Why do we need to trash prefs?

[Audioartist]

Why is it that a system can work perfectly one day and the next day you need to trash preferences to get it to work without crashes?
Where does the need to trash preferences come from?
Should I need to trash prefs prior to every important gig I do to be safe.
It would be nice to have some indication beside having a crash when its time to do the trashing.

[Rocker4301]

I have no idea, I am week 2 on my new HDX 10 rig and all I can say is wow. I have been on pt for 10 years, everyday as a career. Mostly 7 but I've had 8 in Studio B for a few years, so I consider myself pretty skilled but man this 10 rig is a pain in the ass. I lose my i|o every few days and have to trash prefs and revamp everything. Thank God this isn't a commercial studio, it's my private studio for me, my assistant and my clients. There are also a few other funky things going on.

[Craig F]

I run over 100 rigs and am not having these problems
occasionally yes but not at the frequency you say you are having

[Audioartist]

It doesnt happen to me often at all, but I would like to know more about why we need to trash preference at all. How do I know when its time to trash prefs. Should I do that for example after every unexpected quit (that happens very seldom nowadays). I want to do all I can to prevent crashes.

[Audioartist]

Reason I am asking also is, I installed eucon 2.7 last week, its been working great for four days but today I had to trash prefs and repair permissions after 3 eucon crashes, now it works like a charm again. But why the sudden need to do the trashing? Was it the freeze I had yesterday when quitting PT?

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Audioartist

Was it the freeze I had yesterday when quitting PT?

How did you resolve that freeze?

Preference files are more likely to become corrupted than any other type of file. Preference files are always being read and written. This happens more frequently than when you launch Pro Tools. This is true of any application. An application doesn't just load the preferences and then write the file back when you make a change to your preferences. The file is being accessed more often than you would think.

Most applications are not smart enough to realize that a preference file is corrupted. The DigiSetup.OSX file is the exception to this rule. Otherwise, the user has to decide when trashing preferences is worth trying. I do this when I have more than one crash that I cannot explain. One crash might be a fluke. Two crashes mean there is a reason.

[Audioartist]

Originally Posted by Chief Technician

How did you resolve that freeze?

I did a force quit of protools yesterday when I got the freeze at quitting PT.

And today (as a result of force quit???) my artist mix didn´t show aux names when selecting a track.
I know that when there is no aux name showing, very often within seconds I will get some looping playback and then crash.

Trashing eucon and PT preferences and everything works perfectly again.

[dford]

Originally Posted by Audioartist

It doesnt happen to me often at all, but I would like to know more about why we need to trash preference at all. How do I know when its time to trash prefs. Should I do that for example after every unexpected quit (that happens very seldom nowadays). I want to do all I can to prevent crashes.

I support 35+ PT rigs and we will on occasion have issues that require full system cleanups. Myself and a co-worker have developed a Mac OSX application which offers a simple GUI and allows for granular control of these system cleanups and the ultimate goal is to run this application daily. This will be coupled with another application which we've designed to manager each users Pro Tools preferences. Every morning the systems will run this cleanup prior to a session (preference trash, plist validation, permission repair, disc repair). Then each user will restore their personal prefs from our servers and be on their way. The plan is to prevent issues rather than reacting to them.

We are currently in beta testing, but it's going we'll and has significantly improved the reliability of the systems it's being tests on.

As mentioned by someone else, preference trashing isn't a Pro Tools issue, it's a Mac OSX issue. All programs can benefit from a preference purge now and then.


Dev

[BobbyDazzler]

Originally Posted by Rocker4301

I have no idea, I am week 2 on my new HDX 10 rig and all I can say is wow. I have been on pt for 10 years, everyday as a career. Mostly 7 but I've had 8 in Studio B for a few years, so I consider myself pretty skilled but man this 10 rig is a pain in the ass. I lose my i|o every few days and have to trash prefs and revamp everything. Thank God this isn't a commercial studio, it's my private studio for me, my assistant and my clients. There are also a few other funky things going on.

I experience most of my crashes when accessing sessions that were created on older versions. Opened a PT 9 sessions the other day, and I think I had at least 5 crashes that day. Otherwise, everything has been faily stable.
My system has slowly become better now that most of my projects have started as PT10 sessions.

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Audioartist

today (as a result of force quit???) my artist mix didn´t show aux names when selecting a track.
I know that when there is no aux name showing, very often within seconds I will get some looping playback and then crash.

Trashing eucon and PT preferences and everything works perfectly again.

Those preference files were probably open and being accessed when the freeze and subsequent force quit occurred. A file that is open when a force quit occurs is a prime target for corruption.