PT10 "sees" Eleven Rack as playback engine only (no editor window,embedded rigs,etc)

[locust_tree]

Hello all, long-time reader here, first-time poster. I'm also a long-time Windows PT user so thanks in advance for the countless problems this forum helped me solve before I was a member.

I recently purchased an Eleven Rack new from Sweetwater, as I had been wanting an outboard guitar solution and needed to upgrade from PT9 anyway (it was actually cheaper to buy the 11r and sell the old PT license / iLok on eBay than to buy the upgrade from Avid). I've been thrilled with the sounds out of the 11r and will post a more in depth review in another thread.

So now for the nitty gritty. I'm currently running the 11r as a secondary interface, using S/PDIF to connect it to a MOTU 828MK3 Hybrid. Both units are connected to the computer via USB. The 828 is acting as the master clock and the 11r is set to slave to S/PDIF. The computer is a Windows 7 workstation and has been extensively optimized to run PT (I ran PT9 for years on the exact same machine with barely a hiccup.) All Avid recommended optimizations have been done and then some. All drivers are up to date.

I had a great first few days where everything went as advertised. Today I opened a session and PT immediately threw an error about not being able to resolve to the session's sample rate, after clicking "ok" it immediately threw a runtime error and crashed hard, requiring a reboot.

Upon starting again the computer was still able to "see" the 11r - the 11r Control Panel app showed "hardware connected" and Pro Tools listed it as an available playback engine which worked fine when selected. However even with the 11r as the playback engine, playing my session without a hitch all other 11r related features were gone - the little "E" logos on my guitar tracks and inputs, the "Load Guitar Rig Settings" when right clicking on a guitar track, 11r editor window, etc.

After pulling hair out for 24 hours, countless reboots, every imaginable boot order, messing around with Device Manager and the Sounds menu in Windows, nothing worked. Trashing Prefs finally fixed the problem but I'm wary this will be a recurring problem. A very similar issue was addressed in this thread and was never solved.

Obviously there is a component in the Pro Tools software - separate from the 11r driver - which allows PT to send and receive controller data from the 11r, and do other things like embedding rig settings in the audio file. Whatever it is, it can fail completely while the driver itself hums right along. I don't mind trashing Preferences occasionally but it is not a long term solution - the runtime error PT gave me before was the first hard crash I've had in years, and having that kind of error as a session is opening is a great way to end up with corrupt session files. The 11r has so many great perks for PT users and the integration is great - without it a lot of the appeal of the box will be lost on me. I'll be glad to provide any needed info, and thanks in advance for the help - I've been reading this board since it was the Digi User Conference!

-Chris

System specs:

Dell Precision T5400
2x Xeon E5450
8GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate
Pro Tools 10.3.9
MOTU 828 Hybrid
Eleven Rack

[junkgear]

Please see the following blog which details how to set up the 11R / PT to embed rig settings. Embedding Rig Settings

In your case, you would set the selection to S/PDIF.

[locust_tree]

Originally Posted by junkgear

Please see the following blog which details how to set up the 11R / PT to embed rig settings. Embedding Rig Settings

In your case, you would set the selection to S/PDIF.

Thanks Will, I should clarify that this was a session where I had previously laid down tracks with embedded rig settings no problem, hence my disappearing "E" logos when the trouble started.

[Benoni]

Make sure the driver is up-to-date, maybe try reinstalling it.

Try another USB port.

Try another USB cable.

Try launching Pro Tools with Run As Admin.

[locust_tree]

Thanks Brian. I've been using the new USB cable that it shipped with but I do have spares I can try. I had also forgotten about Run as Admin so we'll see if the problem comes back.

Like I said, trashing prefs does seem to fix this problem for me and those in the thread I linked to... I just don't want a hard system-breaking crash to be my indicator of when it's time to trash them.