Brand New 12C Mac Pro "Out of CPU power" 11.2.2

[notedmusic]

Hi all. Using updated versions of Kontakt and Play.
I have a BRAND NEW mac pro 12 core that is getting "out of CPU power" AAE -9173 errors. What gives? The CPU hasn't reached 100% but Pro Tools is crapping out.

Tried HD native and also HD Omni.
12 core d700 32gb 10.9.4
Pro Tools 11.2.2

I think Pro Tools can't handle Play... This is a repeated offense.

Order: load patches, input notes, CPU crash and nasty distorted sound (not too many instruments are active).

Play shows CPU at 24%, Kontakt does't say anything. Pro Tools behaves poorly. I've already disabled Power Nap and other "power saving" features that may impact performance. I've tried fiddling with the settings but it doesn't seem to do much if I have multi CPU disabled or enabled in Kontakt and Play on high medium or low. Dynamic Plugins setting doesn't do anything either.

100% High End SSD Drives.

Thanks guys...

[feliponk]

Hi there: OS version, have you done the tweaks requested?

[John_Toolbox]

I have seen this problem on haswell imacs. The audio degradation can be cured by toggling the buffer size, but this is only temporary... the problem will always come back. A lot of people on the apple forums thought it was caused by fusion drives, but I think it is either something from the OS that runs in the background or it is a hardware problem. The problem happens with any audio app, and seems to be unrelated to to actual CPU load, even something as simple as playing a song in itunes can cause it.

[albee1952]

What interfaces are you using? The reason I ask is because my own rig was running 10 great, but 11 was useless. However, once I fixed the mis-patch of Loop Sync cables on my pair of HD IO boxes, everything is happy in 11 now (yes, 10 ran perfect.....go figure)

[feliponk]

Hmm, my laptop has Mav on it, sadly can't downgrade, and Pro Tools can't record over half an hour without getting one of the DAE errors, and it's showing a clipping CPU. This doesn't happens on my desktop, using the same interface (Focusrite Pro 40) with Mountain Lion and 10.3.9, so I'm thinking in giving a try to 10 in the laptop, knowing it's not a supported config, to see if it's the PT version, the OS or something else.

Too many reports of this CPU spikes doesn't look normal.

[John_Toolbox]

This is a horrible problem to troubleshoot. No one seems to know what the cause of it is. Some people report that it was fixed with 10.9.4, some are having it even with mountain lion. I originally thought it had something to do with USB3, but it's unclear if that holds any weight or not. I was hoping i'd never hear about it on the new mac pro's…. but this thread has me worried. I really hope someone figures this out and finds a solution.

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by John_Toolbox

This is a horrible problem to troubleshoot. No one seems to know what the cause of it is. Some people report that it was fixed with 10.9.4, some are having it even with mountain lion. I originally thought it had something to do with USB3, but it's unclear if that holds any weight or not. I was hoping i'd never hear about it on the new mac pro's…. but this thread has me worried. I really hope someone figures this out and finds a solution.

I'm getting 9173 errors with CPU spiking in playback, not just bouncing.

I don't have any USB3 and I'm on mountain Lion 10.8.5

Once it happens, PT simply will not play back at all, without a full computer reboot. After that, it might be fine for the rest of the day/week, or it might happen again after a few minutes. I might have to do three reboots, after which it may be fine for the rest of the day. It seems random, different sessions or same session, different sample rates or same sample rate, different plugins or same plugins.

Doesn't happen on my 2009 8-core MacPro or 2009 core2duo MacBook Pro, but just happens on the studio 2013 iMac. Same plugins and other apps installed on all three machines except no Media Composer on the MacBook Pro.

I haven't been able to nail it down to anything yet. I plan to give it some more attention when I get back to the studio after Xmas ... currently laid up at home after a hand operation.

Problem is, (thankfully) it hasn't ever happened during tracking sessions, only during editing/mix sessions, and then it may not happen for days on end. So it's hard to test whether any changes I make (removing plugins, apps etc) are actually having any effect.

During the album mixing sessions I did over the last week before having my hand operation, I actually took my Mac Pro into the studio and used that, to give me more confidence. No problems all week. The previous week, when editing and rendering prior to mixing, it happened six times over the course of the week, four of which were on the same day. Several days it never manifested, including days when I was workng with what I would regard as more complex sessions.

But very similar sized sessions on all songs, the same core selection of plugins mostly UAD and McDSP), just one or two extras here and there on specific tracks within a song that needed somethng more. Most songs around 24-30 tracks. Really, nothing too heavy, and with Apple's Activity Monitor showing pretty low CPU usage normally, then a 100% spike on one CPU, which invariably triggers the 9173 CPU error message.

[John_Toolbox]

Nigel,

One thing I have found that will trigger the problem you are describing every time is to use the grabber tool to select a lot of MIDI notes on an instrument track. Sound will completely stop, and is usually followed by some very quiet digital clicking/pulsing. Once this happens, no playback, every time you press space bar it throws a -9173. This appears to be a Pro Tools problem, and the only way to solve it once it happens is to restart.

However, the CPU spike problem that eventually leads to distorted/garbled audio is a less severe version of this, and is not happening only with Pro tools, it seems to be an OSX problem. I have seen it in Logic, and some people have even reported it by simply playing a track in itunes. Originally it seemed to be limited to the thin imacs, but I am starting to hear about people running in to it with other computers, even with older mac pro towers.

[nigelpry]

I don't get any garbled/distorted audio, nor any quiet clicking/pulsing.

I've certainly got MIDI/instrument tracks in at least most of the sessions, and may have been editing them on some occasions, but other times it's definitely not been while MIDI editing. Sometimes its just on playback, and, I suspect, is more likely to happen more frequently if I'm jumping around in the timeline, listening to different sections of the tune.

[notedmusic]

Originally Posted by feliponk

Hi there: OS version, have you done the tweaks requested?

I upgraded the OS to 10.9.5 and did the tweaks. It seems to be a tiny bit more stable, but it still throws "out of CPU power" error with only 25% CPU used, according to Activity Monitor.

Audio randomly distorts and garbles, especially with a lot of notes in a kontakt track with ProjectSam.