12.8.3 Cpu overload out of nowhere?

[TNM]

Hi.. This one is weird.. In the 2 years I have used PT, i have occasionally had the overload message when i a literally pushing the meter to like 95% lol, so, in other words, not unexpected.
Or *sometimes* if i insert a plugin during playback, where the plugin has a fancy large gui of it's own, or the plugin is heavy on resources, i will get the message.

But what is happening now has NEVER happened before, EVER.

Note, i believe in having the message on, as it ensures integrity of audio.. the message appears if there's even a single compromise in the audio quality, i.e a pop or click, or well, too much being asked of the CPU.

This is a project with all of FOUR audio tracks, 1 bass guitar that has been played in, and 3 drum tracks.. a kick and two percussion loops. Elastic is enabled on rhythmic for the loops.
I have one instrument track, a korg milipitas (gadget version of wavestation in native aax).

Disk usage is showing zero percent, and cpu is at 5 percent without ANY spikes whatsoever.. it never goes above 5, and all cores look basically empty.

It's a fresh project that i am just starting to compose on, and it was working yesterday just fine.

at one point during playback, somewhere between bar 1 and 2, it just drops out every time and says overload. There is like literally nothing happening.. Even a pentium 133 from 1997 could do what this project is asking thus far. It's always at the same point, and I have no idea how to fix it. Nothing is armed for recording, i.e all tracks are on the high internal playback buffer.

nevertheless I tried committing the VI to audio and then hiding and making it inactive (all that did was drop overall cpu usage to 2 percent), and upping the buffer as well as changing the disk setting back to normal, then 512, then 2Gb, and so on. Pro tools showed 17% of my system ram in use and there are absolutely no other apps open, no browsers, i have turned off osx wifi, bluetooth is always permanently off as i never use it..

I am literally clueless - i have read about these sort of things over the years, and i have to be honest with you.. i could never understand it as it just never happened here.. But literally the same computer that was playing the project back fine yesterday, can't do it today.

Last thing i will try is disabling the on board video completely, the intel iris pro, in the system energy preferences (and yes the computer and HDD are set to never sleep), so only the discrete nvidia is used.

Any other ideas? Anyone else having this very weird issue with 12.8.3?

[jwilkers]

I have seen this and it could just be a little ghost that pops up.
It happens to me on rare occasions.
Usually one or two reboots clears it and you won't see it again for weeks or months.
That's my experience anyway.

[TNM]

I did reboot a few times before posting, that was the first thing I did..

I *think* i may have worked it out.. I had GFXcardstatus open.. i have always used it when on battery, to force the GPU to the intel one to prolong battery life.. but i updated it recently to v 2.4.4i
Once i disabled it, and disabled graphics switching from system preferences instead, things got better.

weird..

I also had ignore errors selected and minimize i/o latency.. i deselected that as well... all seems normal..
Unless I am mistaken, the ignore errors setting actually adds latency to the i/o, an extra safety buffer.. I just found that in the manual before.. i wonder if that's why people say that PT vanilla has a higher round trip latency with core audio, using the same interface and buffer settings as other daws. Hmmm.
Anyway..phew..
what a weird experience..

[caraneda]

Im having this problem as well, At first I thought it was because it was a big session, but then i started a new session with the intention of doing what I needed to do (record midi instrument track chained to audio track with a plug in routed through blue cats patchwork) and then importing it into my other session. however with only 3 tracks -2 of them being audio and one midi. I keep getting CPU overload. I have tried rebooting, not only pro tools but my computer several times, disconnection other hard drives, turning off bluetooth, any other apps running and even turned off the internet and nothing seems to make it give. Completely ran out of options. hopefully someone can help me out here.

[john1192]

Originally Posted by caraneda

Im having this problem as well, At first I thought it was because it was a big session, but then i started a new session with the intention of doing what I needed to do (record midi instrument track chained to audio track with a plug in routed through blue cats patchwork) and then importing it into my other session. however with only 3 tracks -2 of them being audio and one midi. I keep getting CPU overload. I have tried rebooting, not only pro tools but my computer several times, disconnection other hard drives, turning off bluetooth, any other apps running and even turned off the internet and nothing seems to make it give. Completely ran out of options. hopefully someone can help me out here.

more info please ..

MAc or PC, what buffer size ???
have you tried larger settings ???
what VI ???
what exact version of Pro TOols ???

[caraneda]

Macbook Pro OS Sierra
3.1 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Buffer size was at its peak 1024
dont know of any larger settings
ProTools 12.8.3
VI - Native Instruments, Izotope Synth, Antares autotunes, serum

[TNM]

Originally Posted by caraneda

Macbook Pro OS Sierra
3.1 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Buffer size was at its peak 1024
dont know of any larger settings
ProTools 12.8.3
VI - Native Instruments, Izotope Synth, Antares autotunes, serum

Ok, your computer should *definitely* be able to cope with the small task you are asking of it when the overload occurs.

Same thing here, it didn't matter if i put buffer at 1024.

Have you got your pro tools performance window open, and are you seeing any cpu spikes?

I am just asking out of process of elimination, but what it does sound like is that your system is doing what mine did, and we are both on sierra, and both on 12.8.3 PT.. hmm.. coincidence? I think there is a gremlin here with that PT and OS combo.

That said, IF you are using a lot of voices on one of those synths, it is possible that one core is using too much power.. even if 3 cores (you have the i5 4 core yes?) are showing nothing, but one core is maxed out, it will overload. This is normal and the same in any DAW..

Basically PT puts it on a track per core basis.. It can't, nor can any daw, split single instruments or effects amongst multiple cores. So you'll get an instrument and all the effects inserts under it on one core, then the next audio track or instr track and effects on the next, and so on. I am not yet entirely sure how pro tools processes busses and the master, whether it reserves one core for that, and whether it stacks busses in the same signal path as a track on the same core. No idea.

But regardless, just make sure one of the instruments is not using too much DSP from a particular core, and if not, then definitely the same issue as me.

Edit, oops, you have the top of the range macbook pro 3.1ghz, so that's an 8 thread processor indeed.. that's the fastest notebook processor available! It should DEFINITELY be able to handle 4 instruments.. are the fans kicking in at all?

[albee1952]

I get tons of spikes(and transport stops) with a -9073 error if my network cable is connected to the internet(my router/modem setup). All I need to do is pull the cat53 cable out of the router behind my tower(I still need and use networking with my iPad(running the CONTROL app) and my Artist Mix. The only other time this happens is if I try to instantiate Ozone 8 while transport is rolling. It started back with the first 12 release and was driving me nuts until I found out how to stop it(although, this might not help you as our systems are very different)

[TNM]

hmm, and this is with HD native?

[priorytools]

Just piping in . .
I have just had system usage spiking up to 100% with no session loaded. .
I was working on some old 192kHz sessions. . some of which were running VSO vari speed up.
I rebooted & power cycled the Sync HD . .
All calm again in the system usage window. .
HHmmm. ?