Lots of Freezing/Lock ups.. please help!

[Dopamine]

Hi folks,

I experience tons of freezing when playing audio via the Finder, Safari, iTunes, etc.-- even when using the internal mac speaker. However Pro Tools is rock solid. In other words, I can't even play a Youtube video or listen to music on Spotify without experiencing a freeze within minutes.

Recently I discovered that simply unplugging my Mbox completely prevents the crashing.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to troubleshoot this aside from doing a clean install and/or upgrading Pro Tools? Pro Tools has been solid and it would be a hassle to have to reinstall all my plug-ins.

I am running Pro Tools 10.3.2 on Mac OS 10.8.3 with a MBox Mini.

MUCH thanks in advance!

[Dopamine]

Has anyone else encountered this issue or have any suggestions?

[Phil Ogden]

Mbox drivers up to date?

[davegibbon]

Can you take a look at Activity Monitor under the CPU tab and see what's taking up your CPU cycles? See what 'kernel_task' is up to.

I've got a feeling it relates to my thread here

[Dopamine]

Originally Posted by Phil Ogden

Mbox drivers up to date?

Yes, they haven't updated the Mbox Mini drivers since 2012 (except the Mavericks/PT 11 driver).

Nothing looks odd under Activity Monitor.

Any other suggestions? Thanks!

[Dopamine]

Originally Posted by davegibbon

Can you take a look at Activity Monitor under the CPU tab and see what's taking up your CPU cycles? See what 'kernel_task' is up to.

I've got a feeling it relates to my thread here

Ah ha, just had a crash and now I see that Kernal task is chewing up CPU cycles!

I read the other thread... still no solution?

[davegibbon]

I don't think there is an easy fix. Interesting that PT is still rock solid for you. My theory was that whenever the machine addresses the Avid driver driver, the kernel_task goes through the roof.

For me, PT with a 003r throws errors trying to record/playback one track of audio with no plug ins.

Can you take a look at what the kernel_task is doing when you've got PT running?

[Dopamine]

[QUOTECan you take a look at what the kernel_task is doing when you've got PT running?[/QUOTE]


Yes, I'll report back when I get to the studio tomorrow.

[Dopamine]

How can I tell exactly what the kernel task is doing?

Btw when I say PT is "rock solid", that's when I have it up and running.

It often locks on boot and always when I change the Playback buffer.

So frustrating.