that if I removed the Reaper Rewire tracks, everything played fine for hours... that still holds true. However, I did a new test today where I removed all other plugins except for Reaper Rewire and it played for hours... half a day to be exact... and what I noticed is that the cpu meter went from the 40's or so down to just 2 to 3 percent when playing the drums through rewire.

So, in all my testing, what I have figured out is my 9173 error is pretty much exactly what Pro Toosl says... I have run out of CPU power. What I don't understand is that during the session with everything (rewire drums and all plugins) it sits around 40 some percent with everything running? I would like to think I have at least another 40 some percent (80 total) to go before issues. At this point, I'm not going to fight it. I have done all the optimizing stuff... yes, I have triple checked! Sure, I could replace my 3520 Xeon with a W3690, but what would that really do for me? Is it really worth it? At this point, no! I need to change my workflow...

So, as soon as I made inactive the patchwork plugin that is hosting the Lepou amp sims (that is what was taking up most the cpu... not patchwork, but the lepou amps sims), my cpu meter that was at 40 some percent went down to 10 percent or below. After I deactivated the 2 Amplitube 3 plugins, I was easily running below 10 percent for the session and it played for hours without an issue while still running EZDrummer in Reaper Rewire. In other words... I found I could run the session fine in 2 different ways...
1) I could delete all the Reaper Rewire tracks and run the session with all my other plugins including the amp sims just fine. This is what made think it was a rewire problem to begin with because once rewire was gone, everything ran fine.
2) This is the test I just ran recently... I made inactive the amp sims plugs as well as the other plugs, but left my Reaper Rewire running and noticed the CPU meter went way down. I was able to run the session for hours this way as well.

Conclusion... this session was only able to run in 1 of 2 ways...
1... amp sims active and reaper rewire that hosted drums inactive (deleted).
2... amps sims inactive and reaper rewire that hosted drums active.

This means in certain sessions such as this one, I need to change my workflow a bit. It will be necessary to "somewhat commit" to my guitar sounds. I'm going to have to "print" the guitar sound to audio to save on cpu! Usually I'm doing heavy rock which has several layered guitars so it is not uncommon to have several amp sims running. I will need to print/record the sounds I'm initially happy with while still having the dry signal always available so I can go back in change the sound if needed........ ....

Now, I just have to figure out the best way to go about this...
What I would like to be able to do is to "print" the audio to a new playlist within the same track I have the amp sims on. Then once "printed" I can just make the plugins inactive until I feel the need to go back and change the sound... if that should be needed, I can "print/record" the new desired sound to another playlist. I'm sure this is possible, but I'm not sure how... yet.

Thanks for everyone's help and I'm sorry I lead everyone down a somewhat wrong path. I hope this thread helps someone in the future.

As this Ramm dude will tell ya... always suspect plugins... especially 3rd party plugins! Test, retest, test again, drink, test some more, pray, test again, and eventually the audio gods will answer.

I need a beer!!!....

Thanks all!
Doug D.

[Darryl Ramm]

The other advice is stop looking at CPU meters, they average CPU activity over a much longer time that the very very short times that can cause Pro Tools to hiccup with a CPU problem.

I suspect if you chase around the circle, of upgraded disk, memory, updated plugins, systems optimizations you may find you can get a better running system. But of course all you need for now is it to run good enough for you to get work done.