maximum number of files in one session?

[Pietari Koskinen]

Is there some maximum number of files (incl. fade files) in one session? I have about 17500 audio files and the same amount of fade files in my session folders. At certain point, I just can't do more fades. Or import any new audio file. Or consolidate etc. If I try, I get DAE error -9022. This is repeatable, and otherwise session works fine.

I deleted all the fades and rebuild them. There were now about 700 fades less, isn't that strange? But that actually didn't help. After creating a new blank session, with not all the tracks imported into it (tried with all tracks first, didn't help), I'm back in business. But how long, I wonder...

[subwoof]

Holy cow!!! 17500 files and fades in ONE session!! That's amazing. What kind of a project are you doing?

Mike

[Rail Jon Rogut]

There are OS limits - I looked up OS X and found a document for 10.3 -- the max open files is listed as 12288.

Your session is probably crawling with this many regions... I suggest using Consolidate and Save As.. as you work.

Rail

[Pietari Koskinen]

Hi Mike. It's a feature film, all five reels in one session. Close to 192 tracks. Lots of dialogue and all is ADR, so lots of edits, fades and vocaligned lines.

Rail's comment makes sense, I may be hitting that OS X limit. Time to do some consolidating. Thanks! I wonder if regions in inactive tracks also count?

[lizard55]

yeah had the same thing a while ago had to split up the session per reel and remove unused audio, mine was even more complicated because files where recorded over the 24 hr limit,
splitting up reels is the way to go anywayz, sessions become un-maginable otherwise,
just make sure you keep the track names the same so you can do a 'match tracks' in 'session data import' ......

[p4tw]

I'd be very interested, too. Any information from digidesign? I couldn't record more than one file at time when I made score recording an had more than 32000 files in the session. "Couldn't allocate space for recording" (>250GB free space) New empty session could record on the drive.

10.4.9, 7.4cs3, MacPro, 8 GB RAM, HD2 Accel

[subwoof]

Hi Mike. It's a feature film, all five reels in one session. Close to 192 tracks. Lots of dialogue and all is ADR, so lots of edits, fades and vocaligned lines.

I get it. I do much the same on feature films, that is, put all reels in one big session. It makes it a no-brainer for copy and pasting sounds between reels. But in my case I split the show into Dialog and Music in one session on the Pro Tools A rig, and Sound FX and Foley on the Pro Tools B rig. The last show I did had 280 tracks running, but it was split out over the two Pro Tools. I have 2 D-Commands for final mixing, with 2 mixers.

I also use internal 10,000 rpm sata drives for my audio playback and recording, not firewire. Never hit a track limit (knock-on-wood!)

Good advice to split up the reels and consolidate at this point.

Good luck

Mike

[priorytools]

Hi Rail. .

May I ask which is the best method for reducing the number of files in a session ;

1-Does PT look at the total number of files in the fades & audio files folders?
2-If I delete unused playlists & then select unused & remove does that help ?
3-If I dupe my comp'd & corrected drums playlist, then consolidate. Is PT still counting the x fades etc on the drum correction playlist? My guess is yes, then do I have to perform my question#2 ?

A thought I had is to try deleting all the fades in the fades folder, opening the session with regenerate missing fades. . I think this will just give me the fades that are actually being referenced . . ?

Best regards , ,

Josh

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Hi Rail. .

May I ask which is the best method for reducing the number of files in a session ;

1-Does PT look at the total number of files in the fades & audio files folders?
2-If I delete unused playlists & then select unused & remove does that help ?
3-If I dupe my comp'd & corrected drums playlist, then consolidate. Is PT still counting the x fades etc on the drum correction playlist? My guess is yes, then do I have to perform my question#2 ?

A thought I had is to try deleting all the fades in the fades folder, opening the session with regenerate missing fades. . I think this will just give me the fades that are actually being referenced . . ?

Best regards , ,

Josh

I take it you're using Beat Detective... that's when I ran into this...

Save the session.

Save As.. and append .1 to the session name

Remove unused playlists

Consolidate everything up to about 16 bars before the point you've reached in the song...

Select all unused

REMOVE (not delete) regions

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To go through your list:

1-Does PT look at the total number of files in the fades & audio files folders?

No it looks ate the total number of regions, files and fades used in the session (including the undo buffer.. which you can clear by Command+Shift+U)

2-If I delete unused playlists & then select unused & remove does that help ?

It depends - are those being used on the current playlist?

3-If I dupe my comp'd & corrected drums playlist, then consolidate. Is PT still counting the x fades etc on the drum correction playlist?

Yes

My guess is yes, then do I have to perform my question#2 ?

Yes

Rail

[JFreak]

There are OS limits -- the max open files is listed as 12288.

Yep, and that's controlled by a parameter called "kern.maxfiles". If you really need to, you can set that parameter (as root) like this, for example:

sysctl -w kern.maxfiles=32000

IF you choose to modify that parameter, BE SURE to *not* set it too close to zero (unless you want to get a totally unusable system). There's no harm in raising the number somewhat; for example, Oracle database servers like to have 32000 to 64000 open file limits and they run perfectly on OSX. I cannot think of a single reason why Protools couldn't perform well with a higher open file limit...