"magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

After yet another sudden crash with PT8, I tried to open the last session file backup and got this lovely message:

"Could not complete your request because magic ID does not match"

WTF is "magic ID" and how often are these session backups going to be unusable?

None too impressed....

-Z-

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

anyone else see this?

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

Yes I've seen it and it caused me some major headaches for a week or so. I even had one session that started doing it in the middle of working on it.

I think the culprit in my case though was Logic Pro, as the files in question were being used by sessions in both programs - though I didn't have them open at the same time or anything. As far as I can gather Logic had done something to the file headers which PT did not like. Bizarrely I was able to make the warnings go away simply by moving all the audio inside the PT session's Audio Files folder (some of it was still in the Logic session's folder). I still see it from time to time but only on these cross-program sessions.

If that doesn't apply to you I might also suggest trashing your wavecache and fade files for any session it happens on and letting PT regenerate them. A duc search didn't shed much light on what a Magic ID actually is but I have a suspicion it's something to do with waveform overviews, which is why we never saw it before 8. Perhaps if you keep bumping digi might shed some light on the subject.

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

The magic ID is a unique identifier for a file, so that Pro Tools can discern, say, between two files of the same name.

If Pro Tools crashed, the files were probably corrupted. Have you tried creating a new session at the same bit depth and sample rate, then 'import session data' from the session you're having problems with?

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

In my case, I don't have logic or any other DAW installed on this system. I went back to an earlier session backup, lost a few minutes of mix work but nothing catastrophic. I was more concerned with the fact that a session backup was corrupted. They are part of what makes me feel secure with PTHD...knowing that they are not 1000% reliable is a little unnerving IMO.

DTS, thanks for the explanation. Hopefully I won't be seeing this message again...

-Z-

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

Hate to be the bearer of bad new, but NOTHING on computer is 1000% (or 100%, as the case may be) reliable. Data can get corrupted at any time. It's the nature of the beast.

This is why you should always have at least 1 backup - 2 or 3 are ideal.

When working in a session, besides having autobackup enabled, I always do a 'save as' incrementally as I work on the session, usually appending the session name with v1_x, v1_2, etc.) - the numbers getting higher as I progress. I have a little script that will watch the session folder I'm working in and make a copy of any new session files in that folder to another drive every 15 minutes or so. Any time I take a break, I'll run SuperDuper and have it make a backup of the entire session folder to another drive. Every night each 'primary' drive on my system is backed up to a mirrored RAID system, so I essentially have 4 copies (the original drive, the 'intermittent backup drive' and the 2 drives in the RAID) of all data at all times.

I've never lost data, ever, and I've had several drives head crash. If you've got a good backup plan and execute it, your worries about situations like this go down to almost nil.

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

Read this ;

" Fixed: Magic ID Error When Opening Sessions (Item #112750)
In certain cases sessions will not open due to the following error: "Could not complete the Open Session command because magic ID does not match while translating Session Window Config." This error is more likely to occur in tandem with very large track counts (~100) and long (>1 hour) recordings."

and get these updates

Pro Tools HD 8.0cs2 Update for Mac

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=37051




PT HD 8.0cs3 Update for Mac
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=37951

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

Thanks for the advice. I have an excellent backup routine including the incremental "save as" while working, so I'm not really worried about losing a project totally, but since going to PT8 and dealing with a higher level of instablility than any version previous, I've come to occasionally rely on the auto backups to capture my last few minutes work. When these files are corrupt, it's dissapointing that's all. Especially with clients in the room...

I'm sure you can understand what I'm saying...

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

Well...I'm running cs3, so apparently it's NOT fixed.

Re: "magic ID does not match" - What's up with that?
 

Well the bit about large track counts explains why it happened in the middle of one of my sessions.

But digi you say that it is a unique id and yet we already have unique ids and this magic id does not seem to be the same thing. Let me give you an example: on one session (yes it was 100+ tracks) I'd re-organised some of the folders, and so when I opened the session it came up with the missing files dialog. Ok, fine. So I did a manual relink, told it where the files had been moved to and hit find links, choosing by name and ID. All my little link icons came up in no time, and I could see from the unique ID column that the IDs did indeed match. But when I clicked commit links I got the warning 'could not complete your request because Magic ID does not match'.

So what's the difference between unique ID and Magic ID?

And yes I have seen this under CS3 too.