SERIOUS REGIONS LIST PROBLEM

[crizdee]

Hi,

Sorry to say, i have yet another serious problem to report with PT 6.7 on Mac G5! on opening the song i got the message.....

"some regions were truncated or removed from the region list or timeline because this referred to files which are too short"

Now all the audio and midi regions have dissapeared from the regions list!!!


Help!!!

Regards

Chris

[DigiTechSupt]

crizdee,

Judging from your other post, it sounds like your audio drive might be having a bad day. Are you using SCSI, FW, or SATA? Consider swapping drives or reformatting the drive in question.

regards,
Digidesign Technical Support

[KingFish]

It's been around for quite some time.... keep an eye on THIS THREAD

The problem, is that none of us have found the "Formula" to re-create this problem, it seems so random, and it is rare.

If one of us could figure out how to make this happen 100% of the time, by making certain edits or using specific settings, I'm sure digi could fix the problem in a hurry.

I've tried to "Force this" by creating several edits 1 sample in length, consolodating some of those single sample regions, saving the session on a mac TDM, PC TDM, Mac LE, PC LE.... I can't "Make it happen" it just "Does" once in a blue blue moon.

Actually, it never happens over here anymore, generally because of some of the earlier threads linked above, I've changed my work habbits, and I consolodate all of my comp tracks, and edited regions before saving the session "for the night" and don';t leave hundreds of individual regions in a session anymore.

[crizdee]

Hi,

Thanks Digi & Kingfish for your suggestions! i'll try the hard drive first!! though loading an earlier version of the same song seems to be working fine!! which kinda indicates the hard drive is working fine!!!

I would like to keep the extra work i have done today!? so i'm experimenting with saving and loading session data etc!!

Yes it seems something is seriously wrong!! i have benn on the phone to tech support uk today with another problem with dealy compensation and putting midi tracks in record mode!? whether delay comp is on or off the midi and the audio is running all out of time when i have a midi track armed!! don't know if this is related to my other problems!!

Regards

Chris

Mac G5 2ghz 2gig ram OS 10.3.7
PT 6.7 cs8 HD3
Recording to one of the internal SATA drives

[crizdee]

Hi,

I have reverted back to an earlier version of this session which seemed to be working fine and i have used save session copy to place this sesion onto a different hard drive! all workied for a few hours, but i am getting the spinning beechball again everytime i use seperate region!!! each edit is taking 2-3 minutes!!!

I'm totally lost!! help!! what can i do? i'm loosing money!!!!

Regards

Chris

[jfredk]

Crizdee:

I agree with Kingfish on this. Once you're done editing a track, consolidate the regions into a whole file--but make sure to consolidate back to the session start time. Then delete unused regions/files. You must make sure all of your edit fades are locked in jellyjam tight before doing this. When you delete the original regions/files they're gone. But I find that the rig runs better and there is less chance of these types of things happening. I also believe there is less chance of fragmentation of your hard drive.

However, I would like for someone who knows a lot more than I about this, which would include almost everyone, to expand on this idea: the closer you get to mixing single files instead of many separate regions/files in a session actually improves performance of both the session software and the audio drives--especially when using RTAS plugs (Native Instruments Battery 2.1) and MIDI files like I have to use doing song demos here in Nashville. For me there is no other way to compete with major publishing houses without ProTools and its flexibility and immediate recall character.

I can honestly say I wouldn't be in business without it. And no other software/hardware program setup even comes close to supporting that statement.

Thanks in advance for any help,

J Fred Knobloch
Nashville, TN

[crizdee]

Hello,

Thanks for sharing your experience! I have done as much consolidationg as i can!? but this song is still being arranged and written and we're making constant edits etc and this is when the problems start!! trying to edit accross 50-60 tracks and move sections around etc and i'm constantly having to consolidate and erase unused regions just to keep the work flowing!!

I have found a sort of work around! by saving a session copy onto another drive and keeping the original one for when the producer/writer says... can i go back and choose a different take for the end of the chorus!!! by doing this i can erase as much as possible from the version i'm arranging and developing!! not an ideal way to work! but at least i can get through the session.

I can't help think that there is more to this than the amount of regions Pro tools and my hard drive can deal with! Shoot me down in flames for saying this, But i would run songs much bigger and complex and with more edits than this in logic 5 on a dual 500 G4!! without error messages and without loosing regions!!!

so why do i get the message.."some regions have been truncated or removed from the regions list or timeline because they are too short etc etc"?

How do people in the film industry cope? surely they must have hundreds and thousands of seperate regions all over the place!!!

Regards

Chris

[studiojimi]

this is a bad idea in my opinion "unless" you have listened to your work carfully with no distractions in the room and assured your work is your best....otherwise you may later discover some undealt with edit pops or a few other anamolies which you better confidently know about before making consolodation commitments of this nature.

or of course have backup.

[jfredk]

Chris:

Man I feel for you on the client thing with 50 or 60 tracks editing at the same time. You're in way over my head for sure. I can only imagine having to work with a producer who is not sure of what he wants without doing a two mix bounce of the basic ideas, editing those and seeing if the idea works before putting you through that much hassle.

I know you don't have time for this but when you do I would love to know what the content of those 50 tracks are.

But you are right in assuming PT should be able to handle the data, files, regions, etc. Why it isn't doing that is a real concern. As in most things having to do with computers it is almost assuredly a software or RAM issue....BUT!

I know you've probably done all of this when you installed your stuff but I had an G4MDD shipped to me from Apple with the system drive set to cable select on the second node of the ATA Buss cable and installed just beneath the optical drive in the bay tray. Now the drive ID/jumper setting may or may not have been the issue but since I changed the jumpers to master and placed it on the first node of the ATA cable and moved the drive down one slot in the bay (allowing it to breathe better--G4s run hot but not that hot) I have had no problems with anything other than normal latency when using a lot of RTAS plugs in MIDI uses.

Also, when anything is really wrong I always do the 'clean thing' suggested in the "6.x troubleshooting" post on the DUC for Mac OSX and after installing any software at all I repair disk permissions from the software restore disk, not the internal disk utility--seems to be a more complete repair. And from time to time you may want to reinstall your Protools software. On my old NuBus rig I did that every six months or so just because and had very few problems. (It was so slow I could make a pot of coffee while waiting for a 'tweak head slowest' render to occur.)

Now all of this may be common to all of you out there but I'm just trying to be helpful while I wait to feel tired and can go to sleep.

I haven't been there with you but I feel your pain 'cause editing when your rig ain't right is a royal pain in the arse.

Cheers,

J.Fred in Nashville