CPU errors during playback resolved by clearing up memory.

[ramonetl]

Hey guys, I just wanted to post something I discovered. I recently was working a project with not a lot of tracks and only a couple VSTs. I got one of the innocuous CPU errors and usually I would close and restart protools to continue. Out of suspicion I checked my cpu utilization (mbpro retina quad core 16gb ram early 2013) and it was barely stressed. What I did notice was that I was nearly out of ram. So I tried a couple times to restart the playback with same error. Then I used a utility to free up ram and it went away. As an IT guy this got me to thinking that what is really happening is that you are having memory constraint issues and PT is reporting that as a cpu fault. Now mind you I am a windows admin not linux so I cant dig into that like I could on a MS system but I do think that its a ram bottleneck that is causing a lot of the "cpu" errors. Worth looking into for those of you with lots of cpu error crashes. YMMV. Peter

[WilliebSR]

Hi, Is there a scenario where something's grabbing and holding RAM and that's not being reported in Task Manager?

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

Hey guys, I just wanted to post something I discovered. I recently was working a project with not a lot of tracks and only a couple VSTs. I got one of the innocuous CPU errors and usually I would close and restart protools to continue. Out of suspicion I checked my cpu utilization (mbpro retina quad core 16gb ram early 2013) and it was barely stressed. What I did notice was that I was nearly out of ram. So I tried a couple times to restart the playback with same error. Then I used a utility to free up ram and it went away. As an IT guy this got me to thinking that what is really happening is that you are having memory constraint issues and PT is reporting that as a cpu fault. Now mind you I am a windows admin not linux so I cant dig into that like I could on a MS system but I do think that its a ram bottleneck that is causing a lot of the "cpu" errors. Worth looking into for those of you with lots of cpu error crashes. YMMV. Peter

Not many tracks or VST's...by that do you mean VI's or wrapped VST's? Were you using lots of other plugins? Which ones? I'm interested because I experienced a lot of that some time ago. It would sometimes resolve itself when I trashed prefs and restarted. Very strangely, this and other weird stuff stopped when I started using an SSD for system, audio and samples.

I know it's difficult to tell without a serious investigation and a Sandra report, but what do you think could be holding on to the ram?

Leslie

[audiobob]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

Then I used a utility to free up ram and it went away

What app did you use?

[ramonetl]

Hi the app I used was clean my mac 3. Yeah I know sounds cheesy but I tried it and found that I actually like it for hunting down junk. That said I had no idea it did memory or unresponsive apps but it did that and I have used it to kill processes and free memory while tracking. Like anything YMMV but its saved me from having to restart PT several times.

[ramonetl]

Originally Posted by WilliebSR

Hi, Is there a scenario where something's grabbing and holding RAM and that's not being reported in Task Manager?

Not really sure bc since this is mac there is no task manager like windows. I can look in the activity monitor but it doesnt display stuff nicely like the windows one does. Its mostly stuff getting loaded and possibly not unloaded but often when this happens itll show only a few hundred free in my app and when I clear freeup memory it suddenly has 5-6gb more and the errors disappear and i keep on tracking. Im primarily a windows guy and only have a mac bc PT is more catered to it and compatibility with other folks who i collaborate so Im not an expert on that by any means. I know osx is essentially a variant of some linux so anyone who is down with that OS could probably do a lot more digging.

[ramonetl]

Originally Posted by lesbrunn

Not many tracks or VST's...by that do you mean VI's or wrapped VST's? Were you using lots of other plugins? Which ones? I'm interested because I experienced a lot of that some time ago. It would sometimes resolve itself when I trashed prefs and restarted. Very strangely, this and other weird stuff stopped when I started using an SSD for system, audio and samples.

I know it's difficult to tell without a serious investigation and a Sandra report, but what do you think could be holding on to the ram?

Leslie

Im referring to instrument tracks with a VST like EzKeys or EZDrummer loaded. Then I also run plugins like waves api560 or ezmix as inserts on the audiotracks. I tend to get the vst parts the way I want them, track em to individual audio tracks and then inactivate the instrument tracks and hide em once I dont need them anymore. I figure it keeps the resource usage lower.

[ArKay99]

Sounds like memory leaks.

[WilliebSR]

Originally Posted by ArKay99

Sounds like memory leaks.

If its memory leaks, placing all 3rd party plug ins in the unused folder should make it go away right? So... what if it doesn't go away?

[ArKay99]

Originally Posted by WilliebSR

If its memory leaks, placing all 3rd party plug ins in the unused folder should make it go away right? So... what if it doesn't go away?

Not if the memory leaks are in Avid's code. I don't run Pro Tools on Windows, so I don't have a Task Manager like program to track memory in real time. There are also page faults that could be building up and causing memory fragmentation. Just spitballing here, but I've done a fair amount of programming and a lot of maintenance coding and memory fragmentation is one of the most insidious issues in software coding.