Pro Tools Studio crashes trying to load the "Core Plug-ins" during startup

[bradch00]

Originally Posted by Professor X

Already tried that. No luck.

So even with no plug-ins after deleting preferences it crashes loading plug-ins. Well that is a head scratcher.

[Professor X]

Originally Posted by bradch00

If you get a dumpfile when this happens highlight it, copy it to Textedit and save it as a pdf. (I mispoke, zip files are not valid here)
Then use attach files at the bottom to load it up here.

I am extremely new to this and have no idea what you are telling me to do.

[Professor X]

Originally Posted by bradch00

So even with no plug-ins after deleting preferences it crashes loading plug-ins. Well that is a head scratcher.

Indeed.

[bradch00]

Originally Posted by Professor X

Indeed.

How are you deleting preferences?

[Darryl Ramm]

Edit: lots of good posts and more info in posts above from after when I drafted this reply, walked away from my computer and later posted it But I'll leave mostly as is.

I know you are new to this, so I'm not trying to criticize you. I want to just get the clearest info to you for this and future problems. And I wish this stuff was not so buried/hidden from new users.

Look up the top of each DUC web page under "Help Us Help You" and read the standard troubleshooting steps.

You should be trying those when you have problems, before you decide to upgrade Pro Tools or your OS, or before posting here (and when you do post describe exactly what you tried/what happened).

Did you check all the installed plugins are up to date and compatible? Especially after updating Pro Tools and your macOS.

Especially *always* start troubleshooting by trashing prefs (use Pete Gates lovely free PT Prefs program). https://petegates.com/pgptprefs.html. Make sure you are using Pete's PT Prefs, it's too easy to miss something, or follow the wrong instructions, if trying by hand.

And especially *always suspect plugins* which means you'll be doing the standard troubleshooting tests like moving all .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder, I also always trash prefs after doing that, and restart Pro Tools and seeing if the problem still occurs. Pro Tools will automagically reinstall it's core plugins when it restarts, just try to see if it can work with just those, and yes all the other plugins won't be there -- when you do this confirm that pro tools is restarting with only the core plugins, and the first startup there after moving the .aaxplugin files out of the Plugin-Ins folder should be slow as Pro Tools rebuilds the plugins cache... which would have been deleted by trashing prefs. If it works OK... then you start reinstalling plugins that you need. Checking as you go doing that, starting with the most important plugins you need.
Reinstalling can be a better idea than copying back the plugins if you go to the plugin vendors' websites and download the latest/best compatible plugins.

And just in case it's a driver/hardware issue you'll try using the Mac's audio output as the playback engine and see what happens.

You'll also try repeating all this from a newly created admin account on the Mac.

Normally those and other standard troubleshooting steps are much more productive than just reinstalling or upgrading stuff (unless you know a bug was fixed in a later release). Reinstalling or upgrading Pro Tools does nothing to remove potentially toxic plugins (which can cause problems and crashes just by being installed in Pro Tools, even if you don't instantiate them in a session). Again *always suspect plugins* and *always start by trashing prefs*. Trash prefs between other steps as you troubleshoot stuff.

I suspect you also did an insitu upgrade of macOS. That's not something I'd recommend (and Avid has recommended against it) when jumping major versions. You are better off leaving the old system in place and doing a clean install of everything on another boot volume.

Advice for next time you have problems is ask first, don't start doing stuff, flounder then ask for help, by then it might be too late. Worse case here you'll be doing a clean macOS install on a new boot partition and going from that. But try the standard troubleshooting steps first, then if you are stuck I would just jump into a full clean macOS Ventura install and install Pro Tools 2020.12 on that. Ideally do that on a new volume on a SSD and don't delete the existing boot volume until you have everything working and all sessions and documents moved over. Do not use the macOS System Migration Assistant (Assassin) to move applications or drivers across, reinstall all that from scratch. Using it to move user accounts and documents is OK.

[Professor X]

Got you. Creating a more accurate post that I learned from Help Us Help You right now. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Edit: lots of good posts and more info in posts above from after when I drafted this reply, walked away from my computer and later posted it But I'll leave mostly as is.

I know you are new to this, so I'm not trying to criticize you. I want to just get the clearest info to you for this and future problems. And I wish this stuff was not so buried/hidden from new users.

Look up the top of each DUC web page under "Help Us Help You" and read the standard troubleshooting steps.

You should be trying those when you have problems, before you decide to upgrade Pro Tools or your OS, or before posting here (and when you do post describe exactly what you tried/what happened).

Did you check all the installed plugins are up to date and compatible? Especially after updating Pro Tools and your macOS.

Especially *always* start troubleshooting by trashing prefs (use Pete Gates lovely free PT Prefs program). https://petegates.com/pgptprefs.html. Make sure you are using Pete's PT Prefs, it's too easy to miss something, or follow the wrong instructions, if trying by hand.

And especially *always suspect plugins* which means you'll be doing the standard troubleshooting tests like moving all .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder, I also always trash prefs after doing that, and restart Pro Tools and seeing if the problem still occurs. Pro Tools will automagically reinstall it's core plugins when it restarts, just try to see if it can work with just those, and yes all the other plugins won't be there -- when you do this confirm that pro tools is restarting with only the core plugins, and the first startup there after moving the .aaxplugin files out of the Plugin-Ins folder should be slow as Pro Tools rebuilds the plugins cache... which would have been deleted by trashing prefs. If it works OK... then you start reinstalling plugins that you need. Checking as you go doing that, starting with the most important plugins you need.
Reinstalling can be a better idea than copying back the plugins if you go to the plugin vendors' websites and download the latest/best compatible plugins.

And just in case it's a driver/hardware issue you'll try using the Mac's audio output as the playback engine and see what happens.

You'll also try repeating all this from a newly created admin account on the Mac.

Normally those and other standard troubleshooting steps are much more productive than just reinstalling or upgrading stuff (unless you know a bug was fixed in a later release). Reinstalling or upgrading Pro Tools does nothing to remove potentially toxic plugins (which can cause problems and crashes just by being installed in Pro Tools, even if you don't instantiate them in a session). Again *always suspect plugins* and *always start by trashing prefs*. Trash prefs between other steps as you troubleshoot stuff.

I suspect you also did an insitu upgrade of macOS. That's not something I'd recommend (and Avid has recommended against it) when jumping major versions. You are better off leaving the old system in place and doing a clean install of everything on another boot volume.

Advice for next time you have problems is ask first, don't start doing stuff, flounder then ask for help, by then it might be too late. Worse case here you'll be doing a clean macOS install on a new boot partition and going from that. But try the standard troubleshooting steps first, then if you are stuck I would just jump into a full clean macOS Ventura install and install Pro Tools 2020.12 on that. Ideally do that on a new volume on a SSD and don't delete the existing boot volume until you have everything working and all sessions and documents moved over. Do not use the macOS System Migration Assistant (Assassin) to move applications or drivers across, reinstall all that from scratch. Using it to move user accounts and documents is OK.

[Professor X]

Originally Posted by bradch00

If you get a dumpfile when this happens highlight it, copy it to Textedit and save it as a pdf. (I mispoke, zip files are not valid here)
Then use attach files at the bottom to load it up here.

Sorry for the latency. Been moving. Dump file? Like i said im dead ass new to these termonologies and what not if you can break all of that down. I brought up textedit. What are dump files?

[Professor X]

Originally Posted by bradch00

How are you deleting preferences?

"Close Pro Tools and launch Finder.
Click Go and select Go to Folder…
Enter ~/Library/Preferences/Avid and click Go.
Delete the Pro Tools folder.
Restart your computer and launch Pro Tools."

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Professor X

"Close Pro Tools and launch Finder.
Click Go and select Go to Folder…
Enter ~/Library/Preferences/Avid and click Go.
Delete the Pro Tools folder.
Restart your computer and launch Pro Tools."

That's the correct stuff at a minimum, but folks manage to make mistakes even doing hat at times. As already suggested... Use Pete Gates lovely free PT Prefs program. https://petegates.com/pgptprefs.html.

Trash *everything* with PT Prefs.

Especially tell us what shows up on your screen? How far into the boot/splash screen do you see? What is it say it's doing?

Go through the other things suggested in troubleshooting. You should especially be testing just opening Pro Tools with no session, trying with the Mac's built in audio output device as the playback engine, and try creating a new Mac admin account and repeating all the tests from there. And I'd repeat moving all the .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder, confirm the folder is empty, start Pro Tools, confirm it automagically puts back the core plugins, and just leave stuff like that while you keep troubleshooting.

If this an old Mac that has had multiple macOS updates applied in-situ then at some point you should be willing to give up and do a clean macOS install and reinstall all the apps from new (don't use system migration assassin (assistant) to move apps or drivers). Plan how you will save/move over all your user documents etc. before you do this.

[Juan Paulino]

I'm having this problem as well. I'm on Monterrey 12.6.2 Intel iMac Pro 2017 and everything was working for awhile on Pro Tools Intro.

I moved all my plugins to a separate SSD then I used the Petegates software and deleted preferences, restarted and tried to launch Intro with the app doing one hop on the dock right before the crash reporter takes its place and intro vanishes.

I tried logging on as admin as a new user account and retried the method above to no avail.