pro tools hang and start up trouble

[[email protected]]

hi everybody. I have pro tools 2024.10.1 running on Mac book pro 16 (2019), Monterey 12.7.6. Sometimes it opens but hangs the the session is open, and sometimes it hangs even before it opens. been having this issue for sometime now, and it usually happens when I change from my office set up (Apollo solo) and my studio set up (apollo 8x and 4x) or the sessions change between 44.1 and 48. kHz. Same issue on pro tools 2024.6 and I updated to 24.10 today but no help. any tips here? thanks for your help!

[jeam25]

Hi, try this: press the N key while opening Pro Tools in order to get the hardware select dialog and select the current interface.

Also, once you are in the session, maybe try to reset your IOs to your current interface IOs defaults.

[[email protected]]

thanks! will try!

[pwpmixer]

When opening a previously created session, go into the session on the drive and make sure all audio files are present. It is recommended to have your sessions on an external drive for all sorts of reasons. If the session is on the boot drive, the Mac might boost the large files to the cloud to free up space. It will hang ProTools if the file is not present.

[[email protected]]

thanks! bought a new drive today. My computer is almost full (50 g left of HD-space) and I hope your advice will help. Would you recommend saving all my projects as «save as…» to the new disk? Or can I just drag the whole folder? I’ve worked on pro tools since the 90´s and never had this kind of trouble, even though I always have my sessions on the desktop folder. thanks!

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by pwpmixer

It is recommended to have your sessions on an external drive for all sorts of reasons.

This is not a great recommendation, the boot /system drive on modern macs is a very good place for audio/session storage. Simply make sure the desktop and documents do not use iCloud. So OP make sure Desktop and Documents are not configured to use iCloud.

There can be other reasons to use an external drive, but poor choice of external drives can easily reduce performance over just using the internal SSD. So now we are at what drive was purchased? And once iCloud use is excluded there really is no reason to assume anything here is storage related so adding a new drive is likely waste of time.

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More clear info on what Pro Tools is doing when it hangs would likely help. The descriptions so far are not super clear, what *exactly* do you see on the screen, does it ever hang without opening a session? have all the plugins finished loading? "sometimes it hangs even before opening" meaning before trying to open the session file or before that session mix and or edit windows open on the desktop? does this only happen with some sessions? When Pro Tools hangs does the rest of the system seem OK or do other apps misbehave/respond slowly? What does the Pro Tools log file show for hung sessions? (~/Library/Logs/Avid/Pro_Tools*.txt). That may give very useful if cryptic info. Post several logs from hangs and non-hangs online on a file sharing site and provide links here.

When you have a problem start by double checking the system is fully optimized and then just run through the standard troubleshooting steps documented under "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page. Just do them. Especially always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs. Use Pete Gates free PT Prefs2 program (make sure to have the latest version of that). Has that even been done yet? And another rule of troubleshooting is to always suspect plugins, here for example you want to be sure to see if certain plugins use might trigger hangs. There have been changes to the plugin infrastructure starting in Pro Tools 2023.12 that have caused some plugin related problems, so even more reasons than usual to do plugin troubleshooting. The standard troubleshooting tests will exclude plugins, interfaces, corrupted user accounts, lots of potential issues... why that set of tests is documented.

[[email protected]]

thanks again. This is, I must admit, a bit overwhelming; I know this could be caused by a million things. first: I bought a 1tb Lacie ssd disk, to clear some space. second: the problem is: 1) sometimes pro tools hangs while launching (has to be forced to quit - restart etc.) 2) sometimes it opens but sessions are «gray» and unplayable while everything hangs and that devil ball spins and spins. 3) sometimes it crashes when I save and close pro tools. I have all my plug ins checked. And I am ashamed of asking this, but I can't seem to find the avid folder in the preferences folder som I can trash them. I know this is basic, but there you go. making music’s som much easier than this. thanks again for your help.

[Darryl Ramm]

Start by reading stuff carefully and following instructions and just work through things one step at a time.

Why are you trying to manually delete preference files? I specifically pointed you at using the PT Prefs2 utility to trash preferences, not trying to do them manually. For multiple reasons, including to make this simple, and to make sure the new style plugin cache files get correctly trashed. ... just install and use PT Prefs2. You can google for where to download that utility from. It can be useful to keep trashing prefs between doing other trouble shooting tests.

"I have all my plugins checked"... checked how? What does this mean? What plugin tests have you done? You should be moving all .aaxplugin bundles out of the plugin folder and restarting Pro Tools/sessions and seeing if that still hangs. Pro Tools will automagically put back the core plugins, the others will all be missing, but all that matters is to know is if you do this do the hangs go away. This can be a very simple quick test, it all depends on how frequently hangs were happening and how many times you have to repeat stuff to be sure it is or is not still happening. Just focus to start on proving if or if not plugins seem suspects here. If it seems plugins are the cause then the longer effort thing is putting .aaxplugin bundles back in batches until you find a suspect plugin or plugins. If you prove it is not a plugin and then just move on trying other troubleshooting steps.

Find those log files from hung and not hung startups... ~/Library/Logs/Avid/Pro_Tools*.txt. ~/Library (not /Library) is a hidden directory in your home directory, either just access it from Terminal.app or show that directory in the Finder (you can google for how to do that). That ~/Library is hidden in the Finder might be why you are also having problems manually trashing prefs. (but again, do not manually trash them).

What exact model Lacie drive did you purchase?

[[email protected]]

thanks. from now on I will do absolutely everything you tell me to. the was a joke. a Norwegian joke. very funny here. anyway: bought the Lacie portable ssd (usb-c) 1tb. the little one. what I meant about my plug ins is: I´ve updated them all, and made sure I have the lates compatible versions. not checked them like you suggested yet. updated to sequoia and everything is ok, sessions open and work but still after two times «pt not responding» and a «unexpectedly crashed». will do the preference thing as well, and I´m really sorry about me asking about the preference thing, BUT you know that sometimes people on the internet say quite different things, and I´ve heard a million people talk about trashing prefs without your thing. Thanks again. I will not give up. I have faith that one day we’ll see a better future!

[Darryl Ramm]

I am familiar with the Norwegian sense of humor, from a county that eats Rakfisk... you need a good sense of humor. (Norway and Oslo are some of my favorite places).

This does look overwhelming but just tackle one thing at a time.

Checking plugins are up to date is a good thing to do, but up to date plugins can still cause problems, and we've had a bunch of plugins problems happening since plugin infrastructure changes starting in Pro Tools 2023.12 that will happen with up to date plugins.

Sigh, but I realize now what is happening I remembered that Avid has updated the Pro Tools troubleshooting docs, it's now much worse than it had been in the past, including not describing how to properly troubleshoot plugins. !@#$%^ who knows why that change was assumed to be necessary. I will followup with the Goddess of helpful things at Avid and try to get those instructions improved again.

And the blaming the whole plugin thing for everything yes that gets tired over time... except well the bloody things can cause all sorts of problems and just excluding them or including them early on is a great way to greatly reduce the problem space you are trying to work in. For example plugins in a session can get called to do stuff when a session closes... so things crashing when you close a session might be a sign to pay attention to plugins. Nobody, and certainly not me, can usually guess what a problem is caused by often it's just good for folks to leap into doing at least some of the standard troubleshooting tests even if they don't make a lot of sense, there is no clue what might be happening. One you are familiar with them many of those troubleshooting can be run through fairly fast.