"Pro Tools Application has stopped working"

[mikeh001]

I installed Pro Tools 9, and for several days, it was loading. I was having issues with recording, but no problems loading, saving and retrieving projects, etc.

I turned off the external Firewire disk where I had been storing Pro Tools projects.

When I tried to start Pro Tools, I got "Pro Tools Application has stopped working".

I have:

1) Turned the Firewire drive back on.

2) Uninstalled and re-installed Pro tools

I continue to get that message.

Pro Tools itself is on drive C.

I have read other posts about this message, but given how my problem originated, and the fact that Pro Tools previously loaded okay, I doubt the solutions there address my problem.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

HP Z600 workstation
Dual 2.93GHz Xeon
12GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card
ASIO
Pro Tools 9.0

[albee1952]

How is the audio interface connected(and what is it)? Are you using the Soundblaster is the interface? I'm not sure that's a good idea(not exactly a "pro" device there). With a desktop system, adding internal SATA drives is easy, cheap, and yields the best performance. Windows 7/PT9 users should not be recording to firewire drives. You should go either USB2(because of Win7 drivers) or internal(again, the best performance....and cheapest route). I run 4 internal drives and only use externals for backups and transfers. My 2 cents, but I would start by adding an internal drive and see if that helps(disconnect the firewire drive after copying session folders). Don't forget, no "green" drives and 7200 rpm or better(WD Caviar Black are a good choice for recording).

[mikeh001]

I agree with what you are saying about the Sound Blaster and the Firewire.

In fact, I turned off the external Firewire to experiment with recording to an internal SCSI drive. That's when the "Pro Tools Application has stopped working" error showed up.

However, I am interested in trying to make the Sound Blaster setup work. Do you think the Sound Blaster could be the cause of the current error, since I used Pro Tools with the Sound Blaster successfully for a couple of days before the current problem started?

I copied files to the internal SCSI, turned off the Firewire drive, and got the same error when trying to open the PTF file.

Any other suggestions will be much appreciated! Thank you.

[albee1952]

Sorry I can't answer as the system has several things that I would not be using. The Soundblaster and SCSI are 2 things that I would not be running on a PT system. Try posting a Sandra report so the helpers here can dig into the details. Help us Help You - READ THIS Before Posting!

[MikeLip]

I believe there was/is a bug with Win7x64 that Pro Tools would 'stop responding' sometimes upon start up, but if left alone would start up fine.

I have seen this a couple of times on my rig when starting Pro Tools where windows would say Pro Tools has 'stopped working'. I did not click on 'close', I waited, and after a while Pro Tools would open.

Lastly, I seem to think this bug was fixed in 9.0.3 (or maybe 9.0.2).

Mike.

[mikeh001]

Thanks for the suggestions, Albee and Mike!

Originally Posted by MikeLip

I believe there was/is a bug with Win7x64 that Pro Tools would 'stop responding' sometimes upon start up, but if left alone would start up fine. I have seen this a couple of times on my rig when starting Pro Tools where windows would say Pro Tools has 'stopped working'. I did not click on 'close', I waited, and after a while Pro Tools would open.

I tried letting it alone. The error message just sits there.

Originally Posted by MikeLip

Lastly, I seem to think this bug was fixed in 9.0.3 (or maybe 9.0.2).

I updated to 9.0.3. Doesn't seem to have helped.

I'll try the Sandra report.