Audio Playback Issues after HDD upgrades

[wadf29]

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit on a custom built pc that previously had Pro Tools 12 installed. I upgraded all 3 of my hard drives (OS drive included) and reinstalled the same OS. Now that I have Pro Tools 12 reinstalled and using all the same audio hardware I was using otherwise, I'm finding that all my projects are playing back fine with the exception of one thing. Every 10-15 seconds, the audio drops completely for about a second and comes back in. This cycle repeats continuously. I receive an aae error once (I think it was 87) and found an old thread from 2000 that mentioned that the format of the drive may cause the error. I wasn't ready to trust a compatibility issue thread from 17 years ago and decided to try moving my project from my backup HDD to the OS SSD, but that didn't change anything. Is there a known way to tackle this issue?

[Top Jimmy]

Are your drives formatted NTFS?

[wadf29]

Yes they are. They were in that format before. The HDD that I'm storing the projects on has 64mb cache and 7200rpm. It's the same drive I was storing the projects on previously.

[Top Jimmy]

Download and run DPC latency checker. It will reveal if you are having hardware, firmware or driver issues.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[albee1952]

Are all drive letters still the same as before? Anything that happens on a regular/repeating basis could indicate something running in the background. If you installed the OS fresh, then there are likely several system tweaks that need to be redone. Then look for stuff running in the background(Sevices):o

[wadf29]

Drive letters aren't all the same. I disabled some background services including Avast Anti-Virus and ran a defragment program on my HDDs. The DPC latency checker didn't go above the 1000 line during playback, and the message, "This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs." did not change. However, I've experienced a couple aae 87 errors. This has presented itself on my ssd on HDDs. All drives are formatted to NTFS. Should I try to arrange everything so that the drive letter of where the projects are stored is the same as before the OS reinstall and drive upgrade?

Update: I moved projects to the drive that has the old letter name, and the aae 87 error didn't occur. The drop-outs still did though.

[Darryl Ramm]

What exact error have you been getting? The full error message please. Exact make and model of disks might be relevant (just post a Sandra report).

This is a AAE -87 error? That's the first time I recall hearing of one. And a quick search confirmed that. The old DAE -87 error is disk related. Who knows what AAE -87 really means.

Is the system fully optimized? (answer is maybe no if you had AV software installed, make sure you fully disable it or just uninstall it... an example of bad things that on a new/cloned drive the A/V software may be doing a full drive scan. Just get this crap off your computer. And what other optimization stuff have you missed?).

And just assuming for now it might be disk related the most obvious questions are is disk cache enabled? What size is it set to? "Normal" == disabled.

While there, turn off ignore errors (you want Pro Tools to crash) while troubleshooting. Turn off dynamic plugin processing, just coz it likely should always be off.

And where is you Sandra report? Start up at the "Help Us Help You" link at the top of each web page. Run the report with all your disk drives attached and let us know what disk partitions shown in the report is used for what, sessions, samples, etc.

Other basic info would uh be nice... what other troubleshooting have you tried? What size IO buffer are you using? What audio interface? Driver version? Any other recent changes? OS updates? Plugin updates?

And always common problems: make sure no optical disc is in any optical drive, and go into Windows device manager and disable any floppy controllers that show up (yes ones you don't really have). Both these things are well know causes of periodic system pauses... maybe not exactly what you are reporting, but still check.

[wadf29]

Thanks for the tip on the Sandra report. Here's the report:

SiSoftware Sandra

ID
Host Name : SaintStephen-PC
Workgroup : WORKGROUP

Computer
Model : MSI MS-7821
Serial Number : To be fille***********
Chassis : MSI Desktop
Mainboard : MSI Z97-G45 GAMING (MS-7821)
Serial Number : To be fille***********
BIOS : AMI (OEM) V2.9 02/16/2016
Intel vPro : 9.01.37.1002
Total Memory : 15.9GB DIMM DDR3

Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz (4C 3.7GHz/3.9GHz, 3.7GHz IMC/3.9GHz, 4x 256kB L2, 6MB L3)
Socket/Slot : FC LGA1150

Chipset
Memory Controller : MSI Core (Haswell) DRAM Controller 100MHz, 16GB DIMM DDR3 1.33GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-2400C11-8GXM 8GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-18300U DDR3-2286 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-2400C11-8GXM 8GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-18300U DDR3-2286 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : WDE L1916HW
(1680x1050, 19.1")
Video Adapter : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (20CU 160SP SM5.0 600MHz/1.2GHz, 512kB L2, 192MB DDR3 1.33GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics)

Graphics Processor
OpenCL GP Processor : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (160SP 20C 600MHz/1.2GHz, 256kB L2, 1.3GB DDR3 1.33GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics)
Compute Shader Processor : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (160SP 20C 600MHz/1.2GHz, 512kB L2, 192MB DDR3 1.33GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics)
OpenGL Processor : Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (160SP 20C 600MHz/1.2GHz, 512kB L2, 128MB DDR3 1.33GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics)

Storage Devices
Crucial_CT512MX100SSD1 (512.1GB, SATA600, 2.5", SSD, OPAL, SED) : 477GB (C:)
HGST Hitachi HUS724030ALE641 (3TB, SATA600, 3.5", 7200rpm) : 3TB (G:)
HGST Hitachi HUS724030ALE641 (3TB, SATA600, 3.5", 7200rpm) : 3TB (E:)
Drive SK_USB20 (1GB, USB2/NVMe) : 985MB (H:)
Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162 (1TB, USB3/SATA300/600, 3.5", 7200rpm) : 932GB (J:)
Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162 (1TB, USB3/SATA300/600, 3.5", 7200rpm) : 932GB (I:)
hp DDVDW TS-H653R (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (D:)
DiscSoftVirtual (Virtual) : N/A (X:)
DiscSoftVirtual (Virtual) : N/A (F:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 477GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ Crucial_CT512MX100SSD1 (512.1GB, SATA600, 2.5", SSD, OPAL, SED)
Video (G:) : 3TB (NTFS, 4kB) @ HGST Hitachi HUS724030ALE641 (3TB, SATA600, 3.5", 7200rpm)
Music (E:) : 3TB (NTFS, 4kB) @ HGST Hitachi HUS724030ALE641 (3TB, SATA600, 3.5", 7200rpm)
Removable Drive (H:) : 981MB (FAT32, 4kB) @ Drive SK_USB20 (1GB, USB2/NVMe)
Media Backup (J:) : 932GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162 (1TB, USB3/SATA300/600, 3.5", 7200rpm)
Optical Drive (D:) : N/A @ hp DDVDW TS-H653R (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
Optical Drive (X:) : N/A @ DiscSoftVirtual (Virtual)
Optical Drive (F:) : N/A @ DiscSoftVirtual (Virtual)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : MSI 9 Series Chipset Family Z97 LPC Controller
Audio Device : MSI 9 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller
Serial Port(s) : 1
Disk Controller : MSI 9 Series Chipset Family SATA Controller [AHCI Mode]
USB Controller 1 : MSI 9 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Controller
USB Controller 2 : MSI 9 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 3 : MSI 9 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI Controller #1
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel ICH SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Send To Microsoft OneNote 2010 Driver (1200x1200, Colour)
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600, Colour)
Printer : HP ENVY 110 series (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)

Scanners and Cameras
Scanner : Hewlett-Packard HP ENVY 110 series (NET) (Scanner, USB)

Peripherals
Media Player : FLASH Drive SK_USB20 (981MB)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Killer E2200 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Ethernet, 100Mbps)
Network Adapter : Windscribe VPN (Ethernet)

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Personal 6.01.7601 (Service Pack 1)
Platform Compliance : x64

Performance Enhancing Tips
Warning 2513 : TPM not detected. Some security features are unavailable.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

[Darryl Ramm]

Two quick comments:

Remove your FAT-32 drive to make sure you are not accident writing to that

You have virtual optical drives installed, maybe from some backup software. They worry me because of how broken Pro Tools is with optical and floppy drives. I would uninstall all that crapware.

[wadf29]

The exact text of the error is "AAE error 87 was encountered", and I get the same error when I tell Pro Tools to ignore errors during playback. The drive that I am storing my projects on was a previous primary storage drive on my machine. It's now stored in a usb 3.0 exclosure. I thought that may be an issue, so I tried copying the projects onto my OS SSD and one of my new primary storage drives (I upgraded my OS SSD from 128gb drive to a 512gb and my 2 storage drives from 1tb to 3tb). I did a fresh install of the OS as I had trouble making a clone. It was my first time, so I just decided to start from scratch. I have an authentic license and installed the OS from an official installation disc. My buffer size is 1024, and I'm using a Tascam UH-7000 usb audio interface with the latest Windows drivers installed (version 1.2). The antivirus software has only been installed for about a week. I've never ran a computer without some sort of antivirus software.

The only plugin updates would be from the fresh installation of everything. Any of the plug-ins from Avid that come with Pro Tools. I'm running Kontakt Komplete 10 Ultimate, a few plug-ins from Waves and flux. Everything's as fresh as fresh gets, because the plug-ins had to be. I did attempt installing asio4all to see if I could listen back to my projects and eliminate my audio interface as a problem, but selecting asio4all as my playback engine causes Pro Tools to crash. I always run Pro Tools as an administrator as it doesn't seem to open otherwise. I'm not sure what else to do.

[wadf29]

I've removed the virtual drives. I had Daemon Tools Lite installed, so I uninstalled it. My fat32 drive is a thumb drive, but I removed it. I closed Pro Tools and reopened it and opened a session again. I didn't get the error, and this time only some parts dropped out during playback. I wonder if Pro Tools doesn't like my interface. I spend more time trouble shooting Pro Tools than doing creative work a lot of the time. I can reinstall asio4all or try Windows Audio for playback. I'm not sure I've actually ever done that before.