Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

Hey all,

I've been dealing with a bug (albeit by using an older version) for about two years now. I'm starting to get fed up and want to compose a complaint to avid, but don't have tons of data outside my realm of accessible computers.

The gist is that– the more clips a session has, the slower the session will start to behave. Simple as that.
—and if this doesn't sound like a bug to you, try it on both ≤2019.6 and ≥2019.10. There's a huge difference in the way Pro Tools behaves.



Here's a session (about an hour of white noise at 44.1/16) to replicate it: (If you don't want to download, let me know and I'll write out the steps in another response.)

https://we.tl/t-PpCMaznbCZ

As far as I know, if you're using anything above 2019.6, Pro Tools will slow down to an almost unusable state by step 3. If not, add another hour of audio to the "Step 1" track and try again.

Please let me know your operating system, specs, Pro Tools version, and whether or not you felt the bug.

*EDIT - Please see response #5 below for a more detailed explanation.

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

-reserved for replication instructions-

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

I just did it.
"Trying to edit" anything after having dragged the clips onto step two revealed nothing. It works fine. What did you think I'd see?

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

Just finished 2 weeks of mixing 500+ tracks per session, thousands of clips - 2021.3 - perfectly snappy performance (aside from throwing the occasional "disk not fast enough" error because I put it all on one spinner). Perhaps you should describe exactly what you're seeing and more about your specific setup.

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

Check the YouTube links below.

As mentioned earlier, on versions ≥2019.10, Pro Tools will slow down to an almost unusable state when there are too many clips in a session. There is a drastic difference in performance between these two versions, and everything since that release has had this same bug. Regardless of the machine/OS/etc.

I've already had a few other users respond on other forums verifying that they feel the bug too. Not sure why you didn't (especially since we're running the same machine), but maybe this discussion will help in diagnosing the problem.


Here are two screen recordings.

This first is on my main rig: Mac Mini (2018) - 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 - 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
This is running a fresh install of 10.15.7 Catalina with almost nothing but Pro Tools 2021.3.1 installed.
I follow the instructions exactly as written in the session. You can see how Pro Tools handles at 01:10 into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfTzfIZC114

The second is on my old laptop: MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) - 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 - 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
This one's running 10.12.6 Sierra, Pro Tools 2018.12.0, and is almost filled to the brim with files.
In this one, to be cheeky, I strip silenced at a much shorter duration which produced presumably thousands of extra clips. While it did take longer to get to step 3 (slower computer), check out how Pro Tools behaves at 02:04 into the video. Drastic difference!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7PQ0M39kM0

Hopefully this makes things clearer. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

Try this: Go into Preferences>Editing and UNcheck “Separate Clip” Operates On All Related
Takes. That worked for me after I started a Thread discussing this and someone suggested it. I had sessions with over a thousand Clips where editing would slow down. Made the change, no more slow down as Clips built up.

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

This was not enabled, and does not come enabled by default. I've now tried both ways and it has no effect on this bug.

Apologies for not being more detailed in my initial post. I posted the same thread across a few forums and was mostly hoping to gather data on the linked session.

I'm currently waiting on a more detailed response to be approved by the mods which includes video of the problem on two systems. Hopefully it'll go up soon.

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

Thats probably it......

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

I've written a response but am awaiting mod approval. Hopefully this'll go up before then.

Re: Pretty sure a detrimental bug was introduced from 2019.10 onward.
 

I can replicate this, following the exact steps of your session.

Mac Pro 5.1, High Sierra,

PT 2019.6, moving a clip gives a beachball for 2 seconds.
PT 2019.12, moving a clip gives a beachball for 53 seconds.

The 'separate clip' option has no effect on or off. I tried a few other options to no avail.