How often does your Pro Tools crash on your Mac hardware?

[K Roche]

First , I do not know anything about running PT on Windows

I basically switched from a personal use Windows PC laptop to Macbook in 2003 , to start home recording specifically to learn and run Pro Tools . And have never looked back.

I have had 4 different Mac's since then and can count on one hand the number of times PT has crashed because of an actual PT bug and Mac issue .

About once a year I may get a user error crash, or a corrupt session causing a crash or issue But over all my Mac OS and PT experience has been very trouble free.

Recently I had an issue with my Nugen Mastercheck plugin crashing on my intel iMac listed below but hopefully Nugen will get that resolved

[Protootr]

Assuming your hardware is in good shape, the number one reason for PT crashes is plugins that are not up to date or that are badly programmed.

I used to have an enormous amount of plugins installed even though for day-to-day work I only use a particular set of go to plugins.

About 5 years ago I thoroughly managed my plugin collection. Removed freebies and all others that I do not use.

I didn't have that much crashes to begin with but now I can count the number of crashes per year on one, maybe two hands. And most of the times these are with very demanding sessions. Besides it is also a lot less time consuming to keep the plugins I do use up to date.

I still check out demos and freebies, but I make a habit of not installing them during a project and immediately delete them if I am not 100% sure I will use them.

Next to that I don't install any exotic software or utilities beside the ones installed by plugins and DAWs. And if you can afford it, especially if you earn a living with using Pro Tools, use a different computer for browsing, email, administration, gaming, etc. Keep your Pro Tools workstation as clean as possible from any other software.

These habits make a world of difference in my experience.

[basslik]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You already are confusing two things. the computer aka Windows crashing or Pro Tools crashing. Which is it? and because you are not clear here who knows what answers from folks will be about? And what exact crashes are you getting? what Windows bluescreen or AAE or ASSERT error or what *exactly* happens?

You should pick Mac or Windows based on the environment you are most comfortable working in. Both can be stable if you set them up correctly and troubleshoot them well when they have problems. And Mac are typically more work to keep up to date with and more hassles due to macOS changes and processor hardware changes, so if you are having troubles managing a Windows setup I would NOT switch to Mac expecting it to be easier for you to manage.

Standard troubleshooting instructions is under "help us help you" up top on each DUC web page. Start there, post a SiSoft Sandra report as expected, is the system *fully* optimized? Describe exactly what is happening and what troubleshooting you have tried.

Have you tried to get help here or from Avid support before? From a very quick look the only post from you that seems relevant is stuff hanging (not crashing?) with a white screen? Like this thread https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=415405. And there I can see what looks like you might be misunderstanding how to troubleshoot for plugin related issues (you need to move the .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder, just not using a plugin in a session does not mean much, installed plugins can still cause grief and do so frequently, and no mention of trashing prefs, or testing from a new admin user account, so who knows if you did those or not but some glaring obvious basic things at least not being discussed). And a 64 core Threadripper likely places you outside of the standard usage/coverage so maybe you might expect to turn up some problems, but hopefully they only happen under extreme load/thread count. But I'd focus on working through standard troubleshooting there. As much as I love AMD EPYC and Threadripper platforms that's a pretty extreme environment for Pro Tools, I wonder if it's worth the hit in clock rate and thermal throttling etc. vs. more modest core counts. What are you doing with all that? Running huge composition/VI sessions? Are you making use of freeze/commit to tame some CPU load?And you should double check that the DIMMs in that build are on the VQL, I think they are and any difference is just retail packaging/naming, but check... end-user memory tests very often do not find problems and do not mean the memory is known good. At 256GB with Threadripper I'd have gone ECC with memory,... that's a nice cosmic ray detector you have there. I'm curious how you have you handled the "rotated" Threadripper chip and what heatsink/fan/case you used for cooling. Are you monitoring CPU core and DRAM temps? (I'm a fan, pun intended, of the Lenovo P620 in large part because they have very nice packaging and Threadripper and DRAM cooling, even with a power supply that could do with more grunt, not for Pro Tools use for me though).

If you have other past thread that better covers your problem(s) then can you link to it here.

WOW, you the MAN bro.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Protootr

Next to that I don't install any exotic software or utilities beside the ones installed by plugins and DAWs. And if you can afford it, especially if you earn a living with using Pro Tools, use a different computer for browsing, email, administration, gaming, etc. Keep your Pro Tools workstation as clean as possible from any other software.

Long time since I made a living from my PT rig. But I still have a lot of gear left, and I have a mixing setup in the middle of my living room, I use my mac for everything in addition to PT. Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, browsers, Facetime, messages/mail, reminders, music, online TV/entertainment - only thing not going thru the mac is my record player. Two displays, 2x2TB external drives, and tons of usb, bluetooth devices etc. Heck, even my robot vacuum cleaner is controlled from the mac.

The M2 Mini hasn't crashed since I bought it mid february. Neither has PT. And I keep most everything running 24/7, including PT. I usually quit PT to run Lightroom, and the other way around, because of memory load.

"Be shure you're up to date" is a very common thing to hear.
I think the most important factor in my having a stable setup over the years is that I always stay with a version of things that I've determined to be stable. I often skip entire stages of macOS f.ex. I don't fix what's not broken, and if something breaks, I can quickly return the mac to its previous state via backup.

Just saying it's not at all impossible to have PT running stable side by side with lots of other stuff.

[basslik]

Some day I'll get a M2. probably when the M12 is out LOL


I've noticed in the last 6 months the spinning ball of death would hang until I force quit PT. Would only do it when I slide a cross fade though. Has anyone experienced that?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by basslik

WOW, you the MAN bro.

No not really, I really wanted this user to succeed with his PC and try some more troubleshooting, and it turns out he tried a lot of stuff, or then yes give up and move to a Mac. I was fascinated by the 64 core Threadripper Pro used here. Sadly I don't think we know if he ever got going or not.

In general I'm a big fan of AMD and the AMD EPYC and Threadripper Pro processors, I am close to a company that has build some amazing high-end EPYC server hardware, and their great AMD sales exec, have used them Threadripper Pro in numerical applications, been through picking parts to build my own PC, ended up going with a Lenovo P620, or rather my non-audio related tech client did... and I never got to play with it, they needed them for work stuff asap. One day I'll find one and throw a Pro Tools benchmark on it for giggles.

[basslik]

I've noticed in the last 6 months the spinning ball of death would hang until I force quit PT. Would only do it when I slide a cross fade though. Has anyone experienced that?



Perhaps trash preferences?


Has this particular issue ever happened to anyone?