PT crashes when inserting plug-in + opening windows

[kai2002]

Hi all,

I have this really weird issue. I get the dreaded 'Pro Tools cannot communicate with the selected Playback engine device. Please quit Pro Tools, reconnect the unit, and them relaunch Pro Tools.'

See attached screenshots.

This happens randomly when I either:
1. Instate any new plug-in. I feel I had this happen more often with f.e. Omnisphere, soothe (v1), but also with others.

2. F.e. open an AudioSuite window. I use the Audiosuite Vari-Fi effect quite a lot (electronic music production), and it happened several times when opening this ‘plug-in’. I do use a shortcut to open the Audiosuite plug-in window (ctrl+alt+W, - it doesn’t conflict with any other shortcuts).

System:
M1 MBP 16 Max, latest Monterrey (12.3.1), running PT 2012.12.
All the plug-ins are up-to-date. Interface is a FireWire Apollo rack unit, connected via the UAD Thunderbolt extension card, connected straight to the MBP, no dock in between. I do use a dock for other stuff (dongles). Latest UAD software. Latest firmware on the UAD interface.

I don't get any audio drop-outs or any other audio issues period. It's only that error message. Audio from the OS plays fine whilst it's happening, so it can't be a connection issue.

Don't wanna use 2022.4 just yet cause I have a whole bunch of custom keyboard shortcuts that I created over the years and the new function messes with it. Haven't had time to get this going.

Any advice? Appreciate any help!

[SnugRecording]

Same thing happening here. Seems fairly random although definitely notice it when instantiating plugins that I may not have opened before (I only put this new Mac Studio system together over the past week or so) or intensive ones like Soothe2, etc. It feels like there's a CPU hit happening for a moment and it's losing the connection to my Apollo 8 (thunderbolt 2) for a split second. I'm running SoundID Reference for some monitor correction and that posts a notification whenever this error happens as if it's just reconnected to the Apollo hardware. I've tried not running SoundID to see if that was causing the problem but it makes no difference. Also tried experimenting with playback engine options and they don't seem to have made a difference either.

I'm on latest Monterey 12.3.1 also but I'm running 2022.4 so I don't think updating Pro Tools will fix this anyway.

I will be able to try running the system with a MTRX Studio via HD Native soon. Will be interesting to see if the errors are restricted to the UA interface or not.

[kai2002]

That's a good point - I'll try to open plug-ins from my library that I usually don't use - maybe that's actually the culprit.

But then, I'm pretty sure it has happened several times when opening the AudioSuite Vari-Fi window. I know cause I feel like I have some Pavlov conditioning going on and I clench in anticipation right before I hit the key command