Install Sonoma > Beach-Ball! Beach-Ball! Beach-Ball!

[Cayce]

After installing 6k worth of Mac Studio back in July I've been putting up with some of the slowest, broken performance I've experienced in my 35 years of being a Mac user. More than a dozen times a day I was getting the "beach-ball" freeze for a full minute on average when performing such complex tasks as selecting a folder on my desktop to open, creating a new text file in TextEdit, etc... heavy stuff. I finally called Apple support yesterday and they told me I needed to upgrade my OS to Sonoma before they could help, which I reluctantly did, knowing it could make matters worse. It did. Now I can't make a move in Pro Tools that I don't get the beach-ball for about a second before it does what I need. Seriously, almost every move, every click I make. It was fine before Sonoma. I've restarted, nothing is open other than PT, and this nonsense is costing me a deadline if I don't solve it quick.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[MDGenerato]

Originally Posted by Cayce

After installing 6k worth of Mac Studio back in July I've been putting up with some of the slowest, broken performance I've experienced in my 35 years of being a Mac user. More than a dozen times a day I was getting the "beach-ball" freeze for a full minute on average when performing such complex tasks as selecting a folder on my desktop to open, creating a new text file in TextEdit, etc... heavy stuff. I finally called Apple support yesterday and they told me I needed to upgrade my OS to Sonoma before they could help, which I reluctantly did, knowing it could make matters worse. It did. Now I can't make a move in Pro Tools that I don't get the beach-ball for about a second before it does what I need. Seriously, almost every move, every click I make. It was fine before Sonoma. I've restarted, nothing is open other than PT, and this nonsense is costing me a deadline if I don't solve it quick.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi Cayce! David here from the Avid Community. MacOS Sonoma is still not supported by Pro Tools. We are still working and ironing out some issues before we fully release the compatible version. Thanks!

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by Cayce

After installing 6k worth of Mac Studio back in July I've been putting up with some of the slowest, broken performance I've experienced in my 35 years of being a Mac user. More than a dozen times a day I was getting the "beach-ball" freeze for a full minute on average when performing such complex tasks as selecting a folder on my desktop to open, creating a new text file in TextEdit, etc...

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

If something was brokien before the Sonoma upgrade, it's clearly still broken, and moving to an unsupported OS when trying to troubleshoot isn't a good idea. Probably a complete wipe and clean re-install of Ventura is in order, then make sure the system is running smoothly at the basic level, then install PT.

But one other thought - these kinds of stalls bring to mind a system with some kind of automatic cloud storage enabled. Is "Desktop and Documents" turned on in iCloud prefs? If so, disable. Any other cloud storage stuff going on behind the scenes (dropbox, g-drive, etc)? Are sessions on the system drive or on a known-good external? How connected? etc etc etc

Also, running with mixed interfaces (Apollo and Presonus) adds another level of potential problems to troubleshoot. A lot to do to get to the bottom of it, but given the system had problems to start with, the Apple tech should *never* have suggested an OS upgrade as the fix - Ventura is stable and works well with ProTools on a MacStudio.

If it were me, after checking the obvious, I'd wipe and reinstall Ventura, make sure the system is running well - if it's not then you may have a hardware problem - then install PT and run it with maybe just the system audio to start, then add one interface and make sure that's good, then the second.

[gives]

Originally Posted by Rich Breen

If something was brokien before the Sonoma upgrade, it's clearly still broken, and moving to an unsupported OS when trying to troubleshoot isn't a good idea. Probably a complete wipe and clean re-install of Ventura is in order, then make sure the system is running smoothly at the basic level, then install PT.

But one other thought - these kinds of stalls bring to mind a system with some kind of automatic cloud storage enabled. Is "Desktop and Documents" turned on in iCloud prefs? If so, disable. Any other cloud storage stuff going on behind the scenes (dropbox, g-drive, etc)? Are sessions on the system drive or on a known-good external? How connected? etc etc etc

Also, running with mixed interfaces (Apollo and Presonus) adds another level of potential problems to troubleshoot. A lot to do to get to the bottom of it, but given the system had problems to start with, the Apple tech should *never* have suggested an OS upgrade as the fix - Ventura is stable and works well with ProTools on a MacStudio.

Correct and I was told not to update until Sonoma is approved and no reason to do so unless you have no choice.

G

[Cayce]

Originally Posted by MDGenerato

MacOS Sonoma is still not supported by Pro Tools. We are still working and ironing out some issues before we fully release the compatible version.

Given Avid's track record, how many years is this expected to take?

[sw rec]

Originally Posted by Cayce

Given Avid's track record, how many years is this expected to take?

Impossible to say. Could happen in the next update, but nobody can predict that.
I’m curious….you’d mention constant beach balls doing menial tasks, but later said everything was working fine. Was Pro Tools working fine, but nothing else was?
A second vote for fresh Ventura install, make sure all the basics are working, then install Pro Tools. Interested to see how this plays out.

[gives]

It's an Apple problem not an Avid problem from what I'm hearing. I think it's going to be the next update that we see it and I would think pretty soon.
Avid is fixing a lot of things right now.

G

[Cayce]

Turns out this was all largely my fault. I had partitioned my 2TB internal drive and the part designated for the OS only had 26GB of wiggle room left in it, not enough scratch for PT to work, resulting in misbehaviors, freezes before, and PT crashes after installing Sonoma. I was about to go through a hair-pulling downgrade back to Ventura when I saw that, made more room for the OS to play, and am finding PT is actually doing quite well in Sonoma. Had to fiddle with a few plugins—Izotope Product Portal got particularly cranky, and I updated my PT subscription—but, all in all, everything seems to be working fine. I'm pleased... and just a bit embarrassed.

Sorry for the disturbance, but appreciate the feedback.

Onward!

[gives]

Originally Posted by Cayce

Turns out this was all largely my fault. I had partitioned my 2TB internal drive and the part designated for the OS only had 26GB of wiggle room left in it, not enough scratch for PT to work, resulting in misbehaviors, freezes before, and PT crashes after installing Sonoma. I was about to go through a hair-pulling downgrade back to Ventura when I saw that, made more room for the OS to play, and am finding PT is actually doing quite well in Sonoma. Had to fiddle with a few plugins—Izotope Product Portal got particularly cranky, and I updated my PT subscription—but, all in all, everything seems to be working fine. I'm pleased... and just a bit embarrassed.

Sorry for the disturbance, but appreciate the feedback.

Onward!

Hah! Those things happen-:). Glad you figured it out!

G

[sw rec]

Opinions vary wildly on this, but even with the speed of a good m.2 drive, I still NEVER use the system drive for my sessions. Using a MAC Studio M1 Max, with a pair of m.2 “drives” in a Sonnet Thunderbolt chassis, and it’ll handle anything I throw at it. I know, not as “fast” as recording to the system drive, but it’s never caused a problem.

My stand on it is, if there’s going to be a drive problem, it’s typically on the system drive, so my sessions feel safer to me on a dedicated drive. Case in point was when a lightning strike took out 3 computers…I had to start over from scratch, rebuild all of them from square one, but all my secondary drives with all my sessions were still intact.