Yellow mic icon stuttering / app freezes on pause

[gills]

On 2024.6.0, in some sessions with a fair number of plugins active, whenever I press pause from playback, this happens:



Pro Tools freezes up, the yellow macOS mic indicator in the menu bar starts stuttering, and the smaller yellow dot to the right disappears and reappears.

I've tried changing the buffer size, turning off the video engine, and disabling plugins. I tried re-enabling plugins one at a time and got super inconsistent results between which plugins were active, when the icon would start blinking, and how long it would go on for before Pro Tools would un-hang itself.

Is this a known bug, and does anyone know of any fixes?

Edit: I'm running macOS Sonoma 14.6.1. (Had this issue on 14.6.0 as well).

[Darryl Ramm]

And macOS version? Since you are talking about a macOS feature, which is very poorly implemented by Apple. There has been past discussions on DUC about how generally bad and confusing this can be. And it has been widely hated by folks posting on the Interwebs... Apple seemingly does not listen to feedback.

If you are on a recent version of macOS make sure with Pro Tools in focus/the app showing in the menu bar mic pulldown menu that "Standard" not voice isolation is selected there. I'd also close any other audio apps.

Make sure there is no iPhone paired to the Mac audio (i.e. no iPhone shows up as an audio device in Audio MIDI setup).

[DetroitT]

I’ve seen this.
Clock not locked, click icon, select device.

Try full uninstall device- driver, clean install reboot fresh driver.

OS 14.6 and 15

[gills]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

And macOS version? Since you are talking about a macOS feature, which is very poorly implemented by Apple. There has been past discussions on DUC about how generally bad and confusing this can be. And it has been widely hated by folks posting on the Interwebs... Apple seemingly does not listen to feedback.

If you are on a recent version of macOS make sure with Pro Tools in focus/the app showing in the menu bar mic pulldown menu that "Standard" not voice isolation is selected there. I'd also close any other audio apps.

Make sure there is no iPhone paired to the Mac audio (i.e. no iPhone shows up as an audio device in Audio MIDI setup).

I'm on macOS Sonoma 14.6.

Even so, I never had this problem on the previous version of Pro Tools running the same version of macOS with the same sessions. Pro Tools introduced this bug in 2024.6.0.

And unfortunately, I'm not in a position to downgrade to 2024.3.1 as I've done tons of work using ARA Melodyne, which I understand will be lost if I downgrade.

"Standard" is the selection in that dropdown menu. All other audio apps are closed. After some searching, I don't see any way to remove my iPhone from the devices in Audio MIDI Setup. I don't see why having a device in that list that is not being used would have any effect, but perhaps you can advise on how to remove it?

Originally Posted by DetroitT

I’ve seen this.
Clock not locked, click icon, select device.

Try full uninstall device- driver, clean install reboot fresh driver.

OS 14.6 and 15

I'm not sure I'm following you, sorry. Clock not locked? It's set to 48kHz in my UAD Console app and doesn't seem to be changing. My UAD Apollo is already the selected, active audio device. I guess I will try to uninstall and reinstall all my UAD software and drivers...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by gills

I'm on macOS Sonoma 14.6.

Even so, I never had this problem on the previous version of Pro Tools running the same version of macOS with the same sessions. Pro Tools introduced this bug in 2024.6.0.

And unfortunately, I'm not in a position to downgrade to 2024.3.1 as I've done tons of work using ARA Melodyne, which I understand will be lost if I downgrade.

"Standard" is the selection in that dropdown menu. All other audio apps are closed. After some searching, I don't see any way to remove my iPhone from the devices in Audio MIDI Setup. I don't see why having a device in that list that is not being used would have any effect, but perhaps you can advise on how to remove it?

You might have multiple things going on. The iPhone Audio is a part of Continuity Camera system. I have certainly seen it trigger behaviors where the mic icon is flickering and more. Maybe that then causes some other problem for Pro Tools. If Pro Tools is running and has mic privileges and is the app with focus this icon should never flicker and given how messed up this whole continuity camera audio/mic icon behavior can be at times I would exclude all that first.

You can try lots of things. Turn your iPhone off. Turn off Bluetooth on the iPhone and/or Mac. Log out of the same Apple ID account (how the iPhone/Mac Continuity Camera pairing happens on the iPhone or Mac or both. Turn off Continuity Camera in the iPhone settings. If the Mac shows a popup/disconnect option choose disconnect. If an iPhone is still showing up in Audio Devices check it's name/you are dealing with the correct phone.

[gills]

I tried most of those suggestions. I turned off Continuity Camera, was able to get the iPhone out of Audio MIDI setup, I turned off Bluetooth, and I turned off the phone.

I'm sad to say the issue still persists. So it looks like it's not caused by the iPhone.

I wonder if anyone on the Avid team can chime in on whether this issue is being worked on for the next update?

[Eric Lambert]

I see this every time I try opening Pianoverse from that dastardly company IK. And I saw it one other time with another plugin which also was buggy. So... a buggy plugin?

[vicshere]

Originally Posted by gills

On 2024.6.0, in some sessions with a fair number of plugins active, whenever I press pause from playback, this happens:



Pro Tools freezes up, the yellow macOS mic indicator in the menu bar starts stuttering, and the smaller yellow dot to the right disappears and reappears.

I've tried changing the buffer size, turning off the video engine, and disabling plugins. I tried re-enabling plugins one at a time and got super inconsistent results between which plugins were active, when the icon would start blinking, and how long it would go on for before Pro Tools would un-hang itself.

Is this a known bug, and does anyone know of any fixes?

Edit: I'm running macOS Sonoma 14.6.1. (Had this issue on 14.6.0 as well).

Did you ever get this fixed? I’m having the same issue.

[vicshere]

Originally Posted by DetroitT

I’ve seen this.
Clock not locked, click icon, select device.

Try full uninstall device- driver, clean install reboot fresh driver.

OS 14.6 and 15

I’m having this issue, too, with a Neve 88M connected via ADAT to a Ferrofish Pulse 16. Which device should I select and uninstall? Thanks!

[vicshere]

All fixed. Deleted and reinstalled all Ferrofish drivers, update, etc, now working splendidly.