Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

So, I've got a buddy who has been running ProTools 5.1.3 on a MacOS 9 G4 since that was a current system. He has a large psychological investment in that system, and also a lot of irreplaceable sessions saved in that format.

I've given him a little bit of help over the last couple of years, trying to make sure he's at least getting his data saved onto multiple disks and helping to make sure he's got a clone of his boot drive. I've also set him up with a newer Mac OS X system with Reaper on it and have done a little bit of work to help move him in that direction (or to any newer platform, really). But he has a whole bunch of music he's trying to finish up on the old PT 5 system before he feels ready to move to a newer system.

Tragedy struck last week. I'm not a PT 5 or a Mac OS 9 expert, but I suspect he may have a bad mix card, or something may have otherwise gone wrong with the hardware. Every time he tries to boot the operating system it pops up a dialog that says 'Sorry, a system error occurred. "DigiSystem INIT" bus error To temporarily turn off extensions, restart and hold down the shift key'. And without extensions nothing seems to be working.

He also sent me screenshots of a couple of other errors that happened... "DAE error -6012 was encountered." "DAE error -7207 occured on DSP #3 MIX Card #1 ".

Unfortunately he's one of those dudes who probably deserved more success out of his musical endeavors then he was able to achieve... and he doesn't have a lot of money to spend trying to patch this system back up. This system kind of represents the bulk of his musical life, and he's kind of hurting.

Are there any folks out there who are familiar with these old ProTools systems on Mac OS 9 that might be able to help?

Ideally we'd really like to get his old rig back up and running. If that's not possible, does anyone know anything about what options are available for migrating old PT 5 sessions to a newer version of ProTools?

Genuinely hoping someone out there can either help directly, or might be able to point me towards other leads for advice.

Thank you in advance!

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

I'm technically proficient and willing to be hands and eyes and do the bulk of the work here... I'm just looking for someone who still knows enough about these old PT 5 systems that I can talk with to try and narrow down the issue.

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

I don't have OS9 machine here so please someone test for me what happens if you "Save Copy In", does it have a tick box of "Enforce Mac/PC Compatibility" like in PT6 has? If so, start saving session copies in wav/aiff audio format. Those should be able to open in at least PT10, which itself can save the current .ptx session file format.

The error message you mentioned I think says one of the DSP chips has gone bad and that card need to be replaced. Too bad it is number one, the core card, withoug which you cannot even start the system. Good luck finding a working one second hand from eBay or somewhere else.

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

Thank you for responding!

Ok. I suspected that we're looking at a hardware issue. To make things more interesting, he's also 3 hours away from me. I'm asking him to get pictures of all of the inside of the system and the cards. If they're the cards I _think_ they are, it looks like new ones can be had on eBay for around $300 for the set.

Does anyone know if we're able to secure new cards, will we be able to just swap those in? Will there be any sort of re-authorization process or similar?

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

If it has worked for years and nothing has been updated, a broken card is most likely culprit. Run the already installed DigiTest application to confirm. If the fault is in the Core card, you need a new one. If it is on a Mix card (DSP farm) you can simply remove the faulty card and have less DSP available.

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

Just thinking out loud:
That old G4 with PCI cards is not gonna last forever. It's done a pretty good job working for over twenty years! It's probably just breaking up.

One way to go would be to get a used system to run Pro Tools 10. Shouldn't be more than a few hundred bucks, and you might be able to find a complete setup with everything installed and working. And PT10 is the last version that will open the old sessions, albeit with some plugins missing, but stock plugins should be OK. Could be with HD cards, or it could be just a simple USB 2 channel interface. Depends on what he wants it for.

I mean, if it wasn't for the Atlantic ocean between us, I could let him have my old 2008 mac pro with an Apogee Duet and PT10 license for, say $300. It would be nice just to know that it would come to use for a few more years. Just transfer the files and away you go.

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

Problem is PT5/OS9 sessions may have SD2 files, the session files may not open in PT10 without re-saving them in compatible format and unless all audio is synced (starting from zero) they may be useless without doing some conversion work on the sessions first.

That is why a working PT5/OS9 system need to be found somewhere and go from there. Consolidating the audio may also not be an option as hard drive space was limited at that time, so you really want to save it in a compatible format.

Luckily a working Mix Core card should not cost very much, but first need to find out if that is what is broken. With luck it is some other card and it could simply be removed from the system and get the conversion done.

EDIT: just a quick peek at ebay says Mix Core can be get for 100 dollars plus shipping

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

That was my assumption also, but I'm not a PT expert by any stretch... which is what brought me here.

Do you know if DigiTest requires the OS to be started with extensions to function? If so, we're unable to even boot with extensions enabled.

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

Well, I have no problem opening PT5 sessions on PT10 on the mac pro. It's the reason I kept it.

Re: Help! ProTools 5.1.3 on MacOS 9
 

Whoa, that was tough one.. been so long already.

As far as I remember you need Extensions for testing the card, as those are basically the drivers for your hardware. But there is this thing called Extensions Manager (?) which you can use to choose which Extensions to load, once you first boot without Extensions obviously.

Good Luck !!