GUI freezes frequently on M1 Mac starting in 2021.6

[Teej]

Also still having freezes. Better than .6 but still not as fast and stable as 2021.3.1.

[JFreak]

Mine is not freezing, which OS version and is it a factory install or clean one on empty storage?

Just for the sake of it just tested on a hacked 2010 (!) Mac Mini on Catalina and I cannot even get that to beachball even though it only has C2D processor and 8GB memory...

I am pretty religious about clean installs, because I have noticed on my beta testing days that so many random errors go away just by clean installing everything.


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[Emi]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Mine is not freezing, which OS version and is it a factory install or clean one on empty storage?

Just for the sake of it just tested on a hacked 2010 (!) Mac Mini on Catalina and I cannot even get that to beachball even though it only has C2D processor and 8GB memory...

I am pretty religious about clean installs, because I have noticed on my beta testing days that so many random errors go away just by clean installing everything.


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Hi JFreak,

I'm pretty sure you have shared how do you clean install on Mac OS but it would be awesome if you are kind enough to share with us once again and more in detail what's your process.

Thanks so much,
Emi

[JFreak]

Sure.

First thing you need is a backup. Second thing you need is another backup. Third thing is five minutes and a coffee break to make sure you have done the first two.

After that just boot to recovery, use disk utility to erase your system drive, install most current OS version, make a reboot, check for possible extra updates, then another reboot and possibly a Time Capsule backup of a clean OS-only system drive.

Then install PT and plugins. Done. Whatever user data you may have can be copied back later from the backups you took before erasing the old system.

[JFreak]

Oh, forgot to say that Time Capsule backup of OS install is only meant for testing/cloning purposes. Never use any migration software (like the infamous Apple Migration Assassin) or automated backup/restore.

Always keep your sessions etc. organised on your backups and use from your work drives or copy back from there (nowadays it is a good idea to use system drive for a session as at least here it is the fastest one available).

It is also a good idea to subscribe to Apple One or something like that, so you do not need to copy terabytes of music library etc. back and forth. If your personal stuff is in the cloud it makes clean install of OS painless.

[Emi]

Great advise JFreak, thank you so much.

[JFreak]

No problem. This is the process I learnt when I was beta testing PT 7-10

[Riquier]

Originally Posted by Teej

Also still having freezes. Better than .6 but still not as fast and stable as 2021.3.1.

Precisely. Same here.

Temporary beachball freezes still occur and graphic glitches like a black 'boxes' on the edit window still happen as well. The latter issue goes away when I zoom in and out.

My machine is a 16GB 8 core M1, running Big Sur 11.4.

[audiogamble]

Originally Posted by jeffro

Anyone still seeing this with v2021.7?

• Fixed a case that could cause an occasional short freeze/SWOD with Pro Tools 2021.6 on macOS (PT-275568)

If so... please include your system details. Thank you!

Hi Jeffro. I've been using 2021.7 since it came out. I'm seeing beachballs far less frequently than 2021.6. Maybe once an hour versus once every few minutes.

My specs

M1 Macbook Air. 16gb ram. 8 core GPU
Big Sur 11.5.1
Pro Tools Ultimate 2021.7
Audio Interface - RME Madiface XT

I've also loaded "beachbally" sessions onto a different computer and seen the same results. The 2nd computer was:

2019 Mac Mini - 32 gb RAM
Catalina 10.15.7
Pro Tools 2021.7
Audio Interface - RME Madiface XT

One this I'll say is that generally speaking, the UI of pro tools in 2021.7 is the slowest I've ever experienced as a pro tools user. It's not bad in a session with audio only. As soon as I add plugins to the session, or begin routing the audio to sends / internal busses, or doing anything remotely advanced, the beachball & ui responsiveness issues appear.

I'm also getting little black boxes randomly on the screen. I think several other users have reported this too.

Most plugin ui's look fine, but a few plugin alliance ones are really laggy when audio is playing back. Specifically, SPL Iron.

Here's a general walkthrough of the plugins I use:

Fabfilter Pro-Q3
Waves
Universal Audio
Soundtoys
Plugin Alliance
izotope Ozone 9

If you're trying to test & fix this issue, I'd be happy to provide you with a session that triggers the problem consistently.

[EVaschon]

Originally Posted by audiogamble

+1 here for beach balls on M1 / Big Sur . Rolling back to 2021.3.1 fixes it . Avid, please sort out whatever problems you've introduced for M1 users in your first "officially supported" M1 release!!

I have an Apple Computer running the macOS Big Sur operating system. No matter what I do, every few seconds I get the spinning beach ball. I have just under 1TB of available memory space, I've deleted files & programs, checked for viruses, turned off other programs while using Pro Tools, upgraded from Pro Tools v6.0 to v7.0; absolutely NOTHING works! It's SO damn frustrating!!!!

When I visit my AVID account page and check for products, there simply is no available link to download a previous version of Pro Tools. So what now?????