PT 2020.12.0 Constantly crashing

[Nilreb]

Howdy-

I'm running 2020.12.0 on a 2013 MacBook Pro 15" at OS 10.14.6 and for the last month I cannot keep a session from crashing no matter what I do. PT is the sole app running yet I crash at least once a day and often 3x or more. I am not running very complex sessions and I have relatively few plugins running. Are there prefs to trash or some way to refresh the app like the older versions?

[Darryl Ramm]

Well Howdy.

What do you mean by crash? What happens exactly what exact errors do you see if any?

Are you doing anything when this crashes? Like saving a session or bouncing a mix?

What is in the Pro Tools log when it crashes? ~/Library/Logs/Avid/Pro<blah>

Start at "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page, and follow the standard troubleshooting steps there.

basic tips:

Always start by trashing prefs, use Pete Gates PT Prefs utility (you can Google search for that).

Test using Built in Output (or whatever it's called on your Mac) as the playback engine. That checks for interface/driver bugs... which yes can crash Pro Tools.

Plugins even if not being used can cause all sorts of problems, including easily crashing Pro TOOLS. Pay special attention to moving all .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder and trashing prefs. Restarting Pro Tools will automagically put back the default plugins.

Is this happening with one session or all sessions from a common parent? A corrupt session can easily crash Pro Tools.

Test starting with a new empty session (not from a template).

Create a new admin user in MacOS and test from there starting with a new empty session in that users Documents folder.

Is you system fully optimized?

What file systems type is the session (and all of it's content) stored on? What make/model/spec drive is the session and content on... I'm looking for things like you don't accidentally say have the session or content on a Ex-FAT formatted thumb drive.