Constant H/W Buffer Crashes

[TheDavidLim]

Hi, I'm running 2020.12 on a 2018 MBP (OS 10.14.6, 2.2ghz i7, 16gb RAM, Radeon Pro 555x 4gb GPU) and I continually get crashes associated with the h/w buffer. PT stops, throws an error, and on playback is distorted. I change the buffer, switching between 512 and 1024, and it starts working again like nothing happened. No crazy plugins or known conflicts, system usage is around 50-60% on PT system usage meter sometimes, but monitoring in activity monitor shows no strain.

Any ideas?

[Ben Jenssen]

Have you done the recommended optimizations?
You can find them here:
Help Us Help You
Along with troubleshooting tips.

Always suspect plugins first when you get errors, IMO.
Are you using much VIs?

[TheDavidLim]

No VIs. The biggest offenders are a couple Acustica plugs, which are known to take CPU. I have a couple on the session. Not sure why changing buffer sizes would reset and make it happy though, and that’s the fix.

[TheDavidLim]

Got it, that's crazy. I guess I'll just keep dealing with it until I can upgrade my computer.

[s.d. finley]

Originally Posted by TheDavidLim

Hi, I'm running 2020.12 on a 2018 MBP (OS 10.14.6, 2.2ghz i7, 16gb RAM, Radeon Pro 555x 4gb GPU) and I continually get crashes associated with the h/w buffer. PT stops, throws an error, and on playback is distorted. I change the buffer, switching between 512 and 1024, and it starts working again like nothing happened. No crazy plugins or known conflicts, system usage is around 50-60% on PT system usage meter sometimes, but monitoring in activity monitor shows no strain.

Any ideas?

I have a MBP 2020 running Catalina 16GB RAM PT 2020.12 and it's running very smooth. Medium sized 96khz session with maybe 25 or so plug ins 20 or so tracks using the MacBooks speakers outs. No errors, which is what I would call your issues, buffer errors rather than a crash as a crash implies, at least to me, that the application crashed/quit. I got buffer errors on that session when I had buffer at 128. You don't mention your audio interface. I also have no issues with my Apogee ONE.

[TheDavidLim]

Yeah, errors is the more accurate term, true. I'm using and Apollo 8 as my interface.

[Emi]

Originally Posted by TheDavidLim

No VIs. The biggest offenders are a couple Acustica plugs, which are known to take CPU. I have a couple on the session. Not sure why changing buffer sizes would reset and make it happy though, and that’s the fix.

I had stability issues with acustica plugins. Disable them and see if the crashes persists.

[s.d. finley]

I just had some weirdness last night after stating everything's running fine. It appears the Apogee ONE throws out an error saying something is missing, I will have to screen capture if it happens again. I kept getting the buffer error only with the Apogee as the interface. Built in audio was fine. No matter how many tracks, or track and with zero plug ins. Moving the ONE to a different USB C port on the MBP and restarting solved the issue. Very odd. Restarting alone did not help.