2023.12 Start up issues

[ZEUSS]

Since updating to 2023.12, start up has been very slow and sometimes not responsive. It sometimes bounces in the dock for longer periods and then after start up, protools is unresponsive and I cannot even access the menu bar to open sessions etc.


All prefs are deleted and rebuilt as usual. Including tax plugin cache.
Plugins are up to date including waves.

I can get it to finally work after a few restarts.But even then, it seems it takes real long to start up etc. Everything was fine on the last version.
Using my mobile laptop system listed below.

Any Ideas?

[cvicente22]

Hi ZEUSS,

Have you made any changes on your computer before this started to happen? Maybe this optimization guide can help:

https://avidtech.my.salesforce-sites...ng/Optimize-12

[ZEUSS]

Originally Posted by cvicente22

Hi ZEUSS,

Have you made any changes on your computer before this started to happen? Maybe this optimization guide can help:

https://avidtech.my.salesforce-sites...ng/Optimize-12

No Changes. Although I am still using the Older 2023.3 driver. Not sure if that matters. I will double check the optimizations.

[DaveF]

Any further answers on this as I am having exactly the same issues.

Pro Tools Studio: 2023.12.1
iMac i9 32 Gb Ram
Monterey

All up to date.

[Darryl Ramm]

More clarity here might help. You have every exact behavior noted by the OP?

Esp. be clear, are you talking only Pro Tools startup time--not opening a session, or also time opening a session?

What part of the startup is slow?

Is the system fully optimized and properly set up? No anti virus software installed. Not setup to use awfully bad iCloud home directory and documents folder? No sessions on any cloud storage? Recheck optimizations, do every last one for now no matter how painful.

Bouncing in the dock is often network issues with trying to reach the Apple certificate revocation servers. Many posts about this on DUC from me and others for you to search for and read. But bad network connectivity there should not cause slow/erratic performance after startup unless there are other network related issues like NAS or cloud storage connectivity, etc.

If it seems to be slow plugin loads. Then do some troubleshooting. If you trash the plugin cache measure how long the plugin scan and load time is... it should be slow as Pro Tools rebuilds the cache. Then restart Pro Tools... measure the scan and load time again. If it is not significantly faster then something likely went wrong with creating the plugin cache. Was the cache file created? if so it may be only partial or corrupt. Do you see the plugin load being slow on some specific plugins? Look in the Pro Tools log files for any possible errors, move all aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder and see if the startup is fast, put plugins back in batches seeing if you can find problem plugins... standard plugin troubleshooting.

Look carefully to make sure Pro Tools actually exits normally and does not crash with any error or there are not errors during the plugin scan/load.

Either way Pro Tools log files might help-esp. great to compare some from when there was no issues to now if you have them.

Check the logs in Console.app to see if there are any errors or warnings around the times that Pro Tools starts up slow.

Look at memory pressure in activity monitor if it is not green for extended time during/after startup you may have a memory problem. Slow or erratic operation after startup, or just things slow in the UI are classic signs of a memory leak, esp. if that affects other apps and the Finder as well. Plugin there are always a suspect, including plugins breaking with Pro Tools upgrades.

What do the activity monitor CPU meters show?

If it is the session open time is slow then is that only one or a few sessions? how large are the session files? Massive session files are often plugin related issues with bloated content from the plugin being written to the session file. Try save copy in or loading the session content into new sessions.

This is unlikely to be related to drivers, but you can confirm that...If you hold down the N key and it is slow starting up and getting to the playback engine dialog, the problem is not related to drivers.

If lost just run all the standard trouble shooting steps, they cover many of the potential issues here. Especially make sure you do trashing prefs, removing plugins, testing from a newly created admin account (make sure that does not use icrap iCloud), but really just do it all.