Pro Tools is Critically Low on Memory

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by MJarzabek

The previous OS was 10.6.6, after the clean install it was upgraded from 10.6.3 disk to 10.6.7 with the download.

The Activity Monitor starts at 1.23 - 1.33 Gb of RAM. Then it slowly increases. It sometimes appears when it reaches the 1.7 area. If it passes 1.7, then it will run out of memory at 2.7 - 2.15. 2.15 is the crash.

The only other program open is Eucontrol. After a restart things vary. They are usually better or cause DAE Playback errors 9091. There is another error, It's 9031 or 2, I can check next time it happens.

I have not done any ram tests. How do I run a ram test?

Thanks!

Mike

Just to be clear here - is it Euphonix related items in Activity Monitor that are climbing in memory usage?

I want to be sure we're all on the same page. 'Critically Low on Memory' errors can have several causes - in your case, if it's Euphonix related items where RAM usage is increasing faster than what would be considered typical, then this is likely an issue we found recently (and have a fix in progress) that seemed to be only occurring on Windows, but we found a few situations where it would occur on Mac as well.

As for other memory errors - this is usually the result of 'normal' operation, with a few caveats.

The bigger the session, the more levels of undo, the more automation, the more VI's with RAM loaded samples, etc. that's in the session, the more RAM that will be used. Eventually you will hit the max (typically between 2 and 2.7GB, depending on your system.). This is 'normal' in that it's simply the result of using RAM - not because of memory leaks or anything like that.

One caveat is that some VI's do not 'unload' memory when they're deinstanciated - so switching sounds, loading samples, etc. will use up RAM and, again, you may hit the limit. Some VI's use a 'memory server' (Kontakt, for instance) to get around this limitation. For others that do not have that option, when you hit maximum RAM usage, the only way to free up the RAM is to restart Pro Tools. Until Pro Tools goes 64 bit, this will be a limitation.

Again, my mission here is to clarify what's happening, what's a bug and what's 'normal' within the context of Pro Tools being 32 bit and typical RAM usage situations. I see a lot of posts about memory usage and 'critically low' errors and hope I can post enough info on this so that we can reduce the number of posts with misleading info and keep everyone on the same page.

All I ask is that we keep things specific, rather than lumping all 'critically low on memory' issues in the same basket - because they don't all have the same cause and lumping them all together causes confusion and can mislead users into thinking their problem doesn't have a workaround or solution.

[emreramazanoglu]

Thanks for the feedback! 2.7gb is where my system craps out! I am generally working on LARGE productions with active VIs so this makes a lot of sense - lots of active drum replacements and synths etc...

Back to printing I go..

just an aside - I was under the impression that 4gb was the maximum memory addressable by a 32bit app - could you please explain why PT (or others apps quite possibly) only address 2.7gb!!!

[fman]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

Just to be clear here - is it Euphonix related items in Activity Monitor that are climbing in memory usage?

I want to be sure we're all on the same page. 'Critically Low on Memory' errors can have several causes - in your case, if it's Euphonix related items where RAM usage is increasing faster than what would be considered typical, then this is likely an issue we found recently (and have a fix in progress) that seemed to be only occurring on Windows, but we found a few situations where it would occur on Mac as well.

All I ask is that we keep things specific, rather than lumping all 'critically low on memory' issues in the same basket - because they don't all have the same cause and lumping them all together causes confusion and can mislead users into thinking their problem doesn't have a workaround or solution.

DTS i have been getting (and complaining about!!!) this bug since version 9.01 when i purchased a new system (ie. PT9 & MacPro). If you check my other posts on the issue i've been getting it without any VI's, during large-ish mix sessions.

Relevant to your post above, i have recently added a Euphonix MC-Mix & Control to my system and its definitely not affected the issue, the memory isn't rising at a fast rate for the Eucon software.

I was made aware of the rising memory problem in Protools by a previous post and have been watching it steadily increase with Activity monitor on lots of different sessions. There's definitely a problem when sessions that are using 2.7Gb of memory and throwing up the "critically low on memory" error, drop to less than 1.5Gb once the computer has been restarted and the session reloaded. Surely when i'm just automating the final stages of a mix session, the Undo list isn't chewing up 1.2Gb of memory? Or is this what you'd call 'normal' operation?

Would be great to know if 64 bit Protools is a priority over there at Avid?

fman

[DigiTechSupt]

We've done some optimizations with memory usage in Pro Tools 9.0.5.

If you are experiencing out of memory errors, please download and install this update, then report if the frequency of errors abates in this thread.

Keep in mind this will not help situations where RAM usage is primarily with VI's or other 'hard' usage of RAM, such as audio files, undo levels, etc.

[CDac]

Any updates on this guys?

[djsin421]

32 bit ?

[Robert U]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

We've done some optimizations with memory usage in Pro Tools 9.0.5.

If you are experiencing out of memory errors, please download and install this update, then report if the frequency of errors abates in this thread.

Keep in mind this will not help situations where RAM usage is primarily with VI's or other 'hard' usage of RAM, such as audio files, undo levels, etc.

Still happens in 9.05. Autotune 7 seems to be a problem, each instantiation is eating around 100 megabytes. Have all plug's up to date and I don't think this will work properly until PT goes 64-bit...

[critza]

Hello, im still experiencing "Could not save session, while translating tracks"
Everything hangs and then i get "Pro Tools is critically low on memory"
Appcrash. Runtime requested the application to quit. C++ error C++ error C++ Error etc etc


Now im on Pro Tools 10
Had This on Pro Tools 9
And on Pro Tools 8

[se.audio]

Hahaha... and you thought PT10 would solve your problems...

[The golfer]

Has anybody seen improvement from PT9 to PT10 regarding this problem? I'm still using PT9 and only have this problem with big sessions. I 'm also using eucon.

Thank you.