Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

Opening a session this morning and I get the following-

"Could not complete the Open Recent Session 6 command because bad data encountered while translating MIDI Chunk list."

I get the same result when I try to open all of the 10 backups from yesterday.
Sessions saved the day before are ok.

Here is the evil part. I cannot import ANY of the tracks to a new session without getting this problem. This includes any audio track as well.
I'm stuck.
I've trashed all preferences and data bases numerous times to no avail.

If this is a corrupt session then why are all 10 backups also corrupt?

I have lost a days recording and I need it back urgently.

Can any one help if I supply the corrupt session? Any suggestions?

I updated to 7.3.1.cs1 with the same result.
Thanks.

HD Accel 2, G5 dual 2.7 OSX 10.4.8

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

bump

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

I posted the exact same error a few days ago... and it happened on a brand new session created with 7.3.1cs1 (M-Powered)

I ended up starting over on the song...


Steve,

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

This seems like session corruption, but it is hard to tell.

Would anyone be able to send a session that is experiencing this issue?

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

Yes, where do I send it?

I'm hoping that you can fix this session as I have a deadline. I've moved on to another track but the record company are expecting to hear this track by Monday.
I cannot start this session again. I have paid players on this session and this budget will end up coming out of my pocket, not to mention the days work down the drain.

Other users should be very afraid.
There is no getting into the session or any backups.
So you are now working without any safety net at all.......everyday.

Not even a disc image backup is going to save you................get the picture?
I hope that no one else encounters this problem.

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

I don't think we'll be able to do anything before Monday, but if you post your email address or put it in your profile, we can email you instructions of how to send the session to us.

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

Thanks for your response. My email is

[email protected]

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

I posted this exact same problem last week (first here, then here) though I did point out it was actually happening on an M-Powered system -and I got no help at all.

Do the Digidesign support guys not care about M-Powered users or problems in their M-Powered version of Pro Tools?

There's also another bug I found that will kill a session - I've posted it a few times, but I'll post it again here while I might have someone's attention - I really should test it in 7.3.1cs1 first, but I'm on a roll. If you open a brand new session, and change the initial tempo, then insert time at the start of the timeline (same place as the tempo), save and close the project - you can't open it again. I will test this again when I get home from work later (which should be around lunch time for the US guys on here) and remove this if it has been fixed since I first posted it. I haven't noticed it in the list of fixes though...

Steve.

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

No contact yet from Digidesign.

I sent the file to another user and he gets the same error. You can import NOTHING from the session......tempo map, window configuration........nothing.

So when is this going to happen to one of the famous mixing guys? All work down the drain.
Or maybe your in the middle of mixing a film. Think about it.
All work lost. No backups.

So now I have to track the entire song again on my dime.

I've thought about trying to reconstruct the track from the hundreds of takes for all the instruments.
No way is that gonna work.
I'm starting to freak.

Re: Help-Bad Data Midi Chunk List
 

Luckily my session was a quick demo track I was knocking out for a drummer friend so I only lost 5 or 6 hours of work - if it had been one of the tracks from the album I'm recording right now I would have been shafted!

We all know about making manual backups (which I do religiously!) but in this instance losing the 4 or so hours work I'd done on second day of the session was the majority of the finished song... I had the working backups from the first hour or two I'd done on the first day, but the auto-backups from the second day all had the same problem.

And because it was a lot of midi, with just a couple of tracks of chopped up guitar parts it pretty much easier to start over than try to import audio files and re-jig them around - especially as I didn't know what were good takes etc.


Is there a spec somewhere for the session files? Surely there are programmers (like myself) who could have a go at debugging this sort of thing themselves?

One useful application I had thought of, if we could read the session files ourselves, would be to select one session file, and apply the settings (vol, pan, sends, inserts, routing) of it's tracks to similarly named tracks in other sessions. I'm sure we've all hit the problem of mixing one track of an album and realsing there's 14 other tracks we need to go and replicate the basic setting across.

With a 9 or 10 piece kit, bass, a dozen guitar tracks, couple of lead vox, background vox - it can take half an hour to accurately (if you can!) replicate the basic mix onto one other session. How handy would it be to apply the same setting across all those sessions with one click?

Unless there's some other smart way of doing this that I don't know about yet - that doesn't involve recording the whole album in one session - which I concede there might well be!


/rant
Steve.