PT CRASHES & GOES INTO LOOP WHILE USING SONY PLUGS

[Qwent1]

Hello all,

Thank you for reading this thread, I hope you can answer my problem.
While using a Sony Oxford plugin (either SONY EQ or SONY DYN) my protools freezes, the audio is still playing but in an irregular short loop, the mouse freezes, I can't force quit. The only solution I found is to turn the computer off.
I am using PT6.4cs9 on Panther10.3.4 (10.3.5 hasn't been approved by Digidesign). I have reinstalled everything from scratch so I have a fresh system. PT is running on a G4DP 1,25GHz. I am running audio on LaCie Firewire 800 drives. I have a 13-slot expansion chassis. I have turned "autosave" on & off to see if it was the problem, it didn't change anything.
Whatelse could I add.. I think that's it. Actually I read thread about PT going into a loop, the users were talking about disableing QuartzExtreme but apparently they were not having this problem while using a plugin.

What do you think about this ? Any idea ?

Thank you for your help


Qwent1

[Glenn75]

I've had this same thing happen to me twice in the last two days, although I was not using the Sony Plugin. I have no idea what caused it. One thing though, a part of my session would start looping in slow motion. I suspect that somehow the sample rate was lowered causing all audio to play at half speed.

[anodecathode]

You guys should do a search for the "Quartz Extreme" thread You have the symptoms.

I went through this h*ll for about 5 months.. and several digi reps, before finding out that Quartz Extreme was freezing my box. (In the exact manner that you describe.) There is a command that you must enter into terminal which will disable Quartz Extreme. Once you do that... no more funky wacked out loops and no more crashes that require pulling the power cable out of the back of your G5. It would have been nice of Apple or Digidesign to make everyone more aware of this problem, saving me and my clients months of grief

scott

[ashdot]

I was bouncing a mix this morning when just at the middle of the fade-out PT crashed and went into a fantastic loop that slowly faded in and out! It was a hypnotic loop, with some of the tracks losing sync and other tracks playing backwards (!)

I connected the tielines to our second PT room and recorded the output on the other PT system. I'm sure I'm gonna use these amazing sounds.

After 10 minutes I truned off the crashed G5 when I heard the fan working overtime, fearing hardware damage...

Izhar

[danickstr]

i love this guy who makes lemonade from his crash lemons

[command_shift]

I'm having the same problem on my 2GHz G5 - random audio looping which freezes the machine. I've just added a new Exp Chassis (Digi 7-slot 64bit) and it is probably taxing the computer more than when I had the cards in the G5. Mind you I didn't really do large audio sessions until getting the chassis. Last few days since I put in the chassis I've had the looping audio thing and kernel panics. Running DigiTest and Apple Hardware Test reveals nothing. I've checked and swapped RAM too. Done usual stuff like reinstalling PT6.4, updating to cs9/cs6, trashing prefs...

I am using 10.3.5 which is not yet supported by Digi on my 2003 G5 (6.7's just round corner which will) but judging by other people's problems that looks like a red herring. Maybe I'll try the Quartz Extreme thing as well.

[Qwent1]

Hi,

I have done a search on the DCU about Quartz Extreme and how to deactivate it. The thread is "Total System Freeze ... G5".

The procedure is :

----------------------------------------
To disable Quartz Extreme, enter the following command in Terminal on one
line:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver GLCompositor
-dict tileHeight -int 0 tileWidth -int 0

To enable Quartz Extreme after troubleshooting, enter the following command
in Terminal on one line:
defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver GLCompositor
------------------------------------------------

I have tried it but I get this message from the terminal :

" Last login: Fri Oct 29 11:09:20 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
Mycomputer:~ Mycomputer$ defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver GLCompositor
2004-10-29 11:09:53.448 defaults[533]
Rep argument is not a dictionary
Defaults have not been changed.
Mycomputer:~ Mycomputer$ -dict tileHeight -int 0 tileWidth -int 0"


I don't understand what it means and I don't know if Quartz Extreme as been disabled.
I have used a small app called "Quartz Extreme Check" to see what was the state of Quartz Extreme and it tells me "Display 1 accelerated" so I guess Quartz Extreme hasn't been disabled.
Would anyone understand anything about that ?

Thank you

Qwent1

[command_shift]

Qwent1

I don't think that text has formatted correctly on this forum - the exact command line is different. I just checked this myself. Try looking at this thread http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]/12, scroll down to the post (near the end) which details the exact command line. Maybe that will do the trick. Good luck, please post how you get on with Quartz Extrm disabled if you succeed with the command.

Thanks.

[Qwent1]

Hello,

I tried the new command line :

•To disable Quartz Extreme, enter the following command in Terminal:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver GLCompositor '{tileHeight = 0; tileWidth = 0; }'

•To re-enable Quartz Extreme, enter the following command in Terminal:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver GLCompositor '{tileHeight = 256; tileWidth = 256; }'


I don't get any weird message this time, but nothing shows me that Q.E. is disabled. I used the app Quartz Extreme Check but it says that my display is still accelerated.
How can I be sure that QE is disabled ?
Command_shift, I'll have a look at the whole thread you sent me to see if there are any other information about that.

Thanks

Qwent1

[anodecathode]

Unfortunately Terminal doesn't give you feedback as to whether the Quartz Extreme command went through or not.

The way to tell if QE has been disabled is to:

1. Set up a new user profile. (This will create a drop down window on the top right that will show both your current profile and the new one that you created.)

2. Switch to the new profile using the dropdown menu.

If your screen switches profiles using a fancy 3d box (as if the screen is flipping around horizontally in z space) then QE is still enabled.

If it just switches to the new profile without any fancy graphics (the old fashioned way) then you know that QE is disabled. (Also your finder graphics will have a nice sluggishness that you will come to hate.)

I have heard that another way to tell is to switch your desktop to fade between desktops. If your desktop then fades between the various desktop pics then QE is still enabled.

The Apple product specialist that I talked with stated that if your machine is freezing so as not to allow you to force quit.. it probably has the QE bug.

scott