Computer freezes, starts playing a loop. What..???

[el biciclista]

First time this has ever happened. I will open a particular session and start playing. It plays for 4-5 seconds, then the screen freezes. I can't escape, or do anything. I have to manual shutdown the computer. But.........the session keeps playing the audio, in a short 1-2 second loop. It just keeps playing the loop until I kill the computer. I've gone through shutdown-and-startup several times, but the problem reoccurs each time I open this session and start playing. If I play outside the regions, so no data are being processed, I don't have the problem. So it appears it suddenly can't handle processing all the track audio data on playback for some reason. I have worked in this session several times before, no problem. I have an HD2 system, plenty of horsepower for the number of tracks.

The only thing I did differently before this occurred was to open and work in a session on an external firewire drive for a day. I've never worked in a session on a firewire drive before. It seemed to work OK, except that I couldn't record into the session. Each time I tried, I got the message that "the drive is too slow or fragmented". I never solved that problem, so I could use help on that one, too!

I don't know if the two events are related or not, but it is sure a big coincidence. In any case, does anybody have a suggestion as to what my problem is in this session?
Thanks!
Mike

[el biciclista]

Nobody has had this problem????!
Help!!

[JGuth]

I think this is usually drive or ram related. Try your session on a different drive first.

[el biciclista]

I just opened and played another session. It played fine, no problem. I went to the session folder and did a "Get Info" on it: 11GB of data.

Then I went back to the problem session and tried playing it. Same thing: it is sluggish when I move the cursor around, and it froze up after a few seconds of starting to play (happily playing a loop over and over). I then went to the session folder for this session: 3GB. So it has much less data than the session that played fine.

Both session folders are on the same internal hard drive.

So, it appears to be something in the session itself that is bogging down the system, not a disk or general Pro Tools setup setting issue. The only thing I see unique about this session is that I have a relatively large number of MIDI tracks. But these should have really no impact (I think).

What setting could be causing this WITHIN this particular session?
Mike

[garagemusic]

I've had similar crashes. I'll get a kernel panic, and the audio will loop about 2 seconds worth of music over and over until i manually shut it down. The music tends to be out of sync between left and right as well. Doesn't seem to be specific to any session or drive. Happens to me randomly....

[el biciclista]

So how do you solve the problem and get that particular session going again?

[garagemusic]

the problem has never required more than a reboot. once i shut the computer down and relaunch, the session opens no problem.
if you do have a corrupt session, i would suggest creating a new session at the right bit rate and sampling frequency, and then use the "import session data" to try bringing in your tracks from your other session that wont' open.

[crizdee]

So how do you solve the problem and get that particular session going again?

Hi,

Your best option is to start a new session and then import the session data from the session that has got corrupted!!

File menu "import session data" just select the tracks that you want to pull in to the session etc. make sure your new session is set up for the same bit depth and sample rate!!!

If you have problems after this!? try inporting the tracks one at a time etc.

Regards

Chris

[uno1234]

I've been getting the same crash with kernal panics, but generally after the crash the problem is resolved.

But get this: I've been getting random looping WITHOUT a crash. Everything will play back fine, and then randomly it just starts looping the audio I was listening to! I will have been listening from the top of the song, but it will just start looping a random 3 or 4 second section. Nothing is selected or anything. I hit stop, play again, then everything is fine. Happens at 48k and 96K on PT 6.7cs8. About 4 times a day.

[Vaporhead]

I've been getting the same crash with kernal panics, but generally after the crash the problem is resolved.

But get this: I've been getting random looping WITHOUT a crash. Everything will play back fine, and then randomly it just starts looping the audio I was listening to! I will have been listening from the top of the song, but it will just start looping a random 3 or 4 second section. Nothing is selected or anything. I hit stop, play again, then everything is fine. Happens at 48k and 96K on PT 6.7cs8. About 4 times a day.

- I get the same random looping, only it is usually just two or three vocal tracks, out of the whole session, that are looping. Sometimes I can just press stop and sometimes PRO TOOLS freezes. A restart and the usual trouble shooting routine (trashing prefs etc.) works to get things going again. It won't happen for weeks and then, bam, it's back again. Weird...........